Mr. Punch's History of Modern England (Vol. 1-4). Charles L. Graves
a curt notice headed "NOT a Magic Minstrel":—
Herr Wagner, Professor of the "Music of the Future," appears, in conducting at the Philharmonic, to have made strange work with the music of all time. He alters Mozart, it appears, if not exactly as a parish clerk once said that he had altered Haydn for the singing gallery, yet in a manner nearly as audacious, altering "allegro" to "moderato"; "andante" to "adagio"; "allegretto" to "andante"; and "allegro" again to "prestissimo." Wagner would seem strongly to resemble his namesake in Faust, in the particular wherein that Wagner differs from his master—that is, in the circumstance of being no conjuror.
The sudden disappearance of that Italianized Westphalian, the fiery Cruvelli, was a nine days' wonder in the operatic world in 1854 and is duly chronicled in Punch. Towards the end of this period Piccolomini, a singer of small calibre but attractive personality, achieved great popularity in the rôle of the consumptive heroine of La Traviata, and Punch celebrated the craze of "Piccolomania," as he called it, in the following travesty:—
Art is long and time is fleeting,
But of genius the soul,
Ordinary talent beating,
Reaches at one stride the goal.
In the operatic battle,
In the Prima Donna's life
Quit the herd—the vocal cattle,
Be a Grisi in the strife.
Trust no promise, howe'er pleasant,
Not who may be, but who are;
Piccolomini at present,
Is the bright particular star.
JULLIEN'S DESPAIR
Jullien
Outside the opera houses, music in the period under review in this volume may be said to begin and end with Jullien, so far as Punch is concerned. Jullien is roughly handled in the very first number of Punch. In the autumn of 1857 satire has given place to affection and generous recognition. And Punch was right, for underneath all his superficial buffooneries Jullien was a great educator and reformer. The present writer vividly remembers an anecdote told him by the late Sir Charles Hallé in the 'eighties. After giving a description of Jullien's flamboyant attire—on one occasion he wore a shirt front embroidered with a picture of a nymph playing a flute under a palm tree—and his habit, after performing a solo on his golden piccolo, of flinging himself with a beau geste of exhaustion into a gorgeously upholstered armchair, Sir Charles Hallé went on to recall how Jullien had once said to him: "To succeed in music in England, one must be either a great genius like you, or a great charlatan like me." Now Jullien had been a failure as a student at the Paris Conservatoire—but so had Verdi at Milan. But there is no warrant whatever for Punch's statement that he was "a ci-devant waiter of a quarante-sous traiteur." Of the charlatan side of Jullien, the love of noise and, again to quote Carlyle, of the "explosion of all the upholsteries," Punch gives a graphic if severe picture in the verses which appear in his first number:—
MONSIEUR JULLIEN
"One!"—crash!
"Two!"—clash!
"Three!"—dash!
"Four!"—smash!
Diminuendo,
Now crescendo:—
Thus play the furious band,
Led by the kid-gloved hand
Of Jullien—that Napoleon of quadrille,
Of Piccolo-nians shrillest of the shrill;
Perspiring raver
Over a semi-quaver;
Who tunes his pipes so well, he'll tell you that
The natural key of Johnny Bull's—A flat.
Demon of discord, with moustaches cloven—
Arch-impudent improver of Beethoven—
Tricksy Professor of charlatanerie—
Inventor of musical artillery—
Barbarous rain and thunder maker—
Unconscionable money taker—
Travelling about both near and far,
Toll to exact at every bar,
What brings thee here again
To desecrate old Drury's fane?
Egregious attitudiniser!
Antic fifer! com'st to advise her
'Gainst intellect and sense to close her walls?
To raze her benches,
That Gallic wenches
Might play their brazen antics at masked balls?
"GENTS" AT THE PROMENADE CONCERT
Early Promenade Concerts
But when Punch assails Jullien for leaving his "stew-pans and meat-oven To make a fricassee of the great Beet-hoven" and "saucily serve Mozart with sauce-piquant," and bids him "put your hat on, coupez votre bâton, Bah, Va!!!"—Punch was both rude and ungenerous. From the very first at his Concerts d'Eté and then at the Promenade Concerts, Jullien was a popularizer of good music. He gave his public waltzes, "Row Polkas," and explosive Army Quadrilles, but he also sandwiched Beethoven and Mozart between the coarser viands of his musical menu. So while he was credited with the intention of bringing out Stabat Mater waltzes—by no means a difficult feat with Rossini's work—and a Dead March gallopade, we must never forget that he was the first conductor to introduce symphonic music to the masses and the authentic pioneer of the movement which Sir Henry Wood has carried on at the Queen's Hall for the last twenty years and more. Modern music strikes heavily on the naked ear, but Jullien was in the habit of reinforcing instruments of percussion with explosives, and Punch suggests in 1849 that his Concerts Monstres should be held on Salisbury Plain to give elbow room for his "stunning performances." His chevelure, his waistcoats and waistbands were too conspicuous to escape Punch's vigilant eye, and Jullien was no doubt content that it should be so, for he was a master of the art of réclame. He is habitually alluded to as "the Mons," primarily as the diminutive for "Monsieur," but mainly because he was "the Mont Blanc of Music." The excesses of Jazz Bands of to-day are foreshadowed in a description of the "tongs and bones" music at the Promenade Concerts. But the author of the notice of Jullien32 in the D.N.B. conveys a wrong impression when he speaks of Punch as only ridiculing Jullien. Already Punch had learned to recognize his merits, and, while rebuking him for his extravagant conducting of flashy and trashy pieces, renders homage to his reverence for good music. Thenceforward the references to "the Mons" are in the main friendly. The Almanack for 1852 speaks of the "Julian (Jullien) Era" in music. Jullien's opera Peter the Great is tenderly handled in the autumn of the same year, and, when he set out for his tour in the States, Punch sped the parting minstrel in some verses which are an admirable and faithful summary of his services to musical education in England:—
FAREWELL TO JULLIEN
Composer of Peter the Great,
Ere over Atlantic's broad swell
The steamer shall carry thee, proud of her freight,
Let me bid thee a hearty farewell.
With