Music hall

“ Before the organ stood the bronze statue of Beethoven, now in Symphony Hall.
“Crawford’s statue seems to be listening to the music,” my mother whispered, as the organist struck the keys and a lovely air of Palestrina’s rolled from the organ, shaking the souls of the men and women gathered in this temple of the arts. Music must have its commercial side, like all other arts; but in those days, if it were there, it was hidden. The men who built the Music Hall, and who made Boston the musical center it still remains, were true servants of Apollo. ”

“ That they are more undisguisedly public-houses, plus singing and dancing, than was the case in their earlier days, is plain. When the Music Hall first sprang into existence, and when it began to take its place among the recognised popular places of recreation a better class of entertainment was presented on its boards than is now the rule. The proprietors were eager to advertise good music: the comic singer was kept to a discreet extent in the background. ”

“ If New York will build a proper hall for music and other public purposes, she will do well, and the Beethoven Centennial will not be in vain. The Cooper Institute hall is large enough for political meetings, and Steinway Hall is good for many purposes; but it is not a beautiful nor imposing room, as a great hall should be. The most impressive hall in the country is still the Boston Music Hall, where the great height and the two galleries, one above the other, with the organ and imposing statue of Beethoven, give a feeling of dignity. ”

“ Like the hall they had just quitted, it was pleasantly illumined by candles in silver sconces, and had evidently been arranged to serve exclusively as a music-room, for it contained practically no furniture beyond a couple of chairs, and a beautiful mahogany cabinet, of which the doors stood open, revealing sliding shelves crammed full of musical scores.
A grand piano was so placed that the light from either window or candles would fall comfortably upon the music-desk; and on a stool beside it rested a violin case. ”

“ Its music hall is architecturally one of the finest edifices of the kind and its auditorium is acoustically one of the most satisfactory halls in Canada for chamber music and other recitals. It contains a three-manual concert organ which is a masterpiece of Canadian workmanship. The main hall is supplemented by smaller ones for lectures and recitals and by practice rooms equipped with two-manual organs. The musical equipment in general is ample and comprehensive, meeting the needs of the 2,500 pupils in attendance. ”

“ The Boston Music Hall is, at best, bare and vast, and by daylight is particularly unattractive. The great organ pipes appear cold and lustreless, and the light tints on the walls are not very comforting. The orchestra of the Harvard Musical Association were upon the stage, under the leadership of Carl Zerrahn, and a few privileged subscribers, numbering a hundred or two, were gathered together at one side, as if to keep each other in countenance. Over such a wide floor it takes a thousand or more to make a comfortable and social company. ”

“ Let us, if you will, go to a dimly lighted concert hall and sit with our heads bent over our scores while ladies and gentlemen, gloved and in evening dress, narrate and chant to us a tremendous drama, helped out by all the resources of modern delineative music, and we try to see the action with our mind's eye. ”

“ At the time of the great invasion the music-halls dominated England. Every town and every suburb had its Hall, most of them more than one. The public appetite for sight-seeing had to be satisfied somehow, and the music-hall provided the easiest way of doing it. The Halls formed a common place on which the celebrity and the ordinary man could meet. If an impulsive gentleman slew his grandmother with a coal-hammer, only a small portion of the public could gaze upon his pleasing features at the Old Bailey. ”

“ The music was of the finest kind that could be found in France, and no person ever rendered himself celebrated, even in any remote province, for peculiar skill or taste in playing on any instrument, without being sought out and brought to play at the concerts of the King. The concert room, which was the only one where the light was kept subdued, opened into a long suite of apartments, hall beyond hall, saloon beyond saloon, where the eye was dazzled by the blaze, and fatigued by the immense variety of beautiful and precious ornaments which were seen stretching away in brilliant perspective. ”

“ A big music hall where lovers 73 of music could find pleasure at any time, and where weekly concerts was given, most of the performers being of the musically inclined amongst the young people in the City of Justice. ”

“ The time, however, at which his musical powers are of most use, is now and then of an evening, when he plays for the children to dance in the hall, and he passes among them and the servants for a perfect Orpheus.
His chamber also bears evidence of his various avocations: there are half-copied sheets of music; designs for needle-work; sketches of landscapes, very indifferently executed; a camera lucida; a magic lantern, for which he is endeavoring to paint glasses; in a word, it is the cabinet of a man of many accomplishments, who knows a little of everything, and does nothing well. ”

“ In Fleet Street there was the Temple Forum, and at the end, just out of it, was the Codgers’ Hall, both famous for debates, which have long ceased to exist. A glance at the modern music-hall will show us whether we have much improved of late. It is more showy, more attractive, more stylish in appearance than its predecessors, but in one respect it is unchanged. Primarily it is a place in which men and women are expected to drink. The music is an afterthought, and when given, is done with the view to keep the people longer in their places, and to make them drink more. ”

“ As a pendant, too, to the orchestral evenings, will come cheap afternoon concerts in the Music Hall, where good symphonies and overtures, with sparkling varieties for younger tastes, will hold out weekly invitation. ”

“ But this is hardly a subject for a touring bicyclist to get warmed up over. One of the greatest attractions in the city during this month of festivities, is Gilmore’s band at Music Hall in the exposition building. The hall is truly what its name indicates. It is built without boxes, and with the stage well out into the auditorium. ”

“ Music halls are much better avoided. I do not say that it is necessarily wrong to go there, or that you are certain to come to harm if you frequent them, but there is more chance of temptation, and an inferior entertainment for your money. Well acted plays may open out your mind, but the silliness of the music hall entertainment will only react upon you. ”

“ James’s, Criterion, Wyndham’s New, Duke of York’s, Garrick, Court, and others, for comedy; the Gaiety, Daly’s, Lyric, Prince of Wales’s, Savoy, and Vaudeville for musical comedy and comic opera. The “music-hall” is equally conspicuous among London’s places of amusement, variety entertainments being given at the Alhambra, Empire, Palace, Coliseum, Hippodrome, Lyceum, and a host of others. Among the more dignified concert halls may be mentioned the Royal Albert Hall (capable of holding an audience of eight thousand persons) , Queen’s Hall, and Crystal Palace. ”

“ MR. PUNCH'S MORAL MUSIC-HALL DRAMAS. No. IV.
Our present example is pure tragedy of the most ambitious kind, and is, perhaps, a little in advance of the taste of a Music-hall audience of the present day. When the fusion between the Theatres and the Music-Halls is complete—when Miss Bessie Bellwood sings "What Cheer, 'Ria?" ”

“ From the first violin to the big drum all demanded higher pay. It seems that theatre, music hall, and concert orchestras belong to a syndicate of Artistes Musiciens numbering some sixteen hundred members. ”

“ Now and then the music-hall does a little bit of philanthropy in another way, which is sure to be made the most of in the papers. For instance, last year Mr. Fort, of the Foresters’ Music Hall, invited some of the paupers from a neighbouring workhouse to spend the evening with him. I daresay he had a good many old customers p. ”

“ Already, beyond the concert hall, we see opening the private chamber, holiest of all, and the chamber music, which is to the music of the stage what etching is to painting. It is the old ebb and flow. As we passed from the single instrument to the orchestra, from Beethoven’s orchestra with its travail for expression to Wagner’s stage with its world-embracing aims, so we are now passing back from the stage to undiluted music first before thousands of listeners, then before hundreds only. ”

“ We have simply carried the idea of labor saving by cooperation into our musical service as into everything else. There are a number of music rooms in the city, perfectly adapted acoustically to the different sorts of music. These halls are connected by telephone with all the houses of the city whose people care to pay the small fee, and there are none, you may be sure, who do not. The corps of musicians attached to each hall is so large that, although no individual performer, or group of performers, has more than a brief part, each day's programme lasts through the twenty-four hours. ”

“ The pit and stage are thrown into a brilliant hall, with the orchestra in the centre; the music is divine, and the etiquette perfect liberty. There is, of course, a great deal of vulgar company, for every one is admitted who pays the ten francs at the door; but all 140 classes of people mingle in the crowd; and if one is not amused, it is because he will neither listen nor talk. I think it requires one or two masks to get one's eye so much accustomed to the sight, that he is not disgusted with the exteriors of the women. ”

“ The music-hall is a protest against Mrs. Kendal's marital tendernesses and the abortive platitudes of Messrs. Pettit and Sims; the music-hall is a protest against Sardou and the immense drawing-room sets, rich hangings, velvet sofas, etc., so different from the movement of the English comedy with its constant change of scene. The music-hall is a protest against the villa, the circulating library, the club, and for this the "'all" is inexpressibly dear to me. ”

“ This my readers cannot grasp; it fatigues them. They complain of that man's writings as being "heavy," "hard to follow." This is the consequence of the vogue of music halls. One may say that the popular University of this country, where the average man gets most of his ideas from, is the music hall. What, then, can we editors do better than imitate the style and substance of the music hall? Shocks to the nerves—and no fatigue to the intellect. Voilà!'
"On my way home I met Columbus. ”

“ Presently, about twenty feet up in the rear and on either side, faint lights begin to appear and faint sounds of music are heard. Gradually the lights brighten a little and the sounds of music become more and more audible until one becomes conscious that on the left an orchestra is playing and to the right a piano. One also becomes conscious of a vast and beautiful hall over the floor of which, as the music plays, the forms of dancers are gliding. ”

“ Why, I'll trouble you to jine in with the chorus to my song!
Chorus (all together) —Oh, we're offully fond of the Sea-side! &c.
[68]
The Plaintively Pathetic.
[69]
xii.—THE PLAINTIVELY PATHETIC.
A Music-hall audience will always be exceedingly susceptible to pathos—so long as they clearly understand that the song is not intended to be of a comic nature. However, there is very little danger of any misapprehension in the case of our present example, which is as natural and affecting a little song as any that have been moving the Music Halls of late. ”

“ The Sing-Akademie, where all the best concerts are given, is not a very large hall, but it is beautifully proportioned, and the acoustic is perfect. The frescoes are very delicate, and on the left are boxes all along, which add much to the beauty of the hall, with their scarlet and gold flutings. Clara Schumann is a great favorite here, and there was such a rush for seats that, though we went early for our tickets, all the good parquet seats were gone, and we had to get places on the estrade, or place where the chorus sits—when there is one. ”

“ Under the latter gallery is a shooting hall, which is usually filled with marksmen trying their skill. On the right hand side of the room is a huge orchestrion or monster music-box, and by its side is a raised platform, occupied by the orchestra employed at the place. The floor is sanded, and is lined with plain tables, six feet by two in size, to each of which is a couple of benches. The only ornaments of the immense hall are the frescoes and the chandeliers. Everything else is plain and substantial. Between the hall and the Bowery is the bar room, with its lunch counters. ”

“ I was naturally much interested in the invisible, subterranean orchestra of the Bayreuth auditorium, and as the first noble theme of the prelude literally floated into the darkened hall, the great advantage of an invisible conductor was manifest. The division of the music into bars, which are an essential of the conductor’s beat, should be seen only by the orchestra, and I still wish it were possible to educate the public to listen to music with their ears only and not with their eyes. ”

“ Since then the society has pursued the even tenor of its way and, freed from all financial worries, has contributed much to the cause of music. The orchestra plays over a hundred symphony concerts during the winter, in New York and elsewhere. These include a series of Sunday-afternoon concerts at Æolian Hall, Thursday-afternoon and Friday-evening concerts at Carnegie Hall, and a series of young people’s concerts and another of children’s concerts. ”