“DINNER MUSIC”

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 94, 15 January 1935, Page 10

“DINNER MUSIC”

H.P.)

(By

Some Reflections on a Broadcast Problem WAR OF TASTE AGAIN

Correspondents have been criticising, in some instances harshly criticising, music broadcast at dinner-time—in Wellington from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. When some people are sufficiently agitated over something, in this warm weather, to summon up energy enough to seize paper and pen to protest against the type of radio music served up to them during meal-time, it denotes a mind in revolt. It would probably be quite futile to remind such people that if the music during the dinner hour did not please them the best thing to do is to switch off. Evidently, from the nature of the criticism, they do nothing of the kind. They simply continue to listen to “Poet and Peasant” during the corned beef and carrots, and the “Blue Danube” waltz during the apple pie; squirming in an agony of disgust as “The Song of the Volga Boatmen” drones out during dessert. Such critics need a little wholesome medicine. To begin with there is no such tiling as “dinner music.” No composer that I know has deliberately composed what these critics call dinner music, unless it be music in opera and musical comedy especially composed for a dinner scene upon the stage; so who is to say what is “dinner music” and what is not? I know a friend who would consider the Elgar violin concerto, with Menuhin as soloist, divine dinner music; while another friend, equally as charming and companionable, would far sooner hear Rudee Vallee croon “Love, You Funny Thing,” through the roast. One man’s fish is another’s poison. People dining at the Midland might enjoy Tschaikowsky’s “Nutcracker” Suite, but would that music appeal to a vast other class dining in different circumstances? “Tristan and Isolde,” most wonderful and beautiful of the Wagnerian operas, would be hugely appreciated by perhaps three or four dozen people seated at lavishly-furnished tables in ■Wellington,' but such music would probably be voted dull and obscure at a camp fire dinner over the hills and far away. So that really “dinner music” becomes just as much a matter of taste between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. as between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. Some people like light “tuny” music of the pseudoromantic order associated with musical comedy to eat with; others like to munch to Beethoven and Bach. As a matter of fact, all this criticism of radio programmes at dinner and all other times is born of satiation. Some people listen-in too much. The radio is always “on,” never quiescent, and they are more or less unconsciously tired of the tone. Their state of mind is rather neatly sensed in Tilson Young’s book on radio-listening. His diagnosis and cure are interesting.