THE EXHIBITION

Otago Witness, Issue 3755, 2 March 1926, Page 58

THE EXHIBITION

AS I SEE IT. ROUND THE BAND. (By JO3ErHi.SE O'Neill). (Fob thb Witness. There are evenings, many of .them, when we pass through the turnstiles, and see the crowds pouring up, in voiee and movement distinct in the clear air, and watch the grass and flowers dimming their colours, until the faint twilight beauty is drowned in the brilliance of "the springing electric jewels. It is on such evenings that our greatest pleasure is in listening to the music. Around the Stand, a thickening crowa gathers. Outside the seats, row on row of expectant heads are deepening, while a shitting mass of people drifts slowly, paces to and fro, in chequered conversation. Then the scarlet and the tartan striding through the lane opened for (hem tixe3 the attention, checks the' motion ; a running burst of clapping follows the bandmaster. But first we have the l'ipes—and it is now that I like to be arriving. At close range, this incessant pressure of harsh sounds disconcerts me. I am no Scotsman. But, coming thinned by distance, their music forms a part of the vague excitement aroused by the cold sky, the lights, the pulses of life, the black hills. I look around during the playing of the band, and am filled with something like awe when I see the sea of white, tense faces held and stirred, or solid, or rapt, in a remarkable stillness. Here, someone moves from one foot to the other: there is a cough, and a low murmur. But, otherwise the tide of music flows serenely over the smooth silence.

There are outsiders. Some sporting youths, in clothes to match, lounge roughly through the narrow spaces. A few girls begin giggling, and snicker until every head in the vicinity has been turned, arid they nudge eacu other into quivering soberity. Or a loud conversation is cheerfully begun between old friends. “How ARE y’, Bill? “Fine! This is my wife. Mary, meet ol’ Bill Hodgekins. Haven’t seen y’for years, man!” They chase the history of the district back for twenty years, until my head, which will be guiltily distracted, is in a whirl. And various enthusiasts shuffle and wriggle and crumple their programmes in an ecstacy of vexation. But such unconscious interrupters are dearly human. The cursed are those who consider that threepence worth of seat should be paid by a pound's worth of free information; and to the irritation of everyone, it is all wrong. A stern gentleman who tapped time with sterner pincenez gave the astonishing news that we were hearing the Hungarian Rhapsody. An amazed rustle of nearby programmes follows. A timid friend ventures to correct him. “isn't it the Moonlight Sonata?” “Phfm!” snorts the stern gentleman: and thirty listener's are aching to poke a perfect stranger in the back, and give him the lie. At the other end of the scale is the baby who weeps, preferably in the pianissimo passages. “ShaYne!” exclaim all the considerates. I know the cogent reasons for the presence of babies. But if “the sweetest music of the world is the cry of a child’’ —why come and listen to the band? One of the most uncomfortable things I know of is to be without a programme. We have been disturbed by the mechanical cry of the sellers who walk stridently round the ring. Then the inevitable question. “What IS tlie name of this thing? I know it so well, tumtv-tum-tum—YOU know.” But we don’t. Threepence is extricated with difficulty and we turn for the programme-seller. Gone! We wait ten minutes in uneasy attention. No sellers. We approach the blase uniform at the entrance, who, from the tone of his answer has oeen ashed the same question twenty times in the last five minutes, “S’rv pr’grmme sallll sold out.” The music is still haunting us. There is a whispered argument “Ask the man next you f..r a programme.” “Oh, I couldn't. Why don’t you?” “Well, perhaps we better not.”

Then we fidget for a minute or two, our enjoyment spoilt. One of us touches the man on the arm, and, horrified at our audacity, look blank, a£ this enquiring stranger. “Please could we have a look at your programme. We tried to get one, but they were all sold out.” From the gleam in his eye he thinks we are hoarding threepence. Interest is aroused in a few groups nearby. “My programme.” (He need not speak so loud). “Certainly.” We retire in confusion and search, the selection being finished, but cannot find it. More confusion. We hand it back. “Thank you so much. By the way (frightfully casually) what was the name of the last piece?” “Was that the one you wanted, ({Wretched fellow!) Oh 1 It was an extra!” They are playing something strangely beautiful and sad. I look down and see the delicate branches of a tree, faintly green against the glowing water, anti) hung as it were, with jewels. The night has become black and clouds are beginning to move overhead. A current of emotion is shaking in the crowd. There is an uneasy poignancy in the atmosphere. Softer. . . Slower. . . Ah! The gasp is simultaneous. A train whistle, vaguely disquieting in the distance, has risen to a piercing, insistent, eternal shriek, which continues, fades, rises, reverberates. The crystal globe of melody is shattered j and some hundreds of disgruntled, thoroughly human humans curse the driver. We all dislike being let down with a bumpk