Klarinet Archive - Posting 000079.txt from 2003/07

From: "Michael Bryant" <michael@-----.uk>
Subj: [kl] Aliens before JK Rowling
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2003 14:47:13 -0400

I think I heard J. K. Rowling in an interviews claiming to have invented the
name 'Dumbledores' but here is an example of its use by Thomas Hardy dating
from 1872, with a possible pejorative reference to clarinet players:

'...I think we must be almost the last left in the country of old string
players? Barrel organs, and the things next door to 'em that you blow wi'
your foot, have come in terribly of late years.

'Ay!' said Bowman shaking his head; and the old William on seeing him did
the same thing.

'More's the pity,' replied another. 'time was - long and merry ago now! -
when not one of the varmits was to be heard of; but it served some of the
quires right. They should have stuck to strings as we did, and kept out
clarinets, and done away with serpents. If you'd thrive in musical religion,
stick to strings, say I.

'Strings be safe soul-lifters, as far as that do go,' said Mr Spinks.

'Yet there's worse things than serpents,' said Mr Penny, 'Old things pass
away, 'tis true; but a serpent was a good old note: a deep rich note was the
serpent.'

'Clar'nets, however be bad at all times,' said Michael Mail. 'One
Christmas - years agone now, years - I went the rounds wi' the Weatherbury
quire. 'Twas a hard frosty night, and the keys of all the clar'nets froze -
ah, they did freeze! - so that 'twas like drawing a cork every time a key
was opened; and the players o' 'em had to go into the hedger-and-ditcher's
chimley-corner, and thaw their clar'nets every now and then. An icicle
o'spet hung down from the end of every man's clar'net a span long; and as to
fingers - well, there, if ye'll believe me, we had no fingers at all, to our
knowing.'

'I can well bring back to my mind,' said Mr Penny, 'what I said to poor
Joseph Ryme (who took the treble part in Chalk-Newton Church for two-
and-forty year) when they thought of having clar'nets there. "Joseph I said
says I, "depend upon't, if so be you have them tooting clar'nets you'll
spoil the whole set-out. Car'nets were not made for the service of the Lard;
you can see it by looking at 'em," I said. And what came o't? Why, souls,
the parson set up a barrel-organ on his own account within two years o' the
time I spoke, and the old quire went to nothing.'

'As far as look is concerned,' said the tranter, 'I don't for my part see
that a fiddle is much nearer heaven that a clar'net. 'Tis further off.
There's always a rakish, scampish twist about a fiddle's look that seems to
say the the Wicked One had a hand in its making o'en; while angels be
supposed to play clar'nets in heaven, or som'at like 'em if ye may believe
picters.'

'Robert Penny, you was in the right,' broke in the eldest Dewy. They should
ha' stuck to strings. Your brass-man is a rafting dog - well and good; your
reed-man is a dab at stirring ye - well and good; your drum-man is a rare
bowel-shaker - good again. But I don't care who hears me say it, nothing
will speak to your heart heart wi' the sweetness o' the man of the strings!'

'Strings for ever!' said little Jimmy.

'Strings alone would have held their ground against all the new comers in
creation.' ('True, true!' said Bowman.) 'But Clarinets was death.' (Death
they was!' said Mr Penny.) 'And harmoniums,' William continued in a louder
voice, and getting excited by these sighs of approval, 'harmonions and
barrel-organs' ('Ah!' and groans from Spinks) 'be miserable - what shall I
call 'em? - miserable - .'

'Sinners,' suggested Jimmy, who made large strides like the men and did not
lag behind with the other little boys.

'Miserable dumbledores!'

'Right, William, and so they be - miserable dumbledores!' said the choir
with unanimity.

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928): 'Under the Greenwood Tree',1872.

Michael Bryant
Homepage: The Constant Clarinet
www.bryant14.demon.co.uk

Errare humanum est
Nec cede malis

telephone and fax +44 (0) 20 8390 3236

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