THE IMPERTINENCE OF MUSIC

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12229, 29 August 1925, Page 11

THE IMPERTINENCE OF MUSIC

By

Basil MacDonald Hastings

The arrival of summer is invariably the signai the letting loose of a perfect orgy of music. This year the flood is stronger than ever, thanks to the general fancy for wireless entertainments. Utterly unscrupulous people not only subscribe to support the broadcasting fiends, but have the insufferable effrontery to put what are called loudspeakers on windowsills and in gardens. Thus they compel the wretched people living in their neighbourhood to share their odd passion, whether they like it or not. Why is music, alone of all the arts, al/owed this appalling license? Why is it impossible to visit a sea-

side resort without being compelled to listen to the blatant noises of a military band? Why is it that music is the only art the town councils will subsidise out of the ratepayers’ money? Why, when we go to the theatre to see people act, are we compelled to listen to people play instruments? Why, when we go to church, must we groan in misery while someone plays that dire instrument of torture, the organ ?

Why cannot we eat in public without having to endure the strains of ail •rchestra playing tunes from a musical comedy ? . '

THE FINISHING TOUCH Broadcasting has put the finishing touch to this insolence of the musicians. It is now in their power to thrust their confounded art at any time and in any place upon those who dislike it I am an old man, and I am a very hard-worked old man. One evening last week I took a little recreation and sat in my garden, smoking a pipe, rubbing the dog’s ears and pondering upon the problem of the grave versus cremation. I had not been there very long before a savage subscriber to 2LO let loose upon the evening air a female with a voice that sounded like good times in a brass foundry. Here is what she sang, copied from the programme in the evening paper:— (a) “Away With Woe, Away.”— (Schirt.) (b) “Weave, Little Earwig, Weave.” —{Ed. P. Laloo.)

(c) “Chanson de l’amour.”—(Babe.) Now, I pay my rates and taxes. I have never been cruel to anything with tho possible exception of a dog-fish which once bit my finger. I am a ready smiler and buy flags on flag-days. Then why should my few moments of leisure be rendered miserable by this selfish cult of music! Think for a moment if any . other artist behaves as the musician does. Does the actor follow you about at the seaside and recite at you? Does the painter lash you to the railings, produce an easel and paint a masterpiece under your nose? Does the novelist jump up in the theatre and read extracts from his latest novel between the acts? Does the poet pour his poetry upon you in church ? Do sculptors force their way into restaurants and insist on chipping out marble blocks while you eat your meals? Of course they don’t. Then tell me why those practitioners of an art which is only to the taste of a very few are allowed to torture humanity at every waking hour. 4 You and I are compelled occasionally to attend public banquets. Anything more revolting than the spectacle of hundreds of people eating piles of food •brought them by hundreds of other people with greasy evening clothes and foreign accents I cannot imagine. AFTER DINNER “TORTURE” Well, when the great eat is over, what happens, then? Haven’t we been sufficiently sickened? Won’t they let us go home now? Far from it. We have now to submit to. the monstrous torture of what is called an afterdinner concert.

I am not going to describe such an affair. I believe that we all should be silent about our sorrowe and trials. In telling of them, we endure them again. But I am going to say a few things that should have been said long ago, and’ which readers who share my nonmusical taste may like to cut out and send to the promoters of the next banquet which they are blackmailed to attend. They will find them set out in nice funereal type in tho centre of my article. The printer lias set out the lines in nice black letters, because it is a solemn, if not a mournful, occasion!