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A part-song followed from eight of the best girls in the singing class, among whom was Avis, who had a remarkably sweet voice, and whose high notes were as clear as a bell. Phyllis Chambers and Marjory Gregson acted a dialogue in German, some of the most advanced French scholars gave a scene from Les Femmes Savantes, and Enid recited the famous soliloquy from Hamlet, which was much applauded.
It is a dreamy, tender work on a theme by "B.J.L.," which refers, I presume, to Mr. B.J. Lang. Chadwick has done a vast amount of part-song writing. His "Lovely Rosabelle" is for chorus and orchestra, and is marked with many original effects. His "Reiterlied" is superbly joyful. A setting of Lewis Carroll's immortal "Jabberwocky" shows much rich humor of the college glee-club sort.
These parties last all night or near it. It needs darkness to give the wild part-song its full effect, and to inspire the drummers to produce a voice of awe from the muttering tom-toms. They work up slowly. During a pause in the singing, while the drummer held his stick-kettle over the fire to contract the skin, some one asked Jeresis if he had seen Bela's white man.
Her "No" was set to counterpoint in the part-song, and she frightened Love out of her sight in a ballet. Those occupations are gone, and the lovely Elizabethan has slipped away. She was something less than mortal. But she who was more than mortal was mortal too. This was no lady of the unanimous lyrists, but a rare visitant unknown to these exquisite little talents.
In a ragged school in the neighborhood of Posen where the children could hardly speak German they could sing; in a public school in Charlottenburg fifty boys, aged between eight and fifteen, sang the part-song known to every college man in America, "On a Bank Two Roses Grew," as well as a college glee club; those who know Bayreuth, or have attended a musical festival, or listened to one of the great clubs of male voices, or heard the orchestras and military bands, will not deny the delights of music in Germany.
The music which it played differed in no essential respect from that intended for singing; indeed the part-song was often arranged without alteration for instruments, and so instrumental technique grew out of vocal technique, but and this is important retaining important rhythmic characteristics from the dance.
They were listening to a Mexican part-song; the tenor, then the soprano, then both together; the barytone joins them, rages, is extinguished; the tenor expires in sobs, and the soprano finishes alone. When the soprano's last note died away, Fritz nodded to his wife. "JA," he said; "SCHON." There was silence for a few moments.
By the end of the five minutes all the papers were folded and passed back to Miss Rowe, who retired with Miss Hall to count them, while the singing class filled in the time with another part-song. There was much excitement when the two teachers returned, and handed the result to Miss Lincoln and to Lady Carston. The latter rose at once.
The poem written by the historical Sachs is itself beautiful, and Wagner has made it immortal; only he at his ripest and best could combine in an opera-chorus such strength with such sweetness, combine the directness of a part-song with the free play of parts, with never a touch of formalism.
What would we not have given for an invitation to pass a time, as Miss Muloch was, in one of those Thames monsters concerning which she wrote her fascinating pages, "A Week in a House-Boat"! We could scarce catch a glimpse of the river upon our tramps and it was our constant silvery accompaniment, as the treble to a part-song without coming across these ungraceful, unwieldy creatures, seeming like bloated denizens of depths below come to bask upon the surface.