Music and Refreshments in Parks

In matters musical we in America have been wont to take our pattern from European, especially German, traditions, but, strange to say, music for the people in public parks is an exception to this rule.For reasons that are clear, though not patent on the surface, the achievement in this field in America, on distinctly different lines from out-door music on the continent, is a decided advance upon European institutions.Some three years ago the writer made a cycling tour in Europe, mainly through Germany, crossing north to south from Bremen to Munich, with a special view to the study of the conditions of public music in summer.A startling conclusion of this survey was that nowhere in Germany is the established, regular provision of public music of as high a standard as in the United States in places like Willow Grove Park, Pa., or Ocean Grove, New Jersey.This does not take account of special seasons of opera in Baireuth and Munch, nor of the occasional Mozart festivals in Salzburg, Austria.Whether the cause be a sense of satiety from the high feasts of the winter season or a certain military policy of the government, the fact is clear that almost the only public music in summer in Germany is that of the brass band.It is probably true that the government practises not merely an economy in thus employing its regiment musicians, but that it perceives subtly the wisdom of preserving and encouraging a popular side of the military regime.Only in one city the writer found an orchestra which alter- nated with a military band in the Tivoli Garden at Hanover.The effect of this monopoly of the program performed by the brass group and in turn of the taste of the audience is evident.It is to-day a frequent theme and a matter of serious concern to vigilant cities in Germany along with other strange symptoms of the times.Even in the one place where the orchestra alternated with the band, the programs of the former were decidedly inferior to those of the orchestral season at Willow Grove, Pa.To be sure, the writer's survey was not complete, and the time was three years ago.In the

Art · American Environmental and Regional History