He said it wanted three strokes of the bell, not two. “Maud” he also read with a most extraordinary warmth and charm, particularly the climax of “Come into the garden,” and still more the stanza about the shell (Part II.), which he gave in a peculiarly thin and ghostly tone of voice, a quality he also used with great mastery in the Choric Song of the “Lotus Eaters.” Nor was he less impressive when reciting Greek or German. Greek he vastly preferred as pronounced in the English fashion. He said it lost all its sonority and grandeur if modernized; and, indeed, to hear his illustration was in itself sufficient to convince. German he pronounced with a strong English accent, and yet I feel sure that Goethe himself would have acknowledged his reading of “Kennst du das Land” to be a masterpiece. He was a great admirer of Goethe, and especially of this poem. He only disliked one line—
O mein Beschützer, ziehn,
of which he said, “How could Goethe break one’s teeth with those z’s, while the rest is so musical?” Curiously enough, it is now known that Goethe erased “Beschützer” and substituted “Geliebter.” He once read to me from his works for nearly half an hour.
He was extremely particular about clear diction in singing, the lack of which in the majority of singers of his day was far more marked than it is nowadays. He intuitively grasped the true basis of that most difficult of tasks, the composing of a good song which is at once practical and grateful to sing. He knew that the poem should be the key to the work, and should be so clearly enunciated that every word can reach the listener; and that the composer must never over-balance the voice with the illustrative detail of the accompaniment. When I was setting “The Voyage of the Mældune” I happened to be at Freshwater; and after finishing the solo quartet, “The Under-sea Isle,” four amateurs sang it through for him. His only (and I fear very just) comment on the performance was, “I did not hear a word you said from beginning to end.” But he thought afterwards that we might feel somewhat crushed, and as I was going away some little time later, and was passing his door, he put his head out and said with a humorous smile, “I’m afraid I was rather rude just now, but I liked the way your music rippled away when they fall into the water.” This was a most curious instance of his faculty for recognizing a subtle piece of musical characterization as rapidly as, and often more rapidly than, a listener who was fully equipped with musical technique.
His ear was capable of such fine distinctions of vowel quality, that it has always been a mystery to me why this gift, so highly developed in him, did not bring a mastery of music in its train. By one of the odd dispensations of nature, Robert Browning, who had none of this fineness of ear, knew enough of music to be able even to read it from a score with his eyes. Such words as “true” and “too,” which in most people’s mouths have an identical vowel sound, were differentiated by him, the “oo” full and round, the “ue” inclining imperceptibly to “u.” His “a” also had far more varied colours than is usual even with singers. One modification in especial, the quality of which can best be described as approaching that of “Eh, mon,” in broad Scotch, gave a breadth and a dignity to such words as “Nation,” “Lamentation,” “Pāgeant” (he never used the horrible pronunciation “Padgent”), which added vastly to the musical values of his verse. It is this perfection of vowel balance which makes his poetry so difficult to set to music satisfactorily. So musical is it in itself that very little is left for actual music to supply. It is often the very incompleteness of some poetry which makes it suggestive to a composer, the qualities lacking in the one calling out for the assistance of the other to supply them, a condition of combination which Wagner deliberately carried to a fine art in his double capacity of poet and composer. With Tennyson there is no gap to fill, and all that music can do is to illustrate the surrounding atmosphere, and to leave the poetry to tell its own story with its declamation and inflections accurately preserved.
The best reproduction of the peculiar quality of Tennyson’s reading which I have heard was Irving’s rendering of the lines about the bird in the last act of “Becket”:
We came upon
A wild-fowl sitting on her nest, so still,
I reach’d my hand and touch’d; she did not stir;
The snow had frozen round her, and she sat
Stone-dead upon a heap of ice-cold eggs.
The mastery of sound-painting in this line, the chilly “o’s” and “e’s” which the Poet knew so well how to place, Irving declaimed with a quiet reverence which made the sentence so pathetic that it will always live in the memory of those who heard it. It is interesting to record that all the actors I have met who witnessed the play invariably hit on those lines as the high-water mark of Irving’s powers.
The rehearsals of “Becket,” many of which I was privileged to witness, soon made it clear that Irving’s Becket was going to be, as it eventually proved to be, the finest both in conception and in accomplishment of all his creations. The part fitted him like a glove. So completely did he live in it, that a friend of his (who related his experience to me), who went round to see him after a performance, was dismissed by him on leaving with a fervent benediction delivered with up-raised hand, so sincerely and impressively delivered that he positively seemed to be an actual Prince of the Church.
With Irving’s arrangement of the play I never wholly agreed. He made of it as a whole a workable piece, but in doing so he sacrificed one scene which, beyond all question, is one of the most vivid and most characteristic in the play, the scene of the beggars’ feast. He lost sight of the fact that its omission spoilt the balance of the middle section. There was no foil to the brilliancy of the Council at Northampton. Tennyson (like Shakespeare) knew better the value of contrast, and put in at this point that touch of divine humour which only heightens pathos. The drama needed it. He balanced the traitorous splendour of the nobles with the homely loyalty of the halt, maimed, and blind. Irving also omitted the poem which gave the true lyrical touch to the first Bower scene; a little dialogue which, if it had been sung as was intended after the curtain rose on an empty stage, would have given the same atmosphere to the act, which the Rainbow song at its close drives home. These were, however, almost the only blots upon an otherwise admirably reverent adaptation. Irving told me that he always came down to listen behind the curtain to the last entr’acte (the Martyrdom), in order to get into the right mood for the final scene. Coming from an actor, who knew nothing of musical technique beyond an extraordinarily acute sense of what was fitting or not fitting for stage purposes, this was a great gratification and a still greater encouragement to one of the many composers whom he so loyally befriended. The production of “Becket” was a memorable red-letter day for the modern English stage; the more so as the tragedy came and conquered a public which was little prepared for the finest specimen of its type which had been seen since the days of Shakespeare. It was fitting that the reign of the greatest Queen since Elizabeth should have such a play inscribed in its annals, an appropriate and worthy counterpart to those of her great predecessor’s days.