Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1898-05-08

for q moment.
An incidental luncheon or dinner during
that major portion of the year wnen a
man is in harness for worry ana jar ana
fret makes slender basis for revolt com
pared with the persistent, unacceptable
nuisance OF music at every meal-music
from morning TO night during the brief
summer holiday period, when man seeks
absolute relaxation and repose In order
to recuperate himself. Herein lies the
evil OF music at summer hotels. People
go to hotels In summer TO live, and 50
are unable TO get away from 1t. People
are not supposed 70 live in hotels In
winter: they drQp if for a meal, and IL
they don't like tne music they can drop
out again and proceed to eat where
music is not.
Let It be assumed. for arguments sake,
that the music is i'm all cases desirable.
Music. however, like our books, the
theatre. the picture gallery, and other
luxurious pleasures OF cultivation. needs
to be chosen TO be enjoyed. Nor can we
mix it up with food and drink IN any
manner profitable to the art or our own
nutrition. BY an unwritten law there
Is just one accompaniment 10 meals
which can ever exercise q salutary IN
fiuence, and that is conversation. The
reason which has made of conversation
desirable, and the sole desirable, con-
comitant is the fact of its spontanelty.
1t is carried forward by momentary Volt
ton, and we can cease or pursue 1t at
pleasure. No man needs to talk any
more than he cares to, and the comment
and epigram which punctuate the dinner
table, ad lbitum, are just as delightful
because of their ad libitum flavor as be-
cause of any Intrinsic brilliancy or merit
they may possess. When hotel man
gives us music with our meals we have
no volition; 1t is thrust upon us; our
ears are bombarded and assailed, nolens
volens, and at times when our souls
crave outer quiet as. living necessity.
On the principle of nothing being given
us which we do not call for, we would
alone resent the music, even II the pro-
position is accepted that IT Is good music,
well-performed music. and that we are
ordinarily so devoted to music that we
feel as though We could hardly tire of 1t.
As said before, music. needs to be an
elected pleasure, or it becomes, like all
delights unsought, a serious nuisance.
And Just inasmuch as the boycotted lis
tener may natively enjoy music, and just
I'm proportion as the music forced upon
his untuned, fatlgued receptivty may be
music of high-class order, so exactly
does the nuisance become aggravated and
unbearable.
Few pearls are thrown TO the listener !
in hotel restaurants. The common score |
Of complaint will be that OK pursuant |
noise, then one does not so further and
have objection on vicious standard ana |
performances. But If there might pos |
sibly be a morceau Of decent calibre in |
the case, the quiet diner will be forced |
into the place Of the swine, whom oc- |
casion blinds 70 the pearl thrown before |
him. Those who may really enjoy the |
restaurant orchestra are the promiscu- |
Gus youthful diners-out, who believe that |
music and the popping Of corks are the |
conjunctive elements which go hand in |
hand with the scheme OF a completely |
enjoyable evening.
Those who seek absolute quiet and re-
taxation at this juncture and who have !
no place they may possibly go TO, except |
to a hotel, know TO their sorry cost |
the penance of hotel orchestra. To |
dine with 1t incidentally In town in the
busy period of the year, when the min I
is bent on struggle. Is one thing; TO lil
with IL morning noon. and eve, whe
brain and body seek imperative rest l.
another. II drops I'm such cases out O \
the category of music, TO be criticised |
as good bad. or middling. and becomes /
simply a cruel, inveterate noise.
Mr.. Jacob Reinhardt is 10 be cOngratu
lated on the really excellent anthem he |
wrote for the unyeiing ceremonies al |
81. PauPs church. 1t is I'm the ecclesi- |
a stical style, after the fashion of the old |
masters 1t is very chaste, and shows l
no trace OF those frivolities of the mod |
ern school that have been allowed to |
Green into the church service through the |
Ignorance OF the half-educated musi- |
clans. and are taken as established facts
by the unnitiated. Such honest music |
is q step in the right direction, tending |
to the exclusion of those vugarities
which il behooves all champions to fight. !
The anthem includes three different sub !