Kitabı oku: «Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 22, August, 1878», sayfa 12

That the advent of Hyacinthe King in their midst should have created no sensation among the party assembled at Stokeham would scarcely be a reasonable proposition: it did, and not only the excitement that the coming of a renowned meteor of the theatrical firmament might be expected to occasion in a house full of British subjects, but an undertone of surmise, and some sarcasms, between those—the majority—who were well enough aware of Roy Chandoce's peculiar infatuation for the beautiful young player. The pair were watched keenly, it must be confessed, but with a courtesy and savoir faire that admitted no betrayal of this absolutely human curiosity—by none more keenly and more guardedly than by Lady Florence Ffolliott. Neither she nor they discovered aught in the conduct of either the man or the woman to find fault with or cavil at.

Hyacinthe was quickly voted a "man's woman" by the women, and as quickly pronounced a "thorough enigma" by the men, not one of whom had succeeded, even after the lapse of fourteen days, in arousing in her that which is most dear to the masculine soul, a preference—although it be a mild, a shamming or an evanescent preference—for one of them above another. Sir Vane Masham set her down over his third dinner's sherry as "an iceberg," in which kind opinion the little viscount joined, with the amendment of "polar refrigerator." Young Arthur French, who was very hard hit indeed, said she was like a "beautiful, heartless marble statue," but the poet, who had made verses on her, called her a "white lily with a heart of flame."

Not one of them all, however, could dispute the perfect quality of her beauty to-night. In a robe of violet satin, with pale jealous topazes shining on her neck and arms and in the sleek braids of her dark hair, Hyacinthe was fit for the regards of emperors had they been there to see. They were not. In the conservatory at Stokeham, where she stood amid the tropical trees and flowers and breathing the warm close scent of rich blossoms foreign to English soil, there was only one man to look at her, and he was no potentate, but a blond young fellow, with blue blood in his veins and a sad riot in his heart.

For the first time since they have been in the house together he has left his betrothed wife's side and sought hers: in the face of this little watching world about him he has, at last, quietly risen from the seat at Florence Ffolliott's side and followed that trail of sheeny satin into the conservatory. "Not one word for me?" he says in a low voice that has in it a sort of desperation.

She turns startled and looks at him: "Who wants me? Who sent you to fetch me?"

"No one 'sent' me," he replies bitterly: "I 'want' you. Hyacinthe! Hyacinthe!" He stretches two arms out toward her, and when he dies Roy Chandoce remembers the look that leaps then into the eyes of this girl.

"Do not touch me!" She shrinks away with the expression of awakened womanhood on her fair face. "If you do, you will make me mad." For he has followed and is close to her.

"No, no, no! Not 'mad'—happy! Ah, Hyacinthe!" His arms are no more outstretched or empty: they enfold all the beauty and all the bliss that now and then give mortality fresh faith in heaven. "Ah, Hyacinthe!" That is all that he says, and she is silent while his kisses fall upon her mouth and cheeks and brow and hands.

And when, ten minutes later, he goes back where he came from, he knows that it is no "intellectual disloyalty" that lured him from his seat: he knows that the poet was right, and Vane and the viscount and Arthur all wrong.

There is to be a meet at Stokeham Park the next morning, and Hyacinthe, for the first time in her life, witnesses the pretty sight. Two or three only of the ladies are going to ride to cover, among them Lady Florence Ffolliott, who looks superbly on her horse and in her habit, and feels superbly too—in a transient physical fashion—as she glances down at Hyacinthe, who in her clinging creamy gown, with a furred cloak thrown about her, stands in the porch to see them off. She knows nothing of horses or riding, and is therefore debarred from the exhilarating pleasure, and has also declined Lady Dering's offer to drive with her to the first cover that is to be drawn. But the pretty and, to her, novel picture of the various vehicles with their freight of merry matrons, girls and children, the scarlet coats of the sportsmen and the servants, the hounds drawn up a good piece off, the four ladies who are going to ride, and stately, cheery Lady Dering exchanging cordial and courteous greetings with her friends and neighbors, while good-hearted Sir Harry gives some last instructions to his whip, is sufficiently charming.

"You have eaten no breakfast, Mr. Chandoce," cries the hostess, "and you are quite as white as Lady Florence's glove there. I insist upon your taking a glass of something before you are off.—Patrick!" But before Patrick has even started on my lady's errand Hyacinthe has fetched from the hall a glass of claret-cup, and holds it up to him where he sits on his lithe and mettlesome hunter.

He takes it, drains it to the last drop and hands it back to her. Their eyes meet, and his lips murmur very softly a Saxon's sweetest word of endearment—"My darling!"

"Quarter-past eleven!" calls Sir Harry; and the gay cavalcade moves off, and Hyacinthe, waving adieu to Lady Dering, watches it fade away among the windings of the avenue.

"Mr. Chandoce has a green mount," mutters one of the footmen to another.

"Yes, he have, but he's not a green horseman."

"No," admits the other.

Hyacinthe remembers their talk later in the day—that day that she passes in such a restless wandering from one room to another—from the conservatory to the library, and from music-room to hall. Finally, at four o'clock she has composed herself with a book in the library, and before the fire sits half lost in reading, half in wondering. Without, the early gloom of the short day is gathering, and the bare trees cast murk shadows all across the frostbitten lawns, and late birds twitter their good-night notes, and a few sleepy rooks caw coldly to each other.

She hears none of this, is as self-absorbed a being as ever lived—one whose whole solitude is full to overflowing with the thought of another. But at last there breaks in upon Hyacinthe's still dream a shriek, and then wild tumult, noises and excited speech, and the girl springs to her feet, and in a flash is out in the wide hall in the very midst of it all.

He lies there quite, quite dead. For ever flown the breath that made of this beautiful clay a living man. Lady Florence has him halfway in her arms as she kneels on the floor beside the body of her lover, and between her sobs cries out to them to "Go for the surgeons!" for whom long since Sir Harry sent. Hyacinthe put her hands behind her and leaned heavily against the column that by good chance she found there. When the crowd parted from him a little she leaned over a bit and stared: that was all.

"Do not you touch him!" cried the English maiden, maddened by her grief, as she glanced up at the fair face.

"No, I will not: I do not wish to," returns the other softly, straightening herself; and leaning there in her close gown, she is as tearless as some caryatid.

When the surgeons have come on their useless mission, and gone, when Florence Ffolliott stands weeping and wringing her hands, Hyacinthe ventures over a pace nearer to the two.

"You see, Lady Florence," she says very gently, and with that curious sorrowful look on her face that made it so like to the Ariadne's—"you see, he was not meant for any woman: he was a Saxon god."

A year later Lady Florence Ffolliott's engagement to her cousin, the little lovelorn viscount, was announced.

Sir Henry Leighton told me last week that he had been called in consultation with regard to Hyacinthe King, and that there were not three months of life in her. "She cannot act," said the great medical man: "she plays her parts, it is true, but the power to portray has gone out of her. She is going back to Rome for a while, and, I can assure you, she will never return."

Marguerite F. Aymar.

MUSICAL NOTATION

Why is it that the knowledge of music is not more common?—that is, why is it that there are so few people in this and every other country who are able to read and write music as they read and write their mother-tongue? Is it that the musical ear is a rare gift? Evidently not, for music is composed of a small number of elements, which are found for the most part in any popular air, and almost every person can sing one or more of these airs correctly. It is not, then, the musical ear nor the sense of time which is wanting. Neither is the cause to be attributed to the fact that few study music; for, although the teaching of music is by no means so general as it should be, still it is taught in our schools, public and private, singing-schools are common even in our small villages, and there is no lack of teachers both of vocal and instrumental music. And yet out of every hundred who take up the study of music, it is safe to say that about ninety abandon it after a short time, discouraged by the almost insurmountable difficulties presented at every turn. Only those succeed who are endowed with rare natural aptitude, an indomitable will, and time—four or five years at least—to devote to an art which is as yet a luxury to the masses of the people.

M. Galin, his pupil M. Chevé and other advocates of reform in musical notation declare that the people are deprived of this grand source of culture because of the blind, inconsistent and wholly unscientific nature of the ordinary musical notation. At first this seems incredible, but one has only to compare this notation with that elaborated by Émile Chevé after Galin's theory to become convinced that the statement is true. People are apt to say, "Why, it cannot be that our system of writing music is so defective: in this age of improvements and scientific precision gross inconsistencies would have been eliminated long ago." And so, indeed, they would have been but for the fact that the very basis of the system is altogether at fault. How are the Chinese, for example, to "improve" their system of writing? It is simply impossible. They have some thousands of abstract characters, hieroglyphs standing for things or thoughts. All these must be swept away, and in their place must come an alphabet where each letter stands for an elementary sound. These elementary sounds are few in number in any language. So of our musical notation. It is doubtful if it can be materially improved; it must be discarded for a system of fewer elements and a more clear and precise combination of them.

No, it is not strange that we have not adopted a better method of musical notation before this. Think how long a struggle it required to abandon the cumbersome Roman notation for the short, clear and precise Arabic—how many centuries of feeble infancy the science of mathematics passed before the invention of logarithms rendered the most tedious calculations rapid and easy. Most people take things as they seem, giving but little thought to their meanings and relations to each other; and so an awkward method may be followed a long time without protest. People are blamed for their devotion to routine, but devotion to routine is perfectly natural. It is mental inertia, and corresponds to that property in physics—the inability of a body of itself to start when at rest, or stop or change its course when in motion. And then the general distrust of new things—"new-fangled notions," as contempt terms them—retards the examination and adoption of improved and labor-saving methods.

It is more than fifty years since Pierre Galin, professor of mathematics in the institute for deaf mutes at Bordeaux, published his Exposition d'une nouvelle Méthode pour l'Enseignement de la Musique, and more than thirty since his distinguished disciple, Émile Chevé, demonstrated practically, in the military gymnasium at Lyons, the immeasurable superiority of that method; and yet such is the repugnance of teachers of music to any change in their routine that they have paid little or no attention to the work of Galin and his followers. The Méthode élémentaire de la Musique vocale, by M. and Mme. Émile Chevé, has never been translated into English. It was published in Paris by the authors in 1851—a work of over five hundred pages in royal octavo, and a most clear and exhaustive exposition of the method which they followed with such success.

In proof of the superiority of that method, an account of M. Chevé's test-experiment at the military gymnasium at Lyons in 1843 will be interesting. The gymnasium was at that time under the direction of two officers of the French army, Captain d'Argy and Lieutenant Grenier. The facts are taken from their official report of the experiment.

By order of Lieutenant-General Lascours the soldiers of the gymnasium were placed at the disposition of M. Chevé, that he might make a trial of his method. General Lascours further ordered that the officers in charge of the gymnasium should be present at every lesson, and report carefully the progress of the pupils and the final results of the course.

The members of the class were taken at large from the twelfth, sixteenth and twenty-ninth regiments of the line, fifty from each. M. Chevé accepted all as they came, and agreed formally to bring eight-tenths of the class of one hundred and fifty in one year to the following results: (1) To understand the theory of music analytically; (2) To sing alone and without any instrument any piece of music within the compass of ordinary voices; (3) To write improvised airs from dictation.

"Candor compels us to admit," says the report, "that nearly all of the soldiers showed the greatest repugnance to attending the course, and did so only because they were ordered to do so. Several months elapsed before this bad spirit could be conquered, and before the majority of them could be brought to practise the vocal exercises. Some even refused to try to sing, on the ground that they were old, that they had no voice, that they could not read, etc."

The first lesson took place October 1, 1842. There were five a week, of an hour and a half each. At the end of the month the professor wished to classify the voices, and required each pupil to sing alone. The experiment was rather discouraging. More than two-thirds were unable to sing the scale: twelve refused to utter a sound, and declared that nothing would induce them to try. These twelve were immediately dismissed. The rest remained, though some confessed that they had not sung a note since the beginning of the course. These, however, now promised to practise all the exercises in future. Under these unfavorable circumstances the professor engaged anew to fulfil his contract, on condition that the pupils would submit to practise the exercises conscientiously and attend regularly. From this time, with the exception of three or four rebellious spirits, none were rejected.

The month of October was not very profitable to the pupils, on account of continual absences necessitated by military reviews. April and May of the following year (1843) also brought many interruptions through the various demands of the service. Sickness, promotions, punishments, mutations, and the disbanding of the class of 1836, which took away several under-officers, gradually reduced the class, so that in July only a little over fifty were left. This falling off greatly troubled Professor Chevé, especially when the army at Lyons went into camp and left him with only twenty-eight pupils. This reduction of the class could not have been foreseen or prevented. M. Chevé could not be held responsible for the fulfilment of his promise, except to eight-tenths of those that remained.

Two months after the opening of the course M. Chevé printed at his own expense a collection of one hundred and forty pieces of music from the best composers, and gave a copy to each of his pupils, that they might read from the printed page instead of the blackboard. Three months after the opening of the course General Lascours visited the gymnasium and was present during one of the lessons. He was struck, as were all the visitors on that occasion, by the progress obtained. The pupils were already far advanced in intonation and in time: they read easily in all the keys, and sung pieces together with great spirit and correctness.

On April 25, 1843, the general returned, accompanied by Madame Lascours and all the officers of his staff. The following was the programme of the occasion: (1) A quartette from Webbe; (2) A Languedoc air in three parts, from Desrues; (3) A trio from the opera of Œdipus in Colonna, by Sacchini; (4) Singing at sight intervals of all kinds, major and minor; (5) Singing at sight in eight different keys; (6) Two rounds in three voices from Siller; (7) A quartette from the Clemenza di Tito of Mozart; (8) A quartette from the Iphigenia of Gluck; (9) A trio from the Corysander, or the Magic Rose of Berton; (10) Exercise upon the tonic in all the keys, major and minor; (11) Exercise in naming notes vocalized; (12) Singing at sight a trio from the Magic Flute of Mozart; (13) Ave Regina, by Choron—three voices; (14) The Gondolier, a round in three parts, by Desrues; (15) A quartette from the Magic Flute; (16) Chorus from the Tancredi of Rossini; (17) The "Prayer" from Joseph, by Méhul.

This is certainly a remarkable programme to be filled by illiterate soldiers with only six months' training. "It would be difficult," says the official report, "to paint the astonishment of the spectators upon this occasion. The confidence and readiness with which these soldier-students of music sang at sight the most difficult intonations, major and minor, the facility with which they read in all the keys, and, finally, the certainty and spontaneity with which they all, without exception, recognized and named various sounds vocalized, showed clearly that they possessed a very superior knowledge of intonation. All the pieces which they sung were rendered with irreproachable correctness, though the professor did not beat the time, except through the first bar to indicate the movement.

"With the consent of General Lascours, all the teachers and professors in the city, including the members of the Royal College, were on one occasion admitted to a private rehearsal of M. Chevé's class. The result was the same—admiration and astonishment. The professor received on all sides well-merited praise for a success gained in so short a time and with such unfavorable conditions.

"These soldiers have at this moment (September 1, 1843) reached a degree of power in intonation and in reading music at sight which is fairly wonderful. They can sing together at sight any new piece in three or four parts, the music being written, after the new method, in figures. If the piece be written in the ordinary musical character, no matter what the key, they can also sing it at sight together after they have together sung each part by itself. All the members of the class understand thoroughly the theory of music, and are able to write from dictation a vocalized air never heard before, no matter what the modulations may be.

"Such are the results obtained by Professor Chevé from a mass of men taken at hazard and against their will. The experiment to-day has had eleven months of duration, seventeen or eighteen lessons being given every month. The pupils have never studied at all between the lessons, and those who remain at the present time have lost many lessons from punishments, illness, leave of absence, etc.

"As to the method pursued by M. Chevé, it is as follows: In theory he demonstrates de facto the inequality of major and minor seconds, and from this he deduces the theory of the gamut. Here he follows in the footsteps of his master, Galin. The theory of time he takes from the same source. In practice, he employs the Arabic figures for the musical notes, as proposed by J. J. Rousseau and modified by Galin, using a series of exercises created by Madame Chevé. To these exercises especially does M. Chevé owe his ability to make his pupils masters of intonation in an incredibly short time. He teaches time by itself, using a language of durations invented by the father of Madame Chevé, M. Aimé Paris, and tables of exercises in time made by Madame Chevé. Transposition is also taught separately, and never does M. Chevé require his pupils to execute two things simultaneously until they understand perfectly how to do them separately.

"In this way M. Chevé leads his pupils through every step of the theory of music until they are able to read in the ordinary notation every kind of music, and to execute during any piece all the possible changes of mode or key."

The report—which is duly signed by the officers having charge of the gymnasium—ends with the expression of their "profound conviction that the method of teaching music employed by Professor Chevé is faultless, if it may be judged by its practical results."

There is a very common impression, in this country at least, that the best new method of writing music has been tried and abandoned, weighed in the balance and found wanting. This is far from the fact. It is doubtful if there is one person in a hundred in this country who ever heard even the name of Galin or Chevé. Some twenty years ago there was a little interest excited in a new method of musical notation. A class was formed in Lowell, Massachusetts, and a "singing-book" was used there with the notes written with numerals on the staff instead of the usual characters. But it could not have been the Chevé method that the Lowell professor used, for he employed no new system of teaching time—a prime characteristic of that method.

Those who examine the subject fairly will be compelled to take the position held by Galin, Chevé and their school, that a new method of writing music is imperatively needed, because that now in use lacks the essential elements of a scientific system: it is neither simple, clear nor concise. There are certain elementary principles which must be observed in the exposition of any science, and especially in that of music, which is addressed to all classes of intelligence. Among these principles are the following, as stated by M. Chevé: 1st. Every idea should be presented to the mind by a clear and precise symbol. 2d. The same idea should always be presented by the same sign: the same sign should always represent the same idea. 3d. Elementary textbooks or methods should never present two difficulties to the mind at the same time; and such textbooks or methods should be an assemblage of means adapted to aid ordinary intelligences to gain the object proposed. 4th. The memory should never be drawn upon except where reasoning is impossible.

Let us test the exposition of the ordinary musical notation, and also that of the school of Galin, by these principles and compare the results.

First. Is every idea presented by a clear and precise symbol?

In the ordinary method, certainly not. The musical sounds or notes are represented by elliptical curves with or without stems; by spots or dots with plain stems, or with stems having from one to four appendages, or with these appendages united, forming bars across the stems. These curves and dots are placed on the five parallel lines of a staff, as it is called, or between the lines of this staff, or on or between added or "ledger" lines above and below the staff. Certainly, these cannot be called precise symbols, especially when we reflect that any one of them placed upon any given line or space may represent successively do, ré, mi, fa, sol, la, si, or the flats or sharps of these notes. The notes, indeed, have no names, being all alike for the various notes; but names are given to the lines and spaces of the staff; and, alas! the names of these lines and spaces change continually with the change of key or pitch. For example: if we commence a scale with C, our do will be on the first added line below the staff, and its octave, do, on the third space counting from the lowest. If we commence a scale with G, our do will be on the second line from the bottom, and the octave on the first space above the staff; and so on for all the other scales except those which commence a semitone below or above. For example: the scales of the key of G and of G flat would be placed exactly the same upon the staff, though the signature of G would be one sharp upon the staff at the beginning, and that of G flat would be six flats. The same may be said of the keys of D and D flat, F and F sharp, etc.

Again: the scales of the keys of G flat and of F sharp are the same—are played on precisely the same keys of the organ or piano—yet they are placed on different lines and spaces of the staff, and the signature of the first is six flats, and of the second six sharps.

Think of the disheartened state of the victim of this notation when he has learned to read comfortably in one key, and then, taking up a piece of music written in another key, finds that he has all the lines and spaces to relearn! The wonder is that he does not lose his wits altogether.

Compare this maze of notes and lines and spaces, for ever changing like a will-o'-the wisp, with the following:

Here everything is as clear as day. Take any note—as 5, for example. This is sol—always sol, and never by any chance anything else. If it has a dot under, it is sol of the octave below the middle; if it has no dot, it belongs to the middle octave; and if it has a dot above, it belongs to the octave above the middle. These three octaves are amply sufficient for all the purposes of vocal music, which alone is considered here. For instrumental music, where many octaves are used, the system is modified without losing its simplicity and conciseness. To represent the flats, Galin crosses the numerals with a line like the grave accent, and marks the sharps by a line like the acute accent.

For example, represent do flat, ré flat, mi flat, etc.: represent do sharp, ré sharp, mi sharp, etc.

A score of music in the new style of notation has no signature—that is, no flats or sharps at the beginning. Above the line of numerals is written simply "Key of G," "Key of A flat," etc. The pitch, of course, must be taken from the tuning-fork or a musical instrument, as it is in all cases.

Second. The same idea should always be presented by the same sign: the same sign should always represent the same idea.

It has already been shown how this principle is disregarded; but take, for further illustration, the symbols indicating silence. There are seven different kinds of rests, and there is no need of more than one. These signs are:

Again: these rests may be followed by one or two dots, which increase their duration. For example: an eighth-note rest dotted equals an eighth note and a sixteenth; and followed by two dots it equals an eighth, a sixteenth and a thirty-second note in time. That is, the first dot prolongs the rest one-half or a sixteenth, and the second dot prolongs the value of the first dot one-half or a thirty-second.

To a disciple of Galin it is really amazing that such a bungling, unscientific way of expressing silence should have been tolerated so long. Compare these "pot-hooks and trammels," dotted and double-dotted, with Galin's symbol of silence, the cipher (0)! This is all, and yet it expresses every length of rest, as will be shown presently.

Let us now examine the symbols representing the prolongation of a sound. There are three ways by the common notation, where there should be but one. First, by the form of the note itself, as—

Second, by one or more dots after a note, the first dot prolonging the note one-half, and the second dot prolonging the first in the same ratio. Third, by the repetition of the note with a vinculum or tie, the second note not being sung or played. Galin uses simply a dot. It may be repeated, as a rest or a note may, but then its value is not changed, any more than in the case of notes or rests repeated. For example:

Here are the first measures of a well-known hymn in common time, four beats to the measure. As all isolated signs, whether notes, prolongations or rests, fill a unit of time, or beat, it follows that the dots following sol and mi prolong these through an entire beat, for the dots are isolated signs. Whatever the time, each unit of it appears separate and distinct to the eye at a glance; and all the notes, rests or prolongations that fill a beat are always united in a special way. This will be more fully shown hereafter.

Third. Elementary textbooks or methods should never present two difficulties to the mind at the same time; and such textbooks or methods should be an assemblage of means adapted to aid ordinary intelligences to gain the object proposed.

The first thing that the student of music encounters is a staff of five lines, armed with flats or sharps, the signature of the key, or with no signature, which shows that the music upon it is in the key of C. On this staff he sees notes which are of different pitch, and probably of different length. In any case, there are at least three difficulties presented in a breath—to find the name of the note, give it its proper sound, and then its proper length; and these difficulties are still greater because the ideas, as we have seen, are hidden under defective symbols.

Take all the teachers of vocal music, says M. Chevé, place them upon their honor, and let them answer the following question: "How many readers of music can you guarantee by your method, out of a hundred pupils taken at random and entirely ignorant of music, by one hour of study a day during one year?" The reply, he thinks, will be: "Not many." And if you tell them that by another method you will agree in the same time to teach eighty in a hundred to read music currently, and also to write music, new to them, dictated by an instrument placed out of sight or from the voice "vocalizing," they will all declare that the thing is impossible.