Up North, heaven is eating black pudding to the sound of tubas
Pliny says, ‘When our ears do glow and tingle, some do talk of us in our absence.’ This is a very ancient superstition, found at all periods and in all societies. Sir Thomas Browne says that ear tingling is produced by our guardian angel, who alerts the right ear if the talk about us is favourable, the left ear if malicious. The version I was taught as a child, by a nun, was that a ringing in the ears was a plea from a soul in purgatory, who was finding the suffering unbearable and wanted prayers from you to mitigate it. But in the Old Testament the child Samuel is told by the Lord, ‘Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of everyone that heareth it shall tingle.’ Chapter Three of the First Book of Samuel is entirely about hearing. According to the author, at this point God ceased to appear physically but merely spoke, ‘And the word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no open vision.’ The Lord did a lot of talking at this stage of the biblical narrative. What kind of a voice did he have? The First Book of Kings insists it was not roaring or thundery, as one might expect. It did not sound like an earthquake or a tremendous wind or firestorm. It was in ‘a still, small voice’ that He spoke to Elijah. Voices are much in my mind at the moment, for I am having trouble with my hearing, and I notice which kinds of voices are easier to understand. Still, small voices work much better than booming and shouting. Chatham was most effective in Parliament when he spoke quietly, and so of course was his son. Palmerston had a quiet voice. Bismarck’s was ‘soft and high’. Bonaparte impressed most when he spoke quietly, slowly and distinctly. When he raged and shouted, as he did at the British ambassador in 1803, or against Talleyrand, calling him merde dans un bas de soie, he made a fool of himself.
A general should never shout — that is a role for NCOs. I doubt if Wellington ever raised his voice, unless there was a strong wind. Monty was soft-spoken. It is true Alanbrooke had a loud voice: it is well described by Anthony Powell in his chapter about the War Office in The Military Philosophers. But then he was not a battle commander. When I was in the army I despised senior officers who shouted on parade or bawled people out — a sure sign they did not know how to delegate. A good example of this principle was Hitler, always least impressive when shouting. Caesar and Alexander never shouted. I often tell editors not to shout. It is never necessary and is always counterproductive, especially with women. A journalist who has been shouted at by his or her editor is useless for the rest of the day. Note to proprietors: much-shouting editors should be eased out at the earliest opportunity. I am tempted to say that this dictum also applies to actors, but I must admit that Laurence Olivier was a good shouter, though he only used his shouting volume and octave once or twice in a performance.
From early times there seems to have been a feeling among religious aesthetes that vocal noise and profundity were unpleasing, and that beauty of sound was confined largely to the higher registers, kept strictly under control. Isidor of Seville (559–636) was contemptuous of what we would call bass voices. ‘In fat voices, as those of men, much breath is emitted at one,’ he wrote, adding ‘the perfect voice is high, sweet and loud,’ but by loud he meant piercing, so characteristic of a fine treble or tenor. Low-pitch singing was not held in high regard (except in the Russian Orthodox Church), and there was even disagreement about the origin of the word ‘bass’ — did it come from mediaeval Latin bassus or ‘low’, or from the Greek basis or ‘fundamental’? A bass voice, like a bassoon, was often used for funny bits or characters, or the two were used in combination. The basso buffo was a stock element in early opera, and remained so into the 20th century. It is inevitable, for instance, that Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier should be a bass. Alternatively, the bass was a villain. In early cantatas and oratorios the bass was usually a bad man in a fury. There was a special type of song called a ‘rage aria’, in which someone like Nero or Lucifer or Herod gave vent to his anger. There was a special way of singing these rage arias, gulping for breath and stammering before each new note, which added a comic dimension to the portrayal of wickedness and lent itself to parody. This was Handel’s aim, I think, in writing his splendid ‘Why do the nations so furiously rage together?’ in the Messiah, and his caricature song ‘O ruddier than the cherry’ in Acis and Galatea, much beloved of amateur basses at charity concerts.
Abrupt low sounds are funny because they resemble farting, which gave rise to the first joke, once the rise of gentility made joking feasible. Even funnier than bassoons, the original bass voice in the orchestra, are tubas, which date from the early 19th century. Tubas are funny not merely because of the noises they make but also because of their actual appearance, and the shape and physiognomies of the people who play them — a point whose comic possibilities were splendidly explored by the artist Gerard Hoffnung. Once the tuba escaped from the military band and reared its snout in the back ranks of the orchestra, instrumentmakers competed to produce monsters with exceptionally low notes. That genius Adolph Sax invented two giant saxhornbourdons as he called them, and Gustave Besson made a tuba, called a Trombotonar, which was nine feet tall.
I love the nomenclature of these big, brassy, foul-mouthed doom-sounders. Some names strike an optimistic note: the euphonium, the helicon, the ophicleide. Others stress the pessimism or aggressive note of orchestral hellfire. Thus we have the bombardon, with its valve system aptly known as a Berliner-pumpe, the flicorno basso or basso-grave, the bassetuba, the ophicleide-monstre and the subcontratromotar. Wagner was a great tuba man for his giant scoundrels, and Berlioz and Gounod for devil-music. Greatest of all was RimskyKorsakov, who had been inspector-in-chief of Russian naval bands, and insisted they hit lower and lower (and louder) notes. As George Formby said, parodying Sydney Smith, ‘My idea of heaven is eating black pudding to the sound of tubas.’
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