Unquiet Wedding
It% H. II. CIBBON WE used to go in cloth caps or bowlers ; we ate ham- sandwiches (the death of many a pig has borne secret reference to a wedding impending in the family); we drank a sufficiency of beer, and toasted the happy couple in two synthetic wines, two colours w ith but a single taste. Choral weddings were rarities then ; now they are almost endemic. -They add much to the organist's responsibilities and something to his income. The first impact comes upon the rector. He is interviewed by two young people. Their intention is to take the parish church as their theatre for the day and to put on a show. The rector modifies these sanguine ambitions, and leads them to a discussion of details. For instance, which psalm and what hymn ? The rector notices that the " olive branch " psalm invariably is discarded. The selection of the hymn or hymns is left (if the rector can work it) to the organist. The bridegroom has suggested " Abide with me." (He is nervous, can recollect no other, but feels that he must do some of the talking.) The rector pontifically demurs in terms which have become stereotyped. " The opening words," he says, " arc indeed appropriate to a suggestion of matrimonial faithfulness, but the rest of the hymn is conceived on a totally different basis."
Usually we compromise upon "Through all the changing scenes of life." This is a hymn not excessively optimistic and yet far from being a wet blanket. Moreover, it is popular with the choir. In the third line of each verse (we sing it to Sir George Smart's tune) the basses have a churning figure which evokes their pleasant recol- lections of a sugar-beet factory working at full pressure. While the basses are happily 'churning, the tenors mount up to a note which for a hymn is unusually high. Having arrived there the cantoris tenors, who are rather a better pair than their antagonists of the decani side, are disposed to dwell a while. They look round as if from a place of wide prospect to mark whether their opposite numbers have achieved the same altitude. If not, how far are they down the slope ? This is deplorable exhibitionism. One pushes them on with the diapasons and frowns grimly at their self-satisfied faces reflected in the mirror. But there I Tenors will be tenors ! The organist disciplines himself to hold prayerfully and meekly to what he has got. If he gets tough and atomic he may find that they walk out on him and leave him flat.
Music has to be played before the wedding in order that the congregational buzz of conversation may be sufficiently supported. When the bridegroom arrives he will probably need something to stiffen him. For this purpose a Trumpet Voluntary is as good as anything else. Brides new run to schedule. They arrive late. A lady-organist who has not a very large repertoire found herself playing her one voluntary for the eleventh time when at last the desired entry eventuated.
Wedding receptions used to be humble affairs held in the front room with an overflow meeting in the kitchen. We sat on everything that could be sat on, including the floor, and leaned against what was left. It was exceptional, and a cause for comment, if daring people ventured to hire the parish room. Since then sophistication has come in like a flood. We employ a caterer, and ask the rector to let us put up a marquee on his lawn. For this he makes a low charge, but he has shown more business acumen in the matter of his top-hats. He hires them out, and the rector's toppers are quite a good market. There are three of them—two the rector's own, the third an inheritance from his father. Though antiques, they have yet to beco- museum pieces, and having led secluded lives, each in its own ph...-lined hat-box, they retain their beauty of line and do not refuse to shine. The craftsman who made them was interested in his employment. If he did not already wear he hoped to wear a top-hat some day. Meanwhile he was putting his heart into the making of them.
Worn by the bridegroom, the best man and the bride's father, they imbue onlookers with a sense of costliness and restrained opulence. It is immensely to the general profit that they are of large sizes. The rector has a big head , his father had a bigger one. Hence their catholicity of application. For a hat that is too small for its would-be occupant nothing can be done. He must remain outside it. Whereas a hat liberally conceived, and in its natural state too large for the wearer, can be modified by a sufficient intrusion of folded blotting-paper and made wearable by heads of standard size or thereabouts. The rector's hats, fitting nobody in particular, meet with acceptance from everybody in general.
An alternative and less satisfactory method is to hire hats from the local undertaker. These are professional top-hats, and it's always understood that if the dates clash the funeral must be given priority. Not infrequently a hirer has found them too small for him. Then he has had to fall back on his bowler. However, when they appear at a wedding, we look upon them with kindly eyes, for we feel that undertakers' hats have to resign themselves to depressing condi- tions, and it must be nice for them to get what Americans call " a break " sometimes. They have thcir festive day. At funerals it is otherwise. There we see them in three manifestations. First they appear upon the heads of the undertaker and his men walking professionally. Later, while their wearers are bare-headed to do their office, the hats are seen reposing brim-downwards upon the grass, where they look like a small black Stonehenge or the outcrop of an extraordinary fungus. Finally, they appear once more upon the heads of their owners who are now being driven away, packed together in a mood of relaxation and the hearse.
But this is a wedding scene. We are in church. The service is over. Legalities are being transacted in the vestry. The organist fills the awkward pause with soft music. The congregation is sitting back. Discipline has somewhat disintegrated. At last the registers have been signed. The smacking of vestry kisses dies away. A secret signal informs the organist that the happy pair are on the move. With the tuba if he has one, or his best imitation if he has not, he begins the fanfare to the Wedding March.
There has not been any ante-post betting, but, if there had been, the money would have been all on the Mendelssohn specimen. The odds against any other might be about forty to one. The organist who breaks away from the tradition runs a grievous risk. He may tell himself that everybody will be staring at the bride, or else pelting her with confetti ; and that, whatever march he plays, it will be sound without meaning to an audience preoccupied. And so, in a rash and dangerous moment, he plays something that is not Mendelssohn, is detected and imperils his fee. The rector relates —and we look at him with wonder and respectful doubt as he does so—that he arranged to have Parry's Bridal March played at his own wedding twenty years ago. No unpleasant after-effects appear to have supervened. Nevertheless, that must have been a moment of high adventure for the rector. Perhaps it drained him of temerarious cravings so that he lives contentedly among us here, where his ways are ways of pleasantness though not all his paths are peace. How- ever, we stick to the tradition and go on grimly playing Mendels- sohn's delightful march. The organ pretends to be an orchestra, and does its best to perform agreeably in a medium not its own. But what does a fish's best amount to when it is out of water ?
Salute the organ respectfully and think charitably of its efforts. For the wonder is not that it does it so well, but that—like Dr. Johnson's dog walking on its hind legs—it does it at alL
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