IT is very true, as Mr. Chesterton must have remarked somewhere, that the
cult of simplicity is one of the most complex inventions of civilisation.
To eat nuts in a meadow when you can eat a beefsteak in a restaurant is
neither simple nor primitive; it is merely perverse, in the same way that
the art of Gauguin is perverse. A shepherd-boy piping to his flock in
Arcady and a poet playing the penny whistle in a Soho garret may make the
same kind of noise; but whereas the shepherd-boy knows no better, the
poet has to pretend that he knows no better. So I reject scornfully the
support of those amateurs who profess to like street-organs because they
are the direct descendants of the itinerant ballad-singers of the
romantic past; or because they represent the simple musical tastes of the
majority to-day. I refuse to believe that in appreciating the sound of
the complex modern instruments dragged across London by Cockneys
disguised as Italians the soul of the primitive man who lurks in some dim
oubliette of everybody’s consciousness is in any way comforted. I should
imagine that that poor prisoner, if civilisation’s cruelty has not
deprived him of the faculty of hearing, is best pleased by such barbaric
music as the howling of the wind or the sound of railway-engines
suffering in the night; and indeed every one must have noticed that
sometimes certain sounds unmusical in themselves can arouse the same
emotions as the greatest music.
But it is not on this score that street-organs escape our condemnation;
their music has certain defects that even distance cannot diminish, and
they invariably give us the impression of a man speaking through his nose
in a high-pitched voice, without ever pausing to take breath. If, in
spite of this, we have a kindness for them, it is because of their
association with the gladdest moments of childhood. To the adult ear
they bring only desolation and distraction, but to the children the
organ-man, with his curly black hair and his glittering earrings, seems
to be trailing clouds of glory. For them the barrel-organ combines the
merits of Wagner, Beethoven, Strauss, and Debussy, and Orpheus would have
to imitate its eloquent strains on his lute if he wished to captivate the
hearts of London children.
When I was a child the piano-organ and that terrible variant that
reproduces the characteristic stutter of the mandoline with deadly
fidelity were hardly dreamed of, but the ordinary barrel-organ and the
prehistoric hurdy-gurdy, whose quavering notes suggested senile decay,
satisfied our natural craving for melody. It is true that they did not
make so much noise as the modern instruments, but in revenge they were
almost invariably accompanied by a monkey in a little red coat or a
performing bear. I always had a secret desire to turn the handle of the
organ myself; and when—too late in life to enjoy the full savour of the
feat—I persuaded a wandering musician to let me make the experiment, I
was surprised to find that it is not so easy as it looks to turn the
handle without jerking it, and that the arm of the amateur is weary long
before the repertoire of the organ is exhausted. It is told of Mascagni
that he once taught an organ-man how to play his notorious Intermezzo to
the fullest effect; but I fancy that in professional circles the story
would be discredited, for the arm of the practised musician acquires by
force of habit a uniform rate of revolution, and in endeavouring to
modify that rate he would lose all control over his instrument.
Personally, I do not like hearing excerpts from Italian opera on the
street-organs, because that is not the kind of music that children can
dance to, and it is, after all, in supplying an orchestra for the
ballroom of the street that they best justify their existence. The
spectacle of little ragged children dancing to the music of the organ is
the prettiest and merriest and saddest thing in the world. In France and
Belgium they waltz; in England they have invented a curious compound of
the reel, the gavotte, and the cakewalk. The best dancers in London are
always little Jewesses, and it is worth anybody’s while to go to
Whitechapel at midday to see Miriam dancing on the cobbles of Stoney
Lane. There is not, as I once thought, a thwarted enchanter shut up
inside street-organs who cries out when the handle turns in the small of
his back. But why is it that I feel instinctively that magicians have
drooping moustaches and insinuating smiles, if it is not that my mind as
a child founded its conception of magicians on itinerant musicians? And
they weave powerful spells, strong enough to make these poor little
atomies forget their birthright of want and foot it like princesses.
Children approach their amusements with a gravity beside which the work
of a man’s life seems deplorably flippant. A baby toddling round a
bandstand is a far more impressive sight than a grown man
circumnavigating the world, and children do not smile when they dance—all
the laughter is in their feet.
When from time to time “brain-workers” write to the newspapers to suggest
that street musicians should be suppressed I feel that the hour has
almost come to start a movement in favour of Votes for Children. It is
disgraceful, ladies and gentlemen, that this important section of the
community, on whom the whole future of the nation depends, should have no
voice in the forming of the nation’s laws! This question of
street-organs cannot be solved by banishing them to the slums without
depriving many children of a legitimate pleasure. For, _sub rosa_, the
children of Park Lane—if there are any children in Park Lane—and even the
children of “brain-workers,” appreciate the music of street organs quite
as much as their humble contemporaries. While father buries his head
under the sofa-cushions and composes furious letters to the _Times_ in
that stuffy hermitage, little noses are pressed against the window-pane,
little hands applaud, and little feet beat time on the nursery floor
upstairs. This is one of those situations where it is permissible to
sympathise with all parties, and unless father can achieve an almost
inhuman spirit of tolerance I see no satisfactory solution.
For children must have music; they must have tunes to think to and laugh
to and live to. Funeral marches to the grave are all very well for the
elderly and disillusioned, but youth must tread a more lively measure.
And this music should come like the sunshine in winter, surprisingly, at
no fixed hour, as though it were a natural consequence of life. One of
the gladdest things about the organ-man in our childhood was the
unexpectedness of his coming. Life would be dragging a little in
schoolroom circles, when suddenly we would hear the organ clearing its
throat as it were; we would all run to the window to wave our hands to
the smiling musician, and shout affectionate messages to his intelligent
monkey, who caught our pennies in his little pointed cap. In those days
we had all made up our minds that when we grew up we would have an organ
and a monkey of our own. I think it is rather a pity that with age we
forget these lofty resolutions of our childhood. I have formed a
conception of the ideal street-organist that would only be fulfilled by
some one who had realised the romance of that calling in their youth.
How often, when the children have been happiest and the dance has been at
its gayest, I have seen the organ-man fold music’s wings and move on to
another pitch in search of pennies! I should like to think that it is a
revolt against this degraded commercialism that inspires the protests of
the critics of street music. The itinerant musician who believed in art
for art’s sake would never move on so long as he had an appreciative
audience; and sometimes, though I am afraid this would be the last straw
to the “brain-workers,” he would arrive at two o’clock in the morning,
and the children, roused from their sleep, would hear Pan piping to his
moonlit flocks, and would believe that they were still in the pleasant
country of dreams.