"One!"--crash! "Two!"--clash! "Three!"--dash! "Four!"--smash! Diminuendo, Now crescendo:-- Thus play the furious band, Led by the kid-gloved hand Of Jullien--that Napoleon of quadrille, Of Piccolo-nians shrillest of the shrill; Perspiring raver Over a semi-quaver; Who tunes his pipes so well, he'll tell you that The natural key of Johnny Bull's--A flat.
Demon of discord, with moustaches cloven-- Arch-impudent _improver_ of Beethoven-- Tricksy Professor of _charlatanerie_-- Inventor of musical artillery-- Barbarous rain and thunder maker-- Unconscionable money taker-- Travelling about both near and far, Toll to exact at every _bar_, What brings thee here again To desecrate old Drury's fane?
Egregious attitudiniser! Antic fifer! com'st to advise her 'Gainst intellect and sense to close her walls? To raze her benches, That Gallic wenches Might play their brazen antics at masked balls?
[Illustration: "GENTS" AT THE PROMENADE CONCERT]
But when _Punch_ assails Jullien for leaving his "stew-pans and meat-oven To make a fricassee of the great Beet-hoven" and "saucily serve Mozart with sauce-piquant," and bids him "put your hat on, _coupez votre bâton, Bah, Va_!!!"--_Punch_ was both rude and ungenerous. From the very first at his Concerts d'Eté and then at the Promenade Concerts, Jullien was a popularizer of good music. He gave his public waltzes, "Row Polkas," and explosive Army Quadrilles, but he also sandwiched Beethoven and Mozart between the coarser viands of his musical _menu_. So while he was credited with the intention of bringing out _Stabat Mater_ waltzes--by no means a difficult feat with Rossini's work--and a _Dead March_ gallopade, we must never forget that he was the first conductor to introduce symphonic music to the masses and the authentic pioneer of the movement which Sir Henry Wood has carried on at the Queen's Hall for the last twenty years and more. Modern music strikes heavily on the naked ear, but Jullien was in the habit of reinforcing instruments of percussion with explosives, and _Punch_ suggests in 1849 that his _Concerts Monstres_ should be held on Salisbury Plain to give elbow room for his "stunning performances." His _chevelure_, his waistcoats and waistbands were too conspicuous to escape _Punch's_ vigilant eye, and Jullien was no doubt content that it should be so, for he was a master of the art of _réclame_. He is habitually alluded to as "the Mons," primarily as the diminutive for "Monsieur," but mainly because he was "the Mont Blanc of Music." The excesses of Jazz Bands of to-day are foreshadowed in a description of the "tongs and bones" music at the Promenade Concerts. But the author of the notice of Jullien[32] in the D.N.B. conveys a wrong impression when he speaks of _Punch_ as only ridiculing Jullien. Already _Punch_ had learned to recognize his merits, and, while rebuking him for his extravagant conducting of flashy and trashy pieces, renders homage to his reverence for good music. Thenceforward the references to "the Mons" are in the main friendly. The _Almanack_ for 1852 speaks of the "Julian (Jullien) Era" in music. Jullien's opera _Peter the Great_ is tenderly handled in the autumn of the same year, and, when he set out for his tour in the States, _Punch_ sped the parting minstrel in some verses which are an admirable and faithful summary of his services to musical education in England:--