The evening times., 1899-07-12
Music in Chicago.

They are having an interesting argument
in Chicago, now that the open-air concert
season is fairly under way, and it seems
at present as if one side had about as good
a prospect of winning as the other. The
people are divided into two camps. One
declares that the only proper thing for
park music is classical melody-Wagner
and Bach and Beethoven. The other in
sists that these do not go" and that
.'Darktown is Out Tonight" and ''The
Georgia Camp Meeting" are the right sort
of thing for such occasions. One OF the
park commissioners precipitated this at
fair upon his own head and that of Chica-
go when he decreed that a bandmaster
who was playing selections from the class
ical operas should stop it and play more
popular music. He said that the peop.e
were paying for the music, and ought to
have what they wanted. The bandmaster
retorted that they were getting exactly
that, and intimated that he knew what the
people wanted better than they themselves
did. II has now come TO an argument in
the public press. Somebody lately pro-
posed that the thing should be settled by
what he called a ''scrapperdammerung,
! in which each side should be represented
| by band, which should play its very best,
while the people applauded; and the band
which got the most applause shouldn't
least if it was the rag-time band-receive
the cake The devotees of classical music
might not condescend to anything of that
sort.
Then the conservatives grew coy and in
timated that much would depend on the
place in which the contest was held, also
that the people of really good taste would
not make as much noise as those on the
other side, and that project was abandoned
The question is now as far from being set
tied as ever.
This is rather an interesting develop
ment of the recent wave of enthusiasm fol
rag-time music which has swept over tbs
land, and ii indicates several things. Never
in the history of Annie Rooney" and kin
dred airs of days gone by did Chicago, ol
| any other town, have such trouble because
popular music was erowding out the clas-
sizes This controversy indicates that a
least some of the people who formerly de-
voted their time to the classics are now in
terested in the other type of music. Again
it may be argued that the average band
not being composed of the very finest mu
sicians. it would be better that it shoulS
do something which it could do well, anS
that it is more comfortable to hear III
Livin' Easy played well than the overtur,
TO Tannhauser played badly. 1t may b.
added that this wave of enthusiasm for
certain type of melody indicates that W
are really approaching the development o
something like American music.
This does not mean that rag-time is tn,
true American music-far from 1t. Their
is rag-time and rag-time. Like the Irisl
nation, "the good is as good as the best
and the bad is wurrse than the wurrst.
Some of these melodies. ground out simpl,
and solely to make money, are as distress
tone could possibly be. Some of them ar
akin to the real folk-song, and, naturally
songs of the latter type are vastly out
numbered by those of the former. Blu
the important point is that great masse
of people all over the country ar
whistling, singing. humming, and march
| ing to this kind of music, and when tha
happens il means that some sort of folk
song will eventually be evolved, and tha
the rhythmical beat and odd harmonies @
the best type of this music are likely t
leave traces on American folk melodies.