Charles Dickens and Music | Page 5

it, and I'm a marked man. I went out for

a little walk this morning after shaving, and while I
was gone'--he fell

into a terrible perspiration as he
told it--'they burst into my bedroom,
tore up my sheets, and are now patrolling the town in all directions with

bits of 'em in their button-holes.' I needn't wind
up by adding that
they had gone to the wrong chamber.
It was Dickens' habit wherever he went on his Continental
travels to
avail himself of any opportunity of visiting the opera; and his criticisms,
though brief, are always to the
point. He tells us this interesting fact
about Carrara:
There is a beautiful little theatre there, built of
marble, and they had it
illuminated that night in my
honour. There was really a very fair
opera, but it is
curious that the chorus has been always, time out of

mind, made up of labourers in the quarries, who don't
know a note of
music, and sing entirely by ear.
But much as he loved music, Dickens could never bear the
least
sound or noise while he was studying or writing, and
he ever waged a
fierce war against church bells and itinerant musicians. Even when in
Scotland his troubles did not cease, for he writes about 'a most infernal
piper practising under the window for a competition of pipers which is
to come off shortly.' Elsewhere he says that he found Dover 'too bandy'
for him (he carefully explains he does not refer to its legs), while in a
letter to Forster he complains bitterly of the
vagrant musicians at
Broadstairs, where he 'cannot write half an hour without the most
excruciating organs, fiddles, bells, or glee singers.' The barrel-organ,
which he somewhere calls an 'Italian box of music,' was one source of
annoyance, but bells were his special aversion. 'If you know anybody at
St. Paul's,' he wrote to Forster, 'I wish you'd send round and ask them
not to ring the bell so. I can hardly hear my own ideas as they come
into my head, and say what they mean.' His bell experiences at Genoa
are referred to elsewhere (p. 57).
How marvellously observant he was is manifest in the numerous
references in his letters and works to the music he heard in the streets
and squares of London and other places. Here is a description of

Golden Square, London, W. (N.N.):
Two or three violins and a wind instrument from
the Opera band
reside within its precincts. Its
boarding-houses are musical, and the
notes of pianos
and harps float in the evening time round the head of

the mournful statue, the guardian genius of the little
wilderness of
shrubs, in the centre of the square....
Sounds of gruff voices practising
vocal music invade
the evening's silence, and the fumes of choice
tobacco
scent the air. There, snuff and cigars and German
pipes and
flutes, and violins and violoncellos, divide
the supremacy between
them. It is the region of song
and smoke. Street bands are on their
mettle in Golden
Square, and itinerant glee singers quaver
involuntarily as they raise their voices within its boundaries.
We have another picture in the description of Dombey's house, where--
the summer sun was never on the street but in the
morning, about
breakfast-time.... It was soon gone
again, to return no more that day,
and the bands of
music and the straggling Punch's shows going after

it left it a prey to the most dismal of organs and
white mice.
As a Singer
Most of the writers about Dickens, and especially his personal friends,
bear testimony both to his vocal power and his love of songs and
singing. As a small boy we read of him and his sister Fanny standing
on a table singing songs, and acting them as they sang. One of his
favourite recitations was Dr. Watts' 'The voice of the sluggard,' which
he used to give with great effect. The memory of these words lingered
long in his mind, and both Captain Cuttle and Mr. Pecksniff quote them
with
excellent appropriateness.
When he grew up he retained his love of vocal music, and showed a
strong predilection for national airs and old songs. Moore's Irish
Melodies had also a special attraction for him. In
the early days of his
readings his voice frequently used to fail him, and Mr. Kitton tells us

that in trying to recover the lost power he would test it by singing these
melodies to himself as he walked about. It is not surprising, therefore,
to find numerous references to these songs, as well as to
other works
by Moore, in his writings.
From a humorous account of a concert on board ship we gather that
Dickens possessed a tenor voice. Writing to his daughter from Boston
in 1867, he says:
We had speech-making and singing in the saloon of the
Cuba after
the last dinner of the voyage. I think I
have acquired a higher
reputation from drawing out the
captain, and getting