Chapter IV (3)

"They were very happy days at the Abbey," continued Mr. Lloyd. "I served as a probationer for twelve months, and was then entered as a full chorister. After a few years, I became one of the first four, until at last I was promoted to head boy. As a chorister I sang at the funeral of the eminent engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and wore the old-fashioned black scarf and black gloves. Even in those early days I got quite a number of engagements; we used to be paid three or four guineas for the week's singing at the Handel Festival at the Crystal Palace, but when I became one of the chosen four boys, Mr. Turle, who had the musical arrangements associated with big City dinners, frequently selected me to sing at a guinea and sometimes two guineas a night at the banquets given by such City companies as the Ironmongers', Merchant Taylors', Goldsmiths', Vintners', etc., where boys in those days always sang the soprano parts in the glees and part-songs. The Dean, however, put a stop to it on account of our health, as it kept us out very late; still, Dean Trench was always very kind to us, and in the evenings would frequently invite us to the Deanery to play at bob apple. You know the game! An apple is suspended on a string and is set in motion, your hands are tied behind your back, and you try to bite the apple. The Dean was as merry as any of us, and revelled in securing as big an apple as possible."

"And did you ever bite the apple, Mr. Lloyd?" I asked.

"No," he replied, merrily; "my mouth was not large enough! I must not forget Dr. Wordsworth, who was a canon in my time at the Cathedral. My great recollection of him is that, when he was in office as canon, he used to preach for an hour, and sometimes longer. It was the privilege of a senior boy to repair to his house in the cloisters, and, together with his companion choristers, to stand round a table and be catechized for one hour after the service. In those early days, I fear that I did not appreciate this privilege!

_From a Painting._]

"I sang at the wedding of the Princess Royal, at the Chapel Royal, St. James's. I sat in the gallery, and in my memory can almost hear now Mr. Harper, the great trumpeter, 'heralding' the wedding party. I met many choir boys who have since become famous. In those early days Sir John Stainer was then a senior boy at St. Paul's, and we frequently met at the rooms of the old Madrigal Society, in Lyle Street--let to them by the Royal Society of Musicians--where, for our singing, we were rewarded with a glass of port, a buttered biscuit, and two shillings. The two shillings were invariably spent before I got home. I also met Sir Arthur Sullivan and Alfred Cellier at cricket. The boys of the Chapel Royal and St. Paul's and Westminster frequently tried their powers with the bat and ball against one another; Sullivan was my elder. Cellier was always the life and soul of the game of cricket: a thorough good fellow, although he did bowl me out once.

"Still, I am happy to place on record the important historical fact that the Westminster boys invariably won."

Although Mr. Lloyd's voice may be said to have never really broken, at fifteen years of age he left the Abbey and went to a school in Southwark, where, after remaining for twelve months, he went to his mother's, at Cheltenham. He had said good-bye to the choristers' stalls at Westminster, well educated in the music of the great Church writers. He was on enviably familiar terms with such old masters as Gibbons, Blow, Boyce, and Purcell, a foundation for all that was to follow after. At his mother's suggestion he learnt the violin, and she, who herself had studied the piano under Mrs. Anderson, the music-mistress of the Queen, gave him lessons in pianoforte playing. However, although the young lad took kindly to the bow, he couldn't settle down to the piano. He remained in Cheltenham until twenty, when he returned to London to his aunt's.

"I sang at a church at Belsize Park," said Mr. Lloyd, "and received thirty pounds a year. I did the solo singing, and was regarded as a light tenor, never thinking for a moment that I should develop into anything particular. But I was always endeavouring to improve myself. When I was twenty-one, as luck would have it, my uncle, Dr. John Larkin Hopkins, organist of Trinity College, Cambridge, came on a visit to my aunt, and my mother, who was also up from Cheltenham on a little holiday, asked my uncle if he would hear me sing. He did so. I sang"--and here Mr. Lloyd gave the opening lines of "You and I":--

'Tis years since we parted, you and I,
In the sweet summer time long ago.

"He was very delighted, and turned to me and said, 'We have an opening in the choir at Trinity College: will you come and fill the post until there is a trial for it?' I was in the seventh heaven; the position was worth £120 per year; it realized all my hopes. I went to Cambridge; the music I had to sing--I was a good reader--came like A, B, C to me. I seemed to please the Fellows. After I had been there three months they thought there ought to be a trial for the post. There were then two tenor vacancies, as Mr. Kerr Gedge was leaving to fill an important position in London. How well I remember the morning of the trial. The trial was fixed for ten o'clock. However, I got up at four, as I was too excited to sleep, told the landlady to have a thick steak ready for me at eight, and went for a long walk. I shall never forget that four hours' stroll; I remembered that there were seven or eight other competitors. I felt terribly anxious and nervous, but by the time I got back again to my lodgings and settled down to my breakfast, I had determined to go in and win. I felt on that morning just the same as I do now when about to fulfil any engagement I may have on hand: anxious, fearfully anxious.

_From a Photo by W. & D. Downey._]

"At that trial I sang 'If with all your hearts,' from 'Elijah,' and read some music given to us, and came out first.

"At Cambridge I met the lady who afterwards became my wife. It was at the opera. 'Faust' was the work, with Blanche Cole as _Marguerite_. Her future husband, Sydney Naylor, conducted, and, by-the-bye, he was a Temple boy with me. We were almost engaged from that night, and I should like to say that, although Mrs. Lloyd is not a musician, from that day to this she has influenced my life. It was her wish that I should not sing in opera. And I have never regretted not doing so. Indeed, I have only made one appearance in costume in my life--it was at a private house at Hampstead. Here is a portrait of myself in the character. My part necessitated me carrying on certain papers, which in my excitement I left outside. I was asked for them; I felt in my pocket; pocket was empty. 'Dear me!' I said, 'I must have dropped them on the stairs as I came up'; so I made my exit and brought them back."

Still, Mr. Lloyd's dramatic instincts must have been of a very high order--for the late Carl Rosa, who chanced to be present, immediately offered him an engagement. Later on Carl Rosa tried his utmost to induce him to sing in "Tannhauser," when the impresario was producing this work at Her Majesty's Theatre, saying at the same time, "I vill gif you a blank cheque to fill up!" This offer was again refused, and Rosa always would have it that the great tenor had missed his chance of going on the stage!

Mr. Lloyd remained twelve months at Cambridge, when he joined the choir at St. Andrew's, Wells Street, Mr. Barnby (now Sir Joseph Barnby) being the choir-master and organist, and was shortly after appointed "A gentleman at Her Majesty's Chapel Royal, St. James's."

"That," said Mr. Lloyd, "was really the beginning of my career. I was then engaged for the Gloucester Festival, to sing in Bach's 'Passion Music.' It was my first important engagement and my first big audience. There were 2,000 people present. It did me a lot of good. I was very nervous, and my nervousness gave birth to _feeling_. A cold singer is no good! Dr. Wesley conducted this festival. There are many capital stories told about him. He was a somewhat eccentric old gentleman, very forgetful at times, and a most enthusiastic fisherman. He was once out with his rod and line fishing in a piece of water, when a keeper approached him and told him it was private.

"'Oh, is it?' he said. 'My name's Wesley.'

"'I don't care,' said the keeper, 'what your name is; you can't fish here without an order.'

"'All right,' said Wesley; 'you take in my name to your master and I'll follow you.'

"The keeper consented: his employer expressed his regret at the occurrence, and said he would be charmed if the doctor remained to lunch, and they sat down together. After lunch the host turned to the doctor and said he would be very delighted if he would play a selection on the organ. A very fine instrument was in the hall, and the doctor, nothing loth, sat down and played for half an hour. The music over, Wesley returned to his fishing, fished to sundown, and then went home. The next day the owner of the organ and the lake was surprised to receive a letter from Wesley asking for ten guineas for his services on the organ. Wesley was even more surprised when he had in reply a letter as follows: 'My charge for a day's fishing is twenty guineas, so if you will kindly forward ten guineas, that will make us quits.'

"On another occasion Wesley was conducting an overture, and was so wrapped up in his thoughts of fishing that he kept on beating time after the overture was finished. One of the principal violins whispered to him that they had done.

"'Impossible!' rejoined Wesley. 'I've got twelve bars more.'

"One can only conclude from this that during the twelve bars the worthy doctor had held his bâton still in the act of catching a fish, and when he rose it again to continue beating time he was landing it."

From the time Mr. Lloyd appeared at the Gloucester Festival the active part of his career may be said to have commenced. He has been engaged in all the principal festivals from that time, and created the tenor parts in all the most important modern works: "The Martyr of Antioch," by Sullivan; Parry's "Judith"; Mackenzie's "Rose of Sharon" and "The Dream of Jubal"; Cowen's "Rose Maiden" and "The Water Lily"; Stanford's "Maeldune," and Sullivan's "Golden Legend," and amongst foreign, Rubinstein's "Paradise Lost" and Dvoràk's "Spectre's Bride." He created the tenor part in Gounod's "Redemption" at Birmingham Festival, and at the following festival the tenor in the same composer's "Mors et Vita." At Gounod's request he was invited--an invitation he accepted--to sing in Gounod's latter work at Brussels and Paris under his direction.

At Brussels Mr. Lloyd was presented to the Queen of the Belgians.

His work at all the principal concerts is well known, and ever since the first night he sang in oratorio at the Albert Hall, under Sir Joseph Barnby, he has always been a permanent member of the artists engaged by Sir Joseph, whom, together with Sir Charles Hallé, Mr. Lloyd regards as having done as much for music as any two artists in England. He has been to America on no fewer than four occasions; the first of which was at the Cincinnati Festival, for which he received £1,350 for five performances in that city. Once every year the State Concerts at Buckingham Palace claim him.

I asked Mr. Lloyd if he considered that oratorios still held their place in the esteem of the public against the lighter and less pretentious musical themes which have of late been so prominent.

He replied: "Oratorios still hold their old power over the public; such standard works as the 'Messiah,' the 'Stabat Mater,' 'Elijah,' and the 'Hymn of Praise' can never die: they are the support and the backbone of the festivals. Such works are so great and so magnificent that they are as fresh to the people to-day, though the hearers may have heard them fifty times, as they will be to the next generation. They are the true heirlooms of all music lovers.

"Go out into the 'West.' In Chicago, where we sang the 'Messiah' twice, there were over 5,000 people at each performance; but if you want to really understand how these glorious works are loved and revered, go into the Black Country, on the occasion of a big musical gathering, and watch the masses come in with their music scores under their arms. I have seen the galleries crowded with miners, who drink in every note, and applaud in the right places, too. These great works are the property of the people: they come to them, and regard the listening to them as a devotional duty."

It is very well known that Mr. Lloyd has never disappointed the public except through severe illness; he has been in three railway accidents, but such severe upsets as these have never deterred him from proceeding in the even tenor of his ways. He positively snaps his fingers at fogs, and has sung in a hall when the place has been full of this speciality of our particular climate which is so distressing to folk in general and vocalists in particular.

The only occasion on which a fog was a real annoyance was one night when, on leaving the Albert Hall after a Patti concert, the fog was so thick that in thin shoes and a dress suit he had to take a lamp from his carriage, and whilst his coachman led the horse, he had to light the way. Mr. Lloyd fortunately possessed a good bump of locality; still he did not reach Tulse Hill till half-past one in the morning.

He has smoked from an early age, and has never found it affect his voice; still he would not advise young singers to take a pattern from Mario, who he has been given to understand has smoked as many as thirty cigars a day. He is inundated with songs, and it may be a consolation to budding composers to know that the thoughtful tenor always returns unaccepted scores when stamps are inclosed. He admits to one personal mishap with his music when singing Blumenthal's beautiful melody, "The Message." It was an old copy, and a page having become detached, was economically sewn in. Unfortunately, it was not discovered until Mr. Lloyd was in the midst of the song that the sheet had been sewn in upside down.

Mr. Lloyd is famed for his punctuality at all his engagements. "And for a very good reason, too," he said, when I reminded him of this. "It was during my first tour with Mme. Liebhart, and Christian, the bass, suffered with me. We had travelled from Dublin all day, and arrived at our destination where we were to sing in the evening. Feeling very tired, I lay down after dinner for a rest before the concert; Christian did the same. We both fell fast asleep. We were to open the concert at eight o'clock in the duet "Love and War." At five minutes past eight, a man came rushing in to say the audience were waiting for our duet. We flew to the hall, and had to go on a quarter of an hour late. I could scarcely breathe and could barely get through my share in the duet. But it was a quarter of an hour with a moral--ever since then I have always been present a quarter of an hour before going on."

So the day passed happily at Hassendean, and the time came to say good-night. As I was leaving, Mr. Lloyd put his hand on young Ramon's head and said, good-naturedly, "Now, would you like to see something of what I used to do when I was about his age, and was rewarded with anything from buttered biscuits to a guinea?"

I need hardly say I assured him I should be delighted.

"Then meet me next Saturday at five-thirty at St. James's Hall, when we will have dinner at the Round, Catch, and Cannon Club and listen to some of their glees."

Saturday came, and we met again at the Round, Catch, and Cannon Club--the oldest glee club in the country, being now more than eighty years old. Dinner over--in the immediate vicinity of Mr. Lloyd and myself sat Sir Benjamin Baker, Mr. W. Horsley, R.A., Signor Randegger, Mr. N. Vert, and Dr. Scott, Mr. Lloyd's medical man--books of glees were brought round and we sat and listened to the sweetest of themes, most admirably rendered. No one is more attentive than Edward Lloyd--no one more hearty in his approval.

"'Tis Morn" is the first glee, and Mr. Lloyd reminds me he has sung it many a time. A selection of T. Cooke's follows, and we listen to the stirring--

Strike, strike the lyre! Let music tell
The blessings spring shall scatter round.
Fragrance shall float along the gale,
And opening flow'rets paint the ground.

How pure and sweet sounds "By Celia's Arbour." Not a note is lost by those whose happiness it is to listen--

Tell her they are not drops of night,
But tears of sorrow shed by me;

and whilst it is being sung I cannot help noticing a white-headed gentleman opposite me who rests his head on one hand, so that his face can barely be seen, and bends over the glee-book, and never moves except once, to look up in reverent thought. It is W. Horsley, the Royal Academician. Yet another is sung--an ode for five voices. The painter still keeps his head bowed. I looked at the open book before me and read: "Composed by W. Horsley, 19th February, 1776."

Then Mr. Horsley tells us how well he remembers his father writing "By Celia's Arbour."

"I remember how Mendelssohn used to come," he said, "and sit for hours in the summer evenings in the house where I have lived for the last seventy years. He said that my father's compositions were the most perfect of their kind he had ever heard. He took some copies of 'Celia's Arbour' home with him, and soon after wrote to my father to say that he had heard the glee sung amongst the villagers by _forty voices_!"

Then Mr. Lloyd joins in:--

"I once heard your father's glee, 'By Celia's Arbour,' sung by a few of the Leeds Chorus, in Worcester, during the Festival. They had gathered together in the bar of the hotel where I was staying. I had gone to bed and was awakened out of my sleep, and I thought I had never heard it sung to such perfection, the voices were so well balanced.

"There, there you are," said Mr. Lloyd, "that's what I mean. I was something like that in the buttered biscuit days, and when I sang at the Princess Royal's wedding."

_From a Photo by Elliott & Fry._]

A bright-faced little lad had stepped up to join the elder members in a glee for five voices. He wore an Eton suit. The piece selected was a sonnet by Lord Mornington:--

O, Bird of Eve! whose love-sick notes,
I hear across the dale,
Who nightly to the moon and me
Dost tell thy hapless tale!

The lad's voice was as true as the trill of the bird of which he sang, and this time it was the great tenor who sat and--thought, of those happy Westminster days, of those bewildering banquets at which he used to sing, of the glasses of port, the palatable biscuits, the useful two-shilling pieces. Perhaps he thought of more.

The lad sang again and again, until at twenty past nine o'clock, ten minutes before dispersing, the chairman gave out the number of the last glee, and Edward Lloyd shared my book as we listened to S. Webbe's beautiful music set to--

Rise, my joy, sweet mirth attend,
I'm resolved to be thy friend;
Sneaking Phoebus hides his head,
He's with Thetis gone to bed:
Tho' he will not on me shine,
Still there's brightness in the wine;
From Bacchus I'll such lustre borrow,
My face shall be a sun to-morrow!

HARRY HOW.

* * * * *

NOTE.--In the Illustrated Interview with Sir George Lewis in
our December issue, page 655, the following paragraph occurs:
"Sir George prosecuted in a number of bank failures, the result
of the Joint Stock Act of 1862. In addition to Overend and
Gurney's, there were Barnett's Bank of Liverpool, the Unity
Bank," etc., etc. The words "Barnett's Bank" should read
"Barned's Bank." We much regret the mistake, which makes it
seem that we referred to the well-known and old-established
firm of Messrs. Barnett & Co., of South Castle Street,
Liverpool.

_Beauties._

_From a Photo by Chancellor, 55, Lower Sackville Street, Dublin._

Mrs. WH COOK

_From a Photo by W. Duffus, 26, Queen Street, Huddersfield._

Lady Helen Vincent

_From a Photo by Chancellor, 55, Lower Sackville Street, Dublin._]

_From a Photo by Chancellor, 55, Lower Sackville Street, Dublin._

Miss Jameson.

_From a Photo by Chancellor, 55, Lower Sackville Street, Dublin._

Mrs. Gardner.

_From a Photo by W. & A. H. Fry, 68, East Street, Brighton._]

_From a Photo by Alfred Ellis, 20, Upper Baker Street, N.W._

Christine Beauclere

_From a Photo by W. Bradnee, 40, Fleet Street, Torquay._

Miss Hamilton

_From a Photo by Russell and Sons, 17, Baker Street._]

_From Behind the Speaker's Chair._