New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-05-25
FIREMEN'S MUSIC.

The tlremen of New Orleans, noted as
they are for prompt and cool efficiency on
the field of action, and that esprit de corps
identical with the military spirit which
attaches the soldier to his colors, are
equally noted for the music that swells up
from hundreds of threats after ''the bat
ties fought and won" and the fell fire.
king has been conquered.
Our tiremen prove that music is the
language ofnature. None of them, perhaps.
have been eieUeS of a conservatorio, and few
could tell c sharp from a semi-quaver rest.
But they sing with truth of tune and
time, and heart and enthusiasm smack
ing strongly of the energy with which they
rush to the rescue when life or property
is in danger from fire.
The force of execution, and the sim
phcity characteristic of their singing gives
the music a charm that never fails to
crafty; to crafty even ears familiar with
chords and sequences, resolutions of
disords or the peculiarities of the
dominant seventh. Who has not heard
them, returning from some hard fought
battle with the terrible enemy. far
in the Silly night, breaking out into
song that seemed to derive a doubIe
charm from the surrounding stillness9
And as they passed on, and as the music
faded into the distance, ''Hie, Bonnie
Laddie, " ''John FRANCOIS, Johnny Fill
Up the Bowl, ''Run Wild de Bullgine.
Run, it sounded, even to practiced ears,
with an effect not to be excelled by the
most transcendent operate efforts.
Compared with these Italian trils are tame,
There is happy appropriateness, too,
about the songs selected by the fremen
that can not fail to strike the nearer.
They never get hold of a new piece of
music that does not ''tell" The pieces
they sing are evidently not original, vet
the nearer can not help feeling that the
song is so peculiarly suited to them that
1t would be out of place everywhere else.
Who selects their music, or how il falls
into their hands, is, perhaps, as great a
puzzle as the problem, what becomes
OF all three pins? But nobody, we will
venture to say, ever heard a firemen's
song as sung by firemen, when the task of
duty was done and they trudged their
weary way back to the home of the en- |
CINE, without feeling that it had peculiar
fitness for the jolly boys who merrilv
trolled it as they passed along, brimful of
animal courage and muscular energy,
while noways lacking those higher quail
ties that form men into good citizens
and heads of families-into good hus-
bands and fathers.
The degree of enjoyment which anv
pleasure affords is, to a great deoree
qualified and regulated by surrounding
and our perception of
pleasure derived from listening to music
IS often intensified by accessories that
nave no necessary connection with the
music itself. An occasion of this kind
on the evening OF Monday last,
when fire broke out in too close con-
Equity to the Office of the REPUBLICAN
lot to excite alarm. But in an incredibly
hort time more than one engine was on
he ground, and at it they went. For a
While the air was dinned with the roar of
oices; the clank-clank of the brakes and
he whizzing and whirring of the mighty |
team engine all blending together with a