Street cries of the world

This article was originally published in the Musical Times of April 1st, 1920.

A BIT OF OLD LONDON LIFE

AS a rule we look to old books and pictures to give us authentic glimpses of past times. Only rarely does music help us, and even then such help is usually indirect. The art was merely groping its way towards expression at a period when writers and painters could set down in unmistakable terms the things they saw. There is, however, one feature of old London life that only music can reconstruct for us. Writers have told us of the street cries: painters have given us pictures of hawkers crying their wares: it is left to the musician to show us the fragments of tunes to which the cries were sung.

Few are in use to-day. Like the old signs, they have largely disappeared as the need for them ceased. Some among us who live in what are known as ‘select neighbourhoods’ even put up minatory notices warning the hawker that if he must needs peddle in ‘Our Street,’ he must peddle silently. But it is easy to imagine the importance of street cries in days when Few of the population could read, and when the retail merchant pushed his shop and stock-in-trade before him on a barrow, or carried it on his head, it is not surprising that old composers should have been interested in these cries: the surprising thing is that only lately have we been able to see the practical result of such interest. As is now well known, Sir Frederick Bridge recently discovered manuscripts of Weelkes, Gibbons, and Deering, in which street cries were worked into a kind of choral fantasy, or ‘fancy,’ as the form was called. Sir Frederick has lectured on his discovery, and our readers will remember that a résumé of one of these lectures appeared in the Musical Times for February. The works have now been published by Messrs. NovelIo, as Nos. 1343, 1344, and 1345 of their Part-Song Book.

The first is by Weelkes, and in its original form was for a single voice with viol accompaniment. Sir Frederick suggests that different voices may be used for the sake of variety, and also to give more point to the various cries. He has made the work suitable for choral performance by arranging three sections for S.A.T.B., adapting the composer’s viol harmony. The Gibbons specimen is more elaborate, and consists of a fragment of plainsong given to the third viol, round which the other viols weave counterpoint, while the chorus delivers the various cries, sometimes singly, sometimes in combination. The ‘fancy’ is in two parts, the first ending with a brief five-part setting of the words, ‘And so wee make an end,’ the second with the Watchman’s cry’, ‘Twelve o’clocke, looke well to your locke, your fier, and your light, and so good-night.’ There is far more scope for choralists than might be imagined, great contrasts in the way of tone-colour being possible. There is a world of difference, for example, between the pathetic begging of the Bedlamites and the strident bass ‘Oyez! if any man or woman can tell any tydyngs of a gray mare, with a long mane and a short tayle, she halts downe right before, and is starke lame behind, and was lost this thirtieth day of February. He that can tell any tydyngs of her let him come to the Cryer and he shall have well for his hier.’ The song ‘Swepe, chimney swepe’ is a delightful tune of sixteen bars.

Good as is the Gibbons ‘fancy,’ that of Deering is even better. It contains a good many cries not used by Weelkes and Gibbons, and the purely musical interest is perhaps greater. The chimney sweep’s song is here given to soprano and tenor, a reminder that the sweep was always accompanied by a small boy. The grey mare is again cried, though in this case she is far more afflicted, being blind, minus one leg, and ‘with a great hole in her ear.’ In those days, apparently, sufferers from toothache did not pay a visit to the dentist, nor was the practitioner dignified by such a title. There was only one cure, and that was drastic: no such compromises as ‘stopping.’ The victim waited till he heard the cry ‘Touch and goe! Touch and goe ! Ha’ ye work for Kindheart the toothdrawer? Touch and goe! Touch and goe!’—on which (unless the pain mysteriously ceased) he went and was touched and touched to some purpose, we may be sure, in spite of the artist’s ingratiating name.

It will be seen that these ‘fancies’ have more than a merely antiquarian interest. They are genuine slices of life, grave and gay by turn, and thoroughly characteristic of our race in their blending of the serious and the nonsensical. There can be no doubt that singers and audiences will revel in them.