This May Hurt a Little

Iron foundries, city streets, locomotives and rugby games have already been set to music. Last week Manhattan concertgoers heard their first appendectomy. Appropriately, it was performed by a doctors' orchestra.

The Hospital Suite was also written by a doctor: Philadelphia's Dr. Herman M. Parris. Manhattan's 70-piece Doctors' Orchestral Society had its usual professional troubles rehearsing it: the oboist-obstetrician turned up late the evening he delivered three babies; the clarinetists and violinists were occasionally called out on emergencies.

Last week the patient did as well as could be expected. The preoperative prayers were said with muted strings; the ether was given with dissonance; the incision and sewing up came with a clatter of busy brass and woodwinds. The non-medical found Composer Parris' music not quite surgically clean: it had echoes of everything from Grieg to Gershwin. But nobody denied that it was good fun.

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