"
Violoncellos, or bass-viols, as they were universally called, were almost
the first musical instruments that were allowed in the New England
churches. They were called, without intentional irreverence, "Lord's
fiddles." Violins were widely opposed, they savored too much of low, tavern
dance-music. After much consultation a satisfactory compromise was agreed
upon by which violins were allowed in many meetings, if the performers
"would play the fiddle wrong end up." Thus did our sanctimonious
grandfathers cajole and persuade themselves that an inverted fiddle was
not a fiddle at all, but a small bass-viol. An old lady, eighty years old,
wrote thus in the middle of this century, of the church of her youth:
"After awhile there was a bass-viol Introduced and brought into meeting and
did not suit the Old people; one Old Gentleman got up, took his hat off
the peg and marched off. Said they had begun fiddling and there would be
dancing soon." Another church-member, in derisive opposition to a clarinet
which had been "voted into the choir," brought into meeting a fish-horn,
which he blew loud and long to the complete rout of the clarinet-player and
the singers. When reproved for this astounding behavior he answered stoutly
that "if one man could blow a horn in the Lord's House on the Sabbath day
he guessed he could too," and he had to be bound over to keep the peace
before the following Sunday.
Pages:
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226