THE MUSIC OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
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If the paintings of the Light Brigade spoke mostly to boys, as the gender that would most likely emulate the actions of the cavalry in their adulthood, the music of the Light Brigade spoke primarily to the young girls, who were expected to be able to sit down at the piano when anyone requested it, and play with at least a modicum of capability, if not talent (Solie 86-9). In her book, Music in Other Words, Ruth Solie is writing specifically about Victorian music as it
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appears in literature, and as such devotes an entire chapter, "'Girling' at the Parlor Piano," to the ubiquitous young lady seated at the keyboard in so many nineteenth century novels.21 I borrow the term "girling" from Judith Butler, who coined it to describe a twoway process that marks girls' lived experience of their culture's values. On the one hand, girling is the social process that forms girls appropriate to the needs of the society they live in; on the other, it is their own enactment - or, in Butlerian terms, their performance - of girlhood, both to satisfy familial and social demands on them and, . . . to satisfy needs of their own either to resist those demands or to reassure themselves about their own capacity to fulfill them (86).
I would argue that there is, in fact, a third process that goes on at the keyboard, and that is the transmission of cultural identity through the music that is played. Both the performer and the listeners are participating in a social interaction that brings pleasure in the privacy of their homes, but also passing on particular hegemonic mythologies in their choice of sheet music, which is encouraged by the writers of such sheet music. So the girl at the piano is performing her girlhood at the piano and being formed, as Solie points out, "appropriate to the needs of the society they live in," (86). But part of that formation is also the embedding of specific national and cultural identity, in this case British identity, and at the piano this formation takes the form of the music that is played. As Solie also points out, [A] project like this, . . . can help flesh out much of the cultural theorizing that has been so interesting to musicology as well as to other disciplines in recent years; it adds specificity to our understanding of the bourgeois family as the real engine of larger-scale cultural developments . . . (87).
The ubiquitous aspect of the "girl at the piano" is testified to in many Victorian texts, not solely novels, and some of the texts are less than complimentary about the phenomenon (Solie 88). These texts speak of girls "devoid of all musical ability," who still have to play the piano because "all young girls ought to be able to play," (M.A.E.L. quoted by Solie 88); girls whose
21 One of the best-known among those figures is probably Mary Bennet, who is the "plain" and studious sister in Pride and Prejudice, and who is, as Solie points out, condemned to a life at the keyboard for the amusement of others.
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playing is tolerated by their own father, but whose attempts at music destroy the peace and concentration of others (Arthur Helps, quoted by Solie 89); and the young lady who cannot play with any feeling but who is forced to the piano rather than doing something either useful or amusing (Thomas Carlyle, quoted by Solie 88). The positive versions of these girls are most often found in novels, where their music is soothing to the father and brothers of the family, as well as entertaining to their friends.22 The girl at the piano, then, is both being formed by, and forming for others, particular musical representations of emotions, historical moments and cultural identity. So the young lady sits down at the piano, ready to entertain her family of an evening. She goes through the large quantity of sheet music at hand, and chooses a variety of pieces.
After 1854, there were a number of compositions concerning the Crimea in general, Balaclava and the charge of the Light Brigade in particular. In investigating these pieces, I focus on their titles, the type of work (vocal, piano only, piano with other instrument), and the musical directions found in the piece - the directions on the style and tempo of playing that should be used when performing; as well as the nature of any artwork on the cover, and any particular dedication or quotation used at the beginning of the music. Each of these pieces of information suggest how the music was to be interpreted, and therefore suggest how the music was to be received. I take the pieces chronologically as they were published. The chosen pieces are those collected at the British Museum; they indicate a wide sampling of the types of music that came out of the Crimea.
22 Again, one thinks of all the Austen novels in which one girl or another sits down to the piano, and her femininity is tested in her rendering of a piece; women at the piano appear in George Eliot novels as well, later in the century, and one moment in A Christmas Carol in which Scrooge begins to thaw occurs when he hears his niece-in-law playing a piece his sister used to play.
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The first work is a short piece, only three pages long, entitled "Balaclava Galop" by Isabel Carter in 1856. It is for piano, with an optional cornet accompaniment, and inscription on the first page states that it was published for the author by W. Blagrove, who also published music by the composer's sister. This piece is unusual in the collection of parlor pieces, because the music also indicates that at one point it had been played by Mr. Charles Blagrove's Band (presumably a relation of the W. Blagrove who published the work). The version in the British Library collection, however, is very definitely for one piano. There are three sets of repeats, which would render the piece longer than the three short pages originally appear. The movements are an Introduction, marked allegro vivace, a Galop, a Trio (with repeat), and a Coda. The Introduction is to be played at a quick tempo, in a lively manner, which fit with the title of the piece: a Galop is a brisk piece fit for dancing. It is unclear whether the piece is meant as an homage to the soldiers, but the publication date is 1856, which is the year the Crimean War ended, and only two years after the battle of Balaclava, so it is at least a topical reference, and reminder to both the pianist and her (by default) listeners of that battle. Just as there are fads in styles that reference a particular traditional ethnic identity (chinoiserie, for example), or capitalize on a particular phenomenon (the "Flashdance" look of the early 1980s), so a piece of music may capitalize on the current events of the day by referencing such events through its title.
Thus the performer and the listeners are invited to "hear" the battle through a spirited piece of music that requires the same reciprocity of composer and listeners that the paintings did of canvas and viewer. Simply by entitling the piece "Balaclava Galop," Ms. Carter invokes a particular set of circumstances that encourage a particular response in the listeners: a recollection of the battle, and by inference, the most famous portions of that battle, which would
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include the charge of the Light Brigade. Through this music, the listeners are not allowed to let the charge fade in their memories; rather the piece makes the memory fresh and immediate.
The second piece is also published in 1856, and is a much lengthier work. Dedicated to the Earl of Cardigan (the leader of the charge, who was lionized after an initial fall from grace, as discussed above), "The Balaclava Charge" was written by a Mrs. Beauchamp Cole, and is designated as a "Description piece for the pianoforte." Mrs. Cole, then, is attempting to put into musical expression all aspects of the charge, from beginning to end. In dedicating the piece to the Earl of Cardigan, Mrs. Cole is naming him definitively as the primary hero of the charge, which is complementary to the many images of Cardigan that were appearing at that time (see above).
Mrs. Cole divides her work into a number of movements, or sections, each with a title that represents a different moment in the action of the Light Brigade, from beginning to end.
Unlike other pieces or the paintings, Mrs. Cole sought to render the entirety of the engagement.
The first section is entitled "Order to Advance and Remonstrance," and is to be played maestoso, with majesty, or solemnly. This encompasses the giving of the order to Lord Lucan, along with his reaction to the order and "remonstrance" with Capt. Lew Nolan, the ADC who brought him the order and gestured so disastrously towards the guns Lucan could not see. The maestoso notation suggests that the piece begin with the aural foreshadowing of a catastrophe - the opening moments of the work are somber. The next section is a brief moment for "trumpets and bugle", marked allegro e ff: swiftly and loudly. Lucan, having accepted the order, has told Cardigan to advance, and Cardigan has the call sounded on the bugle. The Order and Remonstrance are a total of four staves, immediately followed by 2 bars of repeated "ta-ta TA", all in the treble clef. The bugle itself is represented by rapid eighth and sixteenth notes - a real
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bugle call rendered on the piano. Mrs. Cole used the piano as creatively as possible to suggest a real trumpet and bugle to herald the next section. Recall Russell's description of the opening moments of the charge - here is the brief exchange he describes, conveying the order to Cardigan, and the bugle call that signals the men to form up and begin riding toward the Russian guns.
The next two sections are the "Advance" and the "Charge." It is interesting that Mrs. Cole separates the two moments, suggesting that she is well aware of the fact that a cavalry "charge" actually consists of an ever-quickening movement of the cavalry: from a walk to a trot, a trot to a canter, and a canter to a gallop. The "Advance," therefore, is the initial movement of the Brigade down the slopes toward the guns, and is to be performed con energia, with energy, or in a spirited fashion. Mrs. Cole here reflects the descriptions in the papers - the Brigade went forward with spirit towards the guns. Again, Russell described the men as determined, their sabres flashing, and presented an image suggesting speed, dust and pounding hooves. The pace and style of the section is more than just a reflection of how the cavalry in fact advanced. It is a statement concerning the mindset of the men who rode - they went forward briskly, without hesitation. Mrs. Cole's Light Brigadeness here emphasizes the devotion to duty and the panache with which the men rode down the plain.
In this way Mrs. Cole's piece offers something like a soundtrack to a mental image of the charge itself. As with films today, the background music for a scene often sets the tone of the scene and signals to the viewer what emotions s/he should be feeling. If a love scene is played against a musical backdrop that is poignant, for example, the viewer might be cued to see the moment as bittersweet. In the same way, the listener should hear the Light Brigade stepping forth at a quick pace, with no on hanging back or slowing the advance.
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The Charge is dictated as furioso - furious, but also with the suggestion of an attack at the keyboard itself. Loud crashing chords crescendo to fff - as loudly as possible. This is a long section, which builds to another trumpet call. The listener here is invited to imagine the furious pounding of the horses' hooves as the cavalry bears down on the Russian guns, as well as the cannons on either side firing on the cavalry as it goes. There are quick trumpet blasts ("Trumpets") and then there is a short section entitled "Wounded." This is comprised of two long measures of half notes, ending in a 1/2 note rest. By comparison with the other sections of the piece so far, this short section slows the pace considerably, with only two long chords per measure. The final half rest suggests the gap in the ranks left by the "wounded" as well as the dead. This moment coincides with the point at which the Brigade has breached the Russian guns and is on the other side, having cut their way through at great loss to the Brigade. Although Mrs. Cole makes the section "Wounded" very short, it is a sudden change from the long furious crescendo of the previous section, and an abrupt reminder to the listener what the cost of the charge actually was in men and horses. The final half rest of this section acts as a moment of silence, just as might be called for at a gathering to remember the Brigade and those who didn't come back.
The "Wounded" is quickly followed by "The Rally," which is vivace - lively. This section corresponds to the rally that took place at the rear of the Russian guns, when the Brigade realized it would not have the support of the Heavy Brigade to complete its break through the lines, and had to "rally" and form up again to retreat from the guns. The moment of silent remembrance is broken by the necessity of getting the survivors back to camp, and proceeds quickly. The "Return to the Camp" is the longest section of the piece - longer than the "Charge" itself. It is adagio - slowly, but not as slowly as the andante of the "Wounded." It is interesting
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that Mrs. Cole makes this section so long; the listener is kept in suspense for quite some time as to whether the cavalry make it back, and it reflects the weariness of the cavalry by this point, as the final part of the section calls for two ritards - slowing down even more. Again, the listener is invited to see the remnants of the Brigade as they straggle back to their own lines, belatedly supported by the Heavy Brigade, and still being shot at from both sides and from behind.
The "Return to Camp" ends in another bugle call, signalling the return of what was left of the Brigade, and it is immediately followed by "The Cheer," to be rendered con spirito. The Cheer is the second longest section of the piece, and is punctuated as if there were men crying huzzahs - brief spurts of chords, followed by short rests. After the slow regrouping and return of the Brigade, there is one final moment of victorious cheering, but it seems hollow after what has gone before. The final two sections, "Returning to Quarters" and "The Muster Roll," round out the complete representation of the charge of the Light Brigade. Unlike the paintings, Mrs. Cole attempted to capture the essence of the entire event, including its immediate aftermath. Each painting discussed above could certainly be represented in one of the sections, and the final "Muster Roll" seems to be a musical representation of Elizabeth Thompson's "Balaclava." The final tempo is andante - slow and stately - and the piece ends with lots of chords and an octave tremolo (a quick shifting across octave keys between the lower and higher notes - it can sound like a musical rumbling), as well as syncopation in the bass.
Mrs. Cole's detailed instructions as to the sections, the tempi and the styles for each section, along with her attempts to recreate actual battle sounds such as the bugle, indicate a desire to represent the charge musically as fully as possible. This is not a piece meant to be played in the background. It is a performance piece that would demand attentive listeners. As such, this piece represents a much more serious transmission of the Light Brigade myth. The
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pianist attempting this piece would read all of the instructions as she practiced it, before attempting it in front of an audience. The audience, in turn, is invited into the charge of the Light Brigade in its totality, rather than being offered a vague impression or homage to the event. The different section titles would remind performer and audience alike of the sequence of events that made up the charge, including the recognition of the wounded (and dead), and the disheartening return to camp followed by a muster roll that would have many gaps. Thus Mrs. Cole musically embodies the qualities of Light Brigadeness in her piece, both the light and the dark sides. She recognizes the devotion to duty and the cheerfulness with which the men rode out against the guns, but she also gives voice to the moments when the sacrificial price becomes evident in the large gaps in the ranks (the long rests in the "Wounded" section and the slow tempo of the section in which the remnants are regrouping).
The next three pieces are all musical versions of Tennyson's poem. The first, entitled "The Charge of the Light Brigade," by John Blockley, was published in 1860. The illustrated cover is a representation of a single horseman in a busby (the particular headgear of the Hussars, as opposed to the Lancers, similar to what the Buckingham Palace guards wear) brandishing a sword, whose horse is evidently racing across the field, since all four legs are in the air. In the foreground are dead soldiers and a downed horse; cannon balls are exploding around the figure and puffs of smoke obscure some of the figures. Behind the horseman are the cavalry, cutting their way back to their lines. The frontispiece contains an explanation of the Tennyson poem, its first publication in The Examiner and later reprinting in August of 1855 for the soldiers at Sebastopol. The composer and publisher clearly wish to make as many connections between the music and the event as possible. The cover would be an ever-present reminder of the charge to
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the owner of the sheet music, and to all who were present whenever the piece was played and sung.
Since this is a vocal piece, it is possible that the performer would accompany herself on the piano, or accompany another singer. The music is written in a key that would be easily adaptable for either a male or a female voice. It is probable that a piece such as this would be played as much for company as for the family's private entertainment, and so it would get a wider listening audience. The directions call for maestoso in the introduction, with trumpets being represented as in Mrs. Cole's piece, in the upper register of the piano with brief tatoos.
The rest of the piece calls for risoluto - resolute. As with Mrs. Cole's con energia for the Advance, Blockley makes it clear that the cavalry are resolute in the face of almost certain death, and advance majestically to their doom. Each stanza of the poem is to be played molto espresso e piu lente - very expressively and a little slowly, while the final stanza is to be slower, recognizing the loss that was endured by the Brigade.
As a vocal piece, the singer would be performing the Light Brigade in a unique way - not only reciting the poem, but giving it added expression through the musical rendition of it. This participatory action would act as a reinforcement of the myth of the Brigade, and continue its transmission to the younger members of society through a combination of text and music. Since this would be a live performance, the listeners would also be influenced by the performer's expressions and reactions to the text as well as the music, further embedding the image of the hero of the Light Brigade by embodying the myth in someone the listeners knew.23 If it was the "girl at the piano," the listeners would be invited to compare the relative frailty of the female body with the rough and tumble world that the cavalryman was experiencing in the charge. This
23 The back of this particular piece of sheet music advertises other pieces by John Blockley, including a musical version of "Jessie's Dream," an almost certainly fictitious story concerning the relief of Lucknow during the Sepoy mutiny in 1857, as well as other Tennyson poems and several other war poems.
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would create a pathos emphasizing the frailty of the cavalrymen as well, since they were not, in fact, proof to cannon shell and the high casualty rate proved. If it were a young man singing the piece, the listeners would be invited to experience the piece in a different fashion, perhaps seeing the singer as the embodiment of all the men who rode in the charge - young, whole, and beloved to the audience of family members.
An 1867 setting of the poem by William West is much more straightforward - there is less repetition in the text and the sole direction for the playing of it is agitato con espresso - excitedly with meaning. "The Balaclava Charge" was published in 1877, also a setting of Tennyson's poem. This piece of sheet music has on the cover linked shields: Agincourt October 25, 1415, and Balaclava, October 15, 1854. At the head of the music is a quotation from Henry V - the St. Crispin's Day speech: "[a]nd gentlemen in England, now abed. . ." (IV.iii.64). The composer of this piece chose to use the text flexibly, so that the phrase "theirs but to do" is repeated three times before coming to "and die," and then that phrase is repeated in its entirety.
The listener would be forced to pause in the flow of the text and listen especially for those words, as they stopped the usual progression of the poem to linger on this specific text. This emphasized the "doing" of the charge - the carrying out of one's duty without "reasoning why", which leads to dying in the end. This is reemphasized by the repetition of the entire phrase.
Again, both the accompanist and the performer, if they were two different people, would be forced to take this repetition into account when rendering the piece, as it would be emotionally ineffective to simply sing the phrase in exactly the same way three times over, with a repeat.
Additionally, there is a long segue from the next to last stanza into the final verse, wherein the music switches from allegro con fuoco - swiftly with fire - to allegro maestoso - quickly and
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majestically. This forces the listener to pay particular attention to the final stanza, since s/he has been made to wait for its appearance.
All of these musical pieces, which are but a few in a list of many, serve to show that the transmission of the Light Brigade took place not only among young men who might aspire to the heroic deeds of the Brigade, but also for young women in their role as musician and accompanist for the family. If the "girl at the piano" is being formed not only by sitting at the piano to provide music for her family, but also by the music she plays, then the music of the Light Brigade is being implanted in her cultural identity through the performance of the music in her home. The listeners also have absorbed the cultural lesson in identity along with the music, so that the Light Brigade is constantly reinscribed in the discourse of home entertainment.
The female body as a site of transmission for Light Brigadeness presents an interesting conundrum. The body is at once the recipient of the music, since she is reading the sheet music in order to play it, but she is also a conduit for the music as she interprets it on the piano and perhaps vocally. As a Victorian girl, being shaped into a model Victorian woman, the girl at the piano was learning appropriate behavioral discourse in order to fit into the society around her (as Butler points out). Part of that discourse would include her role as the vessel into which Victorian domestic values were poured, the acolyte of those values, and the transmitter of those values in turn to her children. In many ways the Victorian girl-woman was the female equivalent of the Light Brigade cavalryman - hers not to make reply or reason why, hers but to pass on the discursive practice to the next generation. As such, the girl at the piano is both subject and object of the Light Brigadeness discourse. She is transmitting the essence of the values through the music she interprets, yet she is also the recipient of those values as handmaiden to the
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Victorian ethos, which through her own performance along with many like hers, came to include Light Brigadeness itself.
CONCLUSION After the initial exposure to the event of the charge of the Light Brigade, the public could have turned to the next sensation in either the Crimean War or some other arena. Instead, artists, especially painters and musicians, kept the memory of the charge fresh in the public's imagination through new paintings and their reproductions, and sheet music intended for parlor performances. The visual transmission of the Light Brigade myth to the next generation focused primarily on the early moments of the charge, representing the cavalry in full charge before any disastrous results are apparent. There are notable exceptions, Elizabeth's Thompson's "Balaclava" being the most prominent one. Her depiction of the aftermath, with the straggling line of wounded and dying, evoked the pathos of the event, rather than the glory. Nevertheless, her painting is a staged a performance as the other visual images, based on her own interpretation of the event and modeled by real soldiers, including one who became an actor. The audience who was most influenced by these paintings were the younger generation, especially the ones who had no recollection of the actual event. Instead, their "memory" of the charge of the Light Brigade was of carefully edited visual representations that guided the viewer to see the charge as a positive and integral part of the British heritage. As Strong so clearly shows, paintings such as these were influential in how children, especially young boys who might have the chance to emulate such heroes, perceived their own history.
The music of the period reached a slightly different audience. The girl at the piano, in Victorian reality as well as Victorian literature, was the primary interpreter of sheet music intended for the parlor pianoforte. Her "girling" at the piano, which formed her identity as a Victorian woman, was also her performance of that womanhood. In performing pieces such as
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the ones discussed in this chapter, she was also the transmitter of the cultural icon through music, as well as absorbing the icon herself through her musical interpretation.
In the next chapter I will deal with the intersection of the visual, textual and aural on the Victorian stage, and how the Light Brigade was both performed and already understood to be part of the cultural discourse.
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