Songster

“ This minstrel song is similar to the original minstrel, in which one or more wandering musicians and songsters travel from place to place rendering song and music with varied accompaniments. Sometimes one singer goes alone, sometimes two, sometimes a quartette. They are entertainers in the real sense that they exhibit themselves and their art with all the naturalness and spontaneity possible. ”

“ The nightingale excels all the other songsters of the woods in power, clearness, and sweetness of tone. Her notes, whether joyous or plaintive, are always melodious. This bird acquires the power of song only after long practice. ”

“ The song is in ballad form, to suit the situation, the voice executing the clear, lovely melody, while the stringed instruments carry on a simple accompaniment pizzicato, to imitate the guitar: this delicate outline is, however, shaded and animated in a wonderful degree by solo wind instruments. Without being absolutely necessary for the progress of the melodies and the completeness of the harmonies, they supply the delicate touches of detail, reading between the lines of the romance, as it were, what is passing in the heart of the singer. ”

“ Ah! could we but see the vibrations of the atmosphere which a single musical chord produces—the rolling bass, the gliding alto, the sweeping soprano, and the soaring tenor, rolling onward in one broad channel of harmony, with its myriad tributary streams of thirds and fifths, and its curling, twinkling, shifting, blending, soaring mists of delicate-toned harmonics, how would our enjoyment of music be enhanced! ”

“ Suddenly a brown thrasher breaks into a melody from the top of a wild cherry, and then it is as if a famous operatic coloratura soprano had joined the village choir. For power and continuity of song he is without a peer. ”

“ This effect, the finest in music—for what taste would compare a Sinfonia to a song?—he accomplished by the admirable management of a sweet voice, though but of small compass, accompanied by a few chords of the instrument, rather filling up the intervals of the voice than leading them: the whole rather an exquisite recitation than a song; the singer more the minstrel than the musician. ”

“ But, with solo singing, greater attention was paid to instruments, which were already in those days constructed with the greatest care and skill. With the higher cultivation of single voices, chorus singing also became richer in harmony and embellishment, but as, in vocal music, words accompany the music, the expression of the music becomes more definite and intelligible for the hearer, and thus with the higher cultivation of vocal music, and by means of it, even our whole modern system of harmony has been developed. ”

“ It is the music which accelerates or moderates the movement, which heightens with [Pg 31] an accent more acute the discourse of the actor, or which, surging up behind him, brings to his ears clamor and rumor. There are guitars, bits of wood that are beaten like tympans, that are clashed like castanets; a sort of monochord violin which, like a fountain in a solitary court, by the thread of its plaintive melody, carries the development of the elegy; and finally, in the heroic movements, the trumpet. ”

“ The music trembled a moment and was still; then the passion burst in a flood upon them. Dark chasms opened; strange, wild fastnesses shut them in; storm and license and evil held them. Blinding flashes fell on them. Slowly the player emerged into a wide sunlit place. The music filled it. Winds blew from the four quarters to meet it, and the air was full of melody.
The count stirred a little as the last notes fell. ”

“ Next we were favoured with a song in bass, accompanied with the piano—in which a male voice was so closely imitated as to defy the most acute ear to make it anything else; a male voice, however, highly refined—deeper, stronger, sweeter—than ever before fell upon our ear. The feelings of all present were delightfully stirred,—even the atmosphere in which we sat seemed trembling with emotion.
These were followed by other songs, enough to exhibit the vocal charms and operatic talent of this wonderful cantatrice, in all their strength and compass. ”

“ Let us play a choral; any good one of a German master will do. [46] We notice that the soprano is the principal part, and that the other voices, while somewhat melodic, tend rather to support and follow the melody than to be independent. If, now, we play a piece of counterpoint like the G-Minor Prelude by Bach, [47] we shall have quite a good piece of counterpoint, as far as separate melodies being combined is concerned. Let us play the voice-parts separately. We shall find equal melodic interest in each. The chords grow out of the music. ”

“ To produce perfect music, we must have soprano, alto, tenor and bass to carry all the parts. The tenor and soprano would furnish us a very poor concert, and the alto and bass alone would produce rather monotonous music. But we have studied harmony in music until we have evoked divine results, and our achievements in harmony of colors has beautified the world with transcendent art. ”

“ For whatever facility of technique or felicity of expression musical instruments may have, they lack the intimate human quality of the singing voice. The voice comes to the listener in terms of himself, whereas an instrument may be strange and unsympathetic and awaken no response. So complete is this sympathy between the singer and listener that almost any singer with a fine voice (she is, very likely, called a “human nightingale”) is sure to attract an audience, no matter what she sings or how little musical intelligence she shows. ”

“ THE TUNE, Composed by James McGranahan, delivers the whole stanza in soprano or tenor solo, when the alto, joining the treble, leads off the refrain in duet, the male voices striking alternate notes until the full harmony in the last three bars. The style and movement of the chorus are somewhat suggestive of a popular glee, but the music of the duet is flexible and sweet, and the bass and tenor progress with it not in the ride-and-tie-fashion but marking time with the title-syllable. ”

“ And so easily are our musical sensibilities awakened, and so readily are we influenced by song-power, that these effects may be exerted upon us, to a very considerable extent, even by the singer of ordinary abilities. But by a beautiful cantatrice, gifted with a pure, resonant, sympathetic voice, its natural sweetness and power supplemented by careful artistic cultivation, possessing a pleasing, unaffected manner of appearance and expression, all these effects may be amplified, intensified. ”

“ The foreign women pass him by, their tarnished coins held tight, They toss their heads and will not hear his music's wistful hum— But through each alley way and street, like moths that seek the light, With eager eyes and laughing lips the little chil- dren come. He plays his ancient, shaky song, his mouth moves to its sway, He does not know the tune of it is old and out of key; For, through his eyes, a soul stares out that wanders far away, In some fair land of youth and love—some land that used to be. ”

“ Chorus in unison.
The simplest and most natural combination of voices is sopranos and altos, or tenors and basses. These combinations produce ample and vigourous tone, and the mixed timbres serve to give prominence to a melody in the upper or bass parts. In practice the other voices are often divided to thicken the harmony. The combination of altos and tenors produces a peculiar mixed tone quality, somewhat bizarre and seldom used. ”

“ Do you not see how many voices there are in a chorus? Yet out of the many only one voice results. In that chorus one voice takes the tenor, another the bass, another the baritone. There are women, too, as well as men, and the flute is mingled with them. In that chorus the voices of the individual singers are hidden; what we hear is the voices of all together. 10. To be sure, I am referring to the chorus which the old-time philosophers knew; in our present-day exhibitions [5] we have a larger number of singers than there used to be spectators in the theatres of old. ”

“ The most of the audience had never before heard a human songbird who trilled and warbled in limpid notes of melody that rivaled the flute and soared away above their heads to unbelievable heights of liquid purity. ”

“ I heard singing, and a guitar, somewhere near. I listened attentively, for the voices of the singers affected me strangely; dim reminiscences stirred within me, but were slow to take definite form. I got off my horse, and slowly drew nearer to the vine-covered arbour where the music was going on. The second voice had stopped; the first was singing a canzonetta alone; the singer was in the middle of an elaborate cadenza, it went warbling up and down, till at last she began a long holding-note, and then, all at once, a woman's voice broke out in a fury, with curses, execrations and reproaches. ”

“ And all at once, as if hoping to lighten their labours—lovers of music as these people are—a shrill, musical, woman’s voice arose, starting a familiar chorus, which was taken up directly by the young, to rise and fall and swell along the valley, the sweet soprano tones supported by the roaring waters’ heavy bass. ”

“ I was especially impressed with his peculiar style of minstrelsy, so different from anything I had ever heard in the bird realm. While the song was characterized by much variety, it usually opened with two or three loud, clear syllables, somewhat prolonged, sounding, as has been said, like a challenge, followed by a peculiar bubbling trill that seemed fairly to roll from the piper's [Pg 297] tongue. Early one morning a few days later I heard a brilliant vocalist descanting from the top of a pump in a wide field among the foothills. ”

“ We must accept that explanation for the choicest lyrics: yet we cannot, in that way, account for some performances of remarkable ingenuity. A singer with the art of a counterpuntist may subordinate the iambic word-rhythm of his poem to an alternating three-four and two-four rhythm of the melody, while he dances [165] at the same moment to the unaccented rhythm of the drum. ”

“ At this time people did not sing in parts, known as they are to us—soprano, alto, tenor, bass, but everybody sang the same tune, that is, sang in unison, and when men and women or men and boys sang together, the men’s voices sounded an octave lower than the women’s and the boy’s. Some voices have naturally a high range and others low, and no doubt in these plain chant melodies the singers who could not reach all the tones comfortably, dropped unconsciously to a lower pitch, and in that way, made a second part. ”

“ Was there ever such sweet, luscious tenor voice, or a more charming and graceful style of vocalization? He literally sang like a bird. He opened his mouth and the notes were warbled forth with exquisite volubility and ease. ”

“ Throughout the nesting season music fairly pours from his tiny throat; it bubbles up like champagne; it gushes forth in a lyrical torrent and overflows into every nook of the forest, that seems entirely pervaded by his song. While music is everywhere, it apparently comes from no particular point, and, search as you may, the tiny singer still eludes, exasperates, and yet entrances. ”

“ The 'chanson'—i.e., the dance tune, was played on the flute, and accompanied by the 'tabourin' or drum, which beats all the time. Every 'bar' of the music is called either a 'battement' of the drum, or a 'mesure' of the chanson. ”

“ The scene now changes from a desolate to a happy home as the Master bids the workmen seek their pleasure while the bell is cooling. A soprano solo takes up a cheery strain (“Wends the weary Wanderer”) , picturing the harvest home, the dance of the youthful reapers, and the joys of evening by the fireside, followed by a tribute to patriotism, sung by tenor and bass, the pleasant scene closing with an exultant full chorus (“Thousand active Hands combining”) . ”

“ The windows of the houses opposite and adjoining were lighted; from one some little distance away came the faint tinkling of a mandolin, and the deeper sounding strings of a guitar; from still another came fresh young voices singing an evening hymn. ”

“ And for my part, I care not at all for that profession which begins not in heaviness of mind. The first string that the musician usually touches is the bass, when he intends to put all in tune. God also plays upon this string first, when he sets the soul in tune for himself. ”

“ The love-eyed men and women lounging about her with their guitars and ukuleles, garlanded with drooping roses and carnations and ginger, were commendably vain of showing off their first singer in the land, and thrummed their loveliest to her every song. None can waken strings as do these people. ”

“ They will compose more for the Voice than the Instruments: The part for the Voice will no more have the Mortification to resign its Place to the Violins: The Soprano's and Contr'Alto's will no more sing the Airs in the Manner of the Bass, in Spight of a thousand Octaves: And, finally, their Airs will be more affecting, and less alike; more studied, and less painful to the Singer ”

“ The English ballad-singers may have been as much on the look-out for a new, orally communicated song from foreign parts, as Chaucer was for a poem of Petrarch's or a tale of Boccaccio's.
II.—The Theft of a Shroud.
The ballad with which we have now to deal has had probably as wide a currency as that of "Lord Ronald." The student of folk-lore recognises at once, in its evident fitness for local adaptation, its simple yet terrifying motive, and the logical march of its events, the elements that give a popular song a free pass among the peoples. ”

“ The invisible singers read the music from their parts. They will be three at a time, or better, six, two sopranos, two tenors, one alto and one bass, singing or remaining silent according to the occasion, giving with spirit the lively words and with feeling the sentimental ones and pronouncing all with loud and intelligible voices according to the judgment of prudent singers. ”