TYRANNY OF MUSIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 189, 11 August 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

TYRANNY OF MUSIC.

INTERFERES WITH TALK. A WORN-OUT CONVENTION. "WE MUST HAVE SOME MUSIC." (By CYRANO.) Many years ago Du Maurier drew a picture of a hostess thanking a distinguished pianist for a solo played in her crowded drawing-room. "What I like best about your music, Herr Hammertonga, is that it blends so perfectly with the conversation!" My complaint about so much music in public places and at social gatherings is that it does not blend perfectly with the conversation. I like music and I like conversation, but I like them in their proper place. It is possible, of course, to have the two together. Afternoon tea with nice music drifting across the room, not too loudly to prevent intimate talk, can be very pleasant. There are some dinners, too, that are so long and resplendent that a full band is positively essential. I strongly object, however, to have to eat a meal with someone whose company I value when music compels you to raise your voice and say "Beg pardon?" every minute, and to be compelled to sit or stand in an agony of embarrassment at a social evening while someone sings an uninteresting song or plays an uninteresting piece badly.

There seems to be an idea prevalent among those who order such things that everybody likes music of any sort at all times. I don't believe they do. I believe that a distressingly large proportion of the music played in public places is not wanted. I have had talks with fine possibilities ruined by orchestras. In London I went 'to lunch with an old colleague whom I had not seen for years. It was a large several storeyed restaurant, and there was a band on every floor, which set up a barrage against which conversation made a fitful and feeble advance: In Manchester I met two interesting men for the first and only time amid the same din. At Oxford I contended, in conversation with another old friend, against the conquering , odds of a violin ,» -trombone and a piano. After t)uft I was delighted to find a soft-footed London restaurant advertising as one of its attractions was no music. I congratulated* Che waiter and increased hig tip. ' I ajn'lnclined to think, however, that thcTnuisance of music at meals is less than the nuisance of music at functions and parties. If people really enjoyed talking against this blare or the items when, for politeness sake, silence is observed, I would not complain so much, but I don't believe they do. I believe most of this music is simply a convention which no one dares to break. Those who arrange the evening say, "Oh, we must have some music." Perhaps a professional band is ordered, or someone say* "So-and-so will sang for us." Con* ... n " :rr

tures, or meet congenial acquaintances, you have to talk against music, or break off an interesting conversation while 1 somebody plays or sings something. I recall an evening at which a number of us interested in the same' subject were

brought together to meet some distinguished visitors. There was not the slightest call for music. There had

|to be one or two speeches, afid the company could have passed the rest of the evening quite happily in talk. The convention, however, prevailed. There were songs and piano solos. I shall long remember the songs, for one of them caught me standing in the middle of the crowded room, and I had to stand there looking and feeling like a fool until it was over. The music, to put it mildly, was quite uninteresting. In fact, some of it was positively bad. We show ourselves an unmusical people in nothing more than in the casual way we put up with third-rate singers and players to perform in public. The truth is that a great deal of the music set down on programmes of gatherings of this kind is nothing much more than a stop-gap. A musfrjal community wouldn't tolerate it. On this particular evening I made it my business to sound opinion on the music provided, and I am pretty certain that nobody in the room enjoyed it.

I have been at parties where there was the same sort of unnecessary interruption to conversation, while the guests sat round in various attitudes of resigned boredom. The chorus of "Thank you" at the end so often seems to me to have a double-edged meaning. It is true that a party punctured—l mean punctuated— two or three times with inferior songs or piano solos may be less trying than the old-fashioned musical evening, which can, or could, be one of the most wearisome things under heaven. You know the sort of thing I mean—the protestations of young people that they really cannot sing (which is generally true enough), the gradual overcoming of their reluctance, and the procession of thirdrate songs indifferently sung. Here, again, I take leave to doubt whether a majority of listeners really enjoy these evenings. There is an-enormous amount of moral cowardice in society, and I think sometimes with savage joy of the disagreeable old man in "Punch" who asked a quartet party in a drawing-room if thejrfeally enjoyed singing, and on being assured that they did, said that was well, for it was something of a balance against the misery they inflicted on others. Music is one of, the lovely things of life, but let us confine it to its proper occasions. I object to it being dragged in, unprepared, to garnish an entertainment that can get on very well without it. I object to be invited somewhere for a certain purpose, and then to have third-rate music poured over my unoffending head. On such occasions I am disposed to think sadly of my happier home, and to echo the immortal words of Mr. Enightley in "Emma": "A man must have a very good opinion of himself whqn- he asks people to leave their own fireside, and encounter such a day as this, for the sake of coining to see him. . . . The folly of not allowing people to be comfortable at home, and the folly of people's not staying comfortably at home when they can!" Ther* is much