Domestic Tranquillity

"I regard music as I do food," says New Orleans Industrialist (chemicals) Edward B. Benjamin. "I relish different types at different times." Last year he decided that there was not enough "tranquil" music in the world, so he established a $1,000 Benjamin Award to encourage more of it. Music Lover Benjamin's specifications: compositions would have to be: I) for full orchestra, 2) of not more than ten minutes' duration, 3) tranquil. Benjamin's further explanation: "Hundreds of thousands of Americans bring work home at night. Tranquil music is the kind that can be listened to as one works--with perhaps inspirationa results."* In New Orleans last week, after a board of judges had weeded through 72 entries. Conductor Alexander Hilsberg led his Philharmonic-Symphony in the prizewinning score.

It was a mild and smoothly flowing work, entitled Elegy, written by Violinist-Composer Clarence Cameron White, 73-year-old Manhattan Negro. White's approximate recipe for tranquillity: a light batter of equal parts of Brahms and Saint-Saens, seasoned with a pinch of Ravel. The audience gave Elegy rather tranquil applause, but roused to give Composer White himself a hearty burst when he appeared to take a bow.

Composer White, who has retired from violin playing, took time off from composing a symphony and writing his memoirs to send in a piece he wrote a few years ago in memory of his first wife. Said Judge Olin Downes, New York Times critic: "It has a melody, which very few composers of our time can carry through an entire composition. It has what the donor really wanted--tranquillity . . . And by golly it has a tune."

"Very nice music," nodded Donor Benjamin. He ordered it recorded for his home collection and set up another tranquillity award for next year.

* Not to be confused with "restful" music, which, without says well-defined Benjamin, "is melody; the slow and kind of soft music and a man can enjoy while dining with his wife."

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