Bentley's Miscellany, Volume I

by Various

For example, at one (which shall be nameless) there is a line of demarcation between the professional and non-professional members; another is so numerous, that it is broken into fifty coteries, as in the boxes of a chop-house; and another enthusiastic little knot of vocal harmonists is so strongly impressed with the sense of one another's capabilities, that the speechifying, and toasting, and returning thanks take up a vast deal more time then the music.

Which of the thousand and one suggested derivations of the name madrigal is the right one, is a question upon which we most humbly beg to decline entering. Whether it owe its origin to some particular feature in the words to which all secular part music was set at an early period; or whether, as some impertinent commentator has suggested, it be a compound of two English words, "mad" and "wriggle,"—the one having reference to the ecstatic state into which the listeners were thrown by their first performance, the other to —— But we dismiss this as unworthy our consideration, and cut the question altogether.

A madrigal may, we think, be best defined as a composition in general set to a quaint little poem on some amatory or pastoral subject, with parts for a number of voices; the majority being for four or five. An unceasing flow of these parts, a kind of "push-on-keep-moving" principle, appears one of its strongest characteristics; one voice taking up the strain ere another lays it down,—seldom moving in masses or "plain-song" and with perhaps only one or two "closes" (sometimes none) until the end. In the conduct of all this, a very peculiar style of harmony is used. They are one and all imbued with a quaintness, which all who have heard madrigals must have felt, and could at once recognise; but which it is quite impossible to define in anything less than a treatise, six volumes quarto at the least,—a task upon which at present we have not the smallest intention of setting to work.

So much for a definition: now for a test. The best confirmation of the genuineness of a madrigal is, the fact of its bearing the weight of a great body of voices; that is to say, instead of its producing its proper effect, each part being sung (as in a glee) by one voice, the number of singers may be increased to any extent. And this, after all, is the true touchstone of first-rate choral writing. The "Creation" of Haydn, and "The Last Judgment" of Spohr, unquestionably produce their best effect in an orchestra of moderate proportions; but to a chorus of Handel, or a madrigal of Gibbons, perfect justice could only be done by a body of singers that would fill St. Paul's, or cover Salisbury Plain.

We have dined. The cloth vanishes,—there is a pause,—the party simultaneously rise from their chairs,—the waiters at last (thanks to a long course of training, mental and bodily,) show signs of standing still for the next five minutes,—perfect silence pervades the room,—when lo! a gentle murmur of high voices steals upon the ear,—the strain is quickly imitated a few notes lower,—the basses massively close up the harmonious phalanx, and we recognise the imperishable "Non nobis, Domine."

Sobered, not saddened, by the noblest of canons,—the most melodious of those ingenious complexities,—a movement takes place among the party. Do not suppose that the singers are going to the bottom of the table, for in that case nobody would be left at the top; or, vice versâ, to the top, for then the bottom would be deserted. You find your neighbour to the right, has migrated to the other end of the room, and your vis-à-vis has established himself in his place. After being duly puzzled by so unexpected a move, it appears that, unlike other convivial assemblages, the order of precedency is observed here after, instead of before dinner; and that you must shift your position according to your register, not of birth or baptism, but voice. "Order is Heaven's first law," and the high and low characters around you, class themselves accordingly, into altos, tenors, and basses.

This little preparatory bustle over, and everybody again seated, there is a brief pause, which we devote to speculations,—not on the character of our new right-hand man (above mentioned),—not on the contents of the minute-book which the president spreads open before him,—nor on the pile of tomes which almost exclude the bodily presence of the vice,—nor on the gentleman who is going to propose a new member,—but on the "dints" in the table before us. The tops of all tables at all taverns are, and have been from time immemorial, remarkable for an infinite number of indentations varying in size and conformation. This peculiarity is not indigenous to the aforesaid tables; they are supposed, at some distant period of their existence, to have had faces as unruffled as others of their kind; but the eternal succession of thumps from glasses, plates, knives and forks, approbatory of speech, sentiment, or song, furrows their physiognomy with deep, ineffaceable lines,—albeit neither of study, thought, nor sorrow.

The time has gone by for the autobiography of guineas, lap-dogs, sofas, and sedan-chairs; birds and beasts no longer sport their apophthegms to human ears; even the pot and kettle have done calling one another names; "The Confessions of a Dinner-table, written by himself," would stand no chance now; a second edition of the life of Mendoza would be as little likely to take the town. Dinner-tables, like boxers, must count their bruises in silence. Yon deeply-indented furrow, over which our wine is absolutely tottering, is evidently a memento of the days when the feet were regularly knocked off the wine-glasses, and they, like their holders later in the evening, lost their power of standing alone; when daylight unendurable and heel-taps impossible. No hand lacking the zeal of political excitement could have inflicted so uncompromising a gash as the one near it. Bees'-wax and turpentine have somewhat softened the sharpness of its outline; but its existence is identified with that of the table itself. And that succession of little "dibbs," evidently by the same hand,—what are they, but an unceasing monument to some by-gone beau, who thus tattooed his approval of the best of all possible toasts,—"The Ladies!"

But our speculations are leading us astray; more especially as the music-desks are before us, the books upon them, and "the boys" arrived. And hark! the pitch-pipe—none of your whipper-snapper German Æolians or waistcoat-pocket tuning-forks, but the veritable pitch-pipe which has been in use since the year 1740—sounds the note of preparation, and the order of the day begins in real earnest.

The Madrigal Society does not, as its name would seem to imply, confine itself exclusively to compositions which come under the designation of madrigal. The motett and the ballet, which are variations of the some genus, come in for a share of its notice.