Young man of the 'Cider
Cellars' and Piccadilly saloons; the valiant dove-slayer, the
park-lounger, the young lady's young man - who puts his hat
into mourning, and turns up his trousers because - because
the other young man does ditto, ditto.
I had a share in the Guards' omnibus box at Covent Garden,
with the privilege attached of going behind the scenes. Ah!
that was a real pleasure. To listen night after night to
Grisi and Mario, Alboni and Lablache, Viardot and Ronconi,
Persiani and Tamburini, - and Jenny Lind too, though she was
at the other house. And what an orchestra was Costa's - with
Sainton leader, and Lindley and old Dragonetti, who together
but alone, accompanied the RECITATIVE with their harmonious
chords on 'cello and double-bass. Is singing a lost art? Or
is that but a TEMPORIS ACTI question? We who heard those now
silent voices fancy there are none to match them nowadays.
Certainly there are no dancers like Taglioni, and Cerito, and
Fanny Elsler, and Carlotta Grisi.
After the opera and the ball, one finished the night at
Vauxhall or Ranelagh; then as gay, and exactly the same, as
they were when Miss Becky Sharpe and fat Jos supped there
only five-and-thirty years before.
Except at the Opera, and the Philharmonic, and Exeter Hall,
one rarely heard good music. Monsieur Jullien, that prince
of musical mountebanks - the 'Prince of Waterloo,' as John
Ella called him, was the first to popularise classical music
at his promenade concerts, by tentatively introducing a
single movement of a symphony here and there in the programme
of his quadrilles and waltzes and music-hall songs.
Mr. Ella, too, furthered the movement with his Musical Union
and quartett parties at Willis's Rooms, where Sainton and
Cooper led alternately, and the incomparable Piatti and Hill
made up the four. Here Ernst, Sivori, Vieuxtemps, and
Bottesini, and Mesdames Schumann, Dulcken, Arabella Goddard,
and all the famous virtuosi played their solos.
Great was the stimulus thus given by Ella's energy and
enthusiasm. As a proof of what he had to contend with, and
what he triumphed over, Halle's 'Life' may be quoted, where
it says: 'When Mr. Ella asked me [this was in 1848] what I
wished to play, and heard that it was one of Beethoven's
pianoforte sonatas, he exclaimed "Impossible!" and
endeavoured to demonstrate that they were not works to be
played in public.' What seven-league boots the world has
stridden in within the memory of living men!
John Ella himself led the second violins in Costa's band, and
had begun life (so I have been told) as a pastry-cook. I
knew both him and the wonderful little Frenchman 'at home.'
According to both, in their different ways, Beethoven and
Mozart would have been lost to fame but for their heroic
efforts to save them.
