STREET MUSIC

Evening Star, Issue 19784, 7 February 1928, Page 5

STREET MUSIC

A WEALTH IN LONDON. Tlic English have few claims to dis* tinction where classical music is concerned. They have lew great composers ami fewer great artists. But what a wealth of music abounds in London streets and squares (writes ji correspondent of the Newcastle ‘Weekly Chronicle’)- To lie sure, it is not always the kind of music that has charms. Some will unkindly say that it is no music at all. But that is going too far. One cannot harshly call it a noise. Let us be content and call it not good music nor had music, but street music. Yon will hear it first in Loudon when the milkman calls. There is the patter of his pony’s feet, a rattle of bottles and cans, and then a high-pitched call of “M-i-I-k!” or rather husky yodel. Most milkmen prefer yodelling. Next, probably when you arc dressing, yon will hear the rumble of a heavy cart and the slow “ploy-plot, plop-plop ” of a heavy horse's shoes Then comes a. drawn out, not unmelodions, cry of “Coal!” a mournful, poignant cry, that strikes a note of nielancholy and is sometimes followed by a quavering, plaintive “ Who’ll buy?” and a ding-dong of a heavy handbc*!. But no one buys, and the coalman plods wearily on, his dolcinl cries lading with iho distance. Street cries in London are mostly monotonous. In a dreary monotone the blind beggar with iiis shivering dog calls “ Pipe lights, cigar lights, pipe lights, cigar lights,” and old women call, “ Buy a box of matches, sir I” in tones which express neither nope, despair, nor the faintest interest. Barrel organs are everywhere in plenty’; loud ones, soft ones, with new tunes and old times, sprightly times and dreary tunes. They make the air hideous in some silent, solemn square until bribed to depart, or else compete madly with the roar of traffic in busy streets, aided by Happing spoons or tremulous strident songs. Brass bands, too, are much in evidence, on week days thumping and blowing martially through the streets and on Sundays droning out hymns in the .smug respectability of Bayswater. Cornets also arc plentiful on Sunday, as well as liarmoninnis and wailing violins. As evening draws on most street musicians retire. But there is always to be seen the old and bent mouth organist playing wlicezily in the open doorway of the public iiou.se till warm air and strong beer mellow men’s hearts and open their packets. All this is but a fraction of London’s street music, winch is heard day and night equally in the broadest street and the meanest alley. Much of it is dull and most of it doleful, but it is a music all by itself —such as is heard , in no other country but England and no town but London. And London would be a sadder place without its sad street music