BOOKS.
MR. SANTLEY'S REMINISCENCES.*
THAT Mr. Santley should have been importuned by his friends to write his reminiscences is natural enough ; that he should have succumbed to their solicitations need excite no surprise, in an age when men write their reminiscences before they have reached middle age. The only wonder in the matter is that he should have acquitted himself of this task—plenum opus aleu—in a manner at once so straightforward and judicious. Had he so willed it, the book might have been twice as amusing. Few men have had more favourable opportunities for studying the vagaries and caprices of that genus irritabile, the public singer, than the great baritone who has sung with Viardot, Garcia, Alboni, Ronconi, and Mario, and, after five-and-thirty years' uninterrupted work, is still in the active pursuit of his profession. It is therefore highly to his credit that his anecdotes, almost without excep- tion, are of a harmless or kindly nature. But the book is a great deal more than a mere budget of good stories. It gives a vivid picture of the aspirations and early struggles of the author, sets forth clearly and candidly the formative in- fluences which have moulded his artistic individuality, and reveals in an interesting fashion his views on the responsi- bilities, the opportunities, and the trials of the career which he adopted.
Mr. Santley has been for so many years one of the stars of the musical world, that it is difficult to realise that his path to fame was a case of per aspera ad astra. He inherited musical talent from both his parents, bat the inheritance was part and parcel of a very nervous and sensitive temperament. He longed to be an actor from the first, and yet suffered agonies of fright when called upon to recite or act at school. He was ambitious, but the local musical authorities were slow to recognise his talent. His family harboured strong Puritanical objections to the stage, and when domestic oppo- sition was overcome, there remained the serious question of finance. Here we may observe that it was through the friendly interposition of an instrumentalist, the late Herr Joseph Lidel, that Mr. Santley's dearest wish was gratified. He had become, to quote his words, "a book-keeper in a branch of the most extensive leather and hide factor in the world." And yet, so far was he from thinking there was nothing like leather, that with a light heart he refused the offer of a doubled salary, and, having saved £30 and cleared £18 more by a farewell concert, set off for Milan in 1855. Here he studied for two years under Gaetano Nava, mastered that excellent teacher's method, and was waiting, Micawber-like, for engagements to turn up, when Henry Chorley persuaded him to return to England. In that able but angular critic, Mr. Santley found a true friend. Chorley introduced his protégé to Hullah and Costa, and, after one or two rebuffs, engagements began to flow steadily in. His fond desire to appear on the boards was soon gratified, and, after serving an arduous apprenticeship in English opera—in the years 1859-63 the season lasted about five months, and he sang on an average a hundred and ten times in each—he migrated to the Italian opera, and sang for nine seasons in the palmy days of Tietjens, Patti, Nilsson, Trebelli, Giuglini, and other luminaries. At the height of his operatic reputation he quitted Italian, in the hope of establishing a permanent home for English opera • Student and Singer: the Reminiscences of Charles Santley. London: Edward Arno d. at the Gaiety Theatre. The venture proved disastrous, and Mr. Santley then and there decided to devote the rest of his career to the concert platform. This resolve, with the exception of one important engagement with the Carl Rosa Company in 1875, he has since kept. How deeply he felt this abandonment of the stage will be apparent from the fol- lowing passage, which will come as a curious surprise to the present generation of concert-goers :—" It grieved me deeply to abandon all my cherished hopes and the object of my whole life's ambition,—the stage. I had one small solace, the oratorio, for in those days there was a society where oratorios were performed in a way worthy of the great composers who wrote them." We make bold to say that the spell which Mr. Santley exerted on his hearers from the stage was never comparable, even in his prime, to the intense im- pression left, even at the present day, by his singing in the Elijah. This sense of bitter disappointment, to which he gives vent more than once, comes with a somewhat ill grace from a singer who has enjoyed a longer run of uninter- rupted success than any of his contemporaries. And the strange thing about it is that, on his own showing, he has no one but himself to blame for his abandonment of the stage. It was, he frankly tells us, his own obstinacy and vanity which induced him to sever his connection with the Italian Opera Company, and embark on an enterprise foredoomed to failure by the inadequacy of its resources and its repertoire. This is, however, almost the only jarring note in the book. He records his suc- cesses modestly, and severely criticises the errors in judgment and flaws in execution which marked his career. Thus he admits that one part is ill-suited to his voice, or that he has never satisfied himself in another. On one page he records a severe lesson given him by Jenny Lind ; on another he tells how an old stage-manager brought home to him the folly of playing the fool at rehearsals. A stern critic of himself, he shows in the main admirable judgment in his " appreciations " of his operatic colleagues. We doubt whether any tenor could have brought himself to say, as Mr. Santley does, that Viardot Garcia and Ronconi were the two greatest singers he ever heard, after expressly declaring that they were both lacking in sensuous charm of voice and physical good- looks. When it comes to criticising composers, Mr. Sant- ley's adoption of the rigidly vocal standpoint renders him a less satisfactory guide. For example, one would gather from these memoirs that he rated Vincent Wallace above Gluck, whom he pronounces tedious, ascribing the success of recent revivals to the merit of the interpreters rather than of the music itself. In fine, Mr. Santley tests all music by the standard of the bel canto, and though infinitely more catholic and advanced in his tastes than M. Sims Reeves—to judge from an interview with that illustrious artist, recently published in a leading daily paper—he is still, like every great artist that ever lived, somewhat out of touch with the leading creative intelligence of his age. So far as sheer musicianship goes, this volume proves him to be—what attentive hearers already guessed—infinitely better equipped than the majority of public singers. Not only did he obtain in his youth a familiarity with both piano and organ, but he was also a good enough player to lead the second violins in an amateur orchestra. Reading at sight he mastered so com- pletely, that he was tempted, so he tells us, to abuse his powers in this direction.
The title of the book is well chosen, for Mr. Santley has re- mained a student all his life, and now, when little short of sixty, blinds his hearers—as an Irishman would say—to the waning charm and freshness of his voice, by the unabated fervour and the unimpaired art which he brings to bear on his perform- ances. It is this same temperament of his which gives to this book a charm rarely found in the reminiscences of singers. As a rule, they take very little interest in anything save their throats and their digestions. But here is an artist who, though making no pretence to any literary culture, has read and enjoyed a good many of the English and Italian classics, who has a soul for scenery, and a love of exercise. It is pleasant to think that the breed of modern musicians, in one respect, takes after Mr. Santley,—they are decidedly more manly, and more many-sided, than their predecessors ; and the good example set by the author of these reminiscences has been, if we are not much mistaken, a potent factor in effecting this change.
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