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TURKISH MUSIC. 73
Giganti," that his music was too good for them. "If you want to work for the English," said Handel, " you must give them something tumultuous, like the rattle of drum-sticks or a drum."6 As to the exact date when England succumbed to the "Turkish music" craze I am not quite certain. Grove says between the years 1805 and 1808, but that is not correct. The Royal Artillery band had it as early as 1786.7 There is an interesting reference to its introduction into the Guards' bands in Mrs. Pappendiek's chatty volumes, " Court and Private Life in the Time of Queen Charlotte." Under the year 1788 (November) she says: "One circumstance greatly disturbed and vexed the King, and it is feared brought forward his direful malady to a more violent crisis, was the return of the Duke of York from Hanover, without permission, and the unceasing endeavours of His Royal Highness to persuade the King to allow him to introduce into the Guards' bands the Turkish musical instruments, with the ornamental tails, crescents, etc."
Black men were, however, no novelty in our service, for in an interesting record of the Twenty-ninth Regiment by Major Everard, there are many particulars relative to the black drummers of that corps, who were first introduced in 1759.8 They appear to have had even an earlier existence, as Scott introduces these |
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•Newman, "Gluck and the Opera," 1895. 'Farmer, " Memoirs of the Royal Artillery Band," 1904. •Everard, "History of Thos. Farrington's Regiment," 1891.
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