Music: Campaign Waltz

Washington Music Critic Paul Hume’s ears went red ten years ago when he got some blue language in the mail from the White House: Harry Truman didn’t like Hume’s musical judgment on Daughter Margaret’s singing. That might have taught any other critic that music and politics don’t mix. But after all, Washington is a political town. Lately, on his radio program called Guest Conductor, Critic Hume has been airing the favorite melodies of the 1960 candidates. By last week he had all four on record:

¶JACK KENNEDY, a faithful Guest Conductor listener (whose father Joe, the family’s No.11 music buff, listens to Beethoven records by the hour), detailed his choice in a long letter written by Wife Jackie: Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun, Ravel’s La Valse, Berlioz’ overture to Benvenuto Cellini, Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, and dances from Borodin’s Prince Igor.

¶VICE PRESIDENT NIXON, who was once a fair fiddler (he played in the Fullerton, Calif. High School orchestra) but now prefers to relax by playing the piano, picked Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. His true favorites, he added, are sentimental ones: the score from Oklahoma! (because it was the first show that he and Pat saw after moving to Washington) and Mexican folk songs (because they remind him of his honeymoon south of the border). ¶LYNDON JOHNSON, an indiscriminate admirer of Strauss waltzes, was understandably careful to ask also for such Western folk songs as Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie, Home on the Range, and Whoopie I Oh!

¶HENRY CABOT LODGE, whose agile baritone voice often livens U.N. parties, displayed the most catholicity of taste by selecting Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet K. 581, Handel’s Messiah, Alexander’s Ragtime Band, St. James Infirmary, and other Dixieland tunes as played by the Dukes of Dixieland. For good measure, Mrs. Lodge added her own preference, which is a long way from Whoopie I Oh!: Bach’s Suite No. 3 in C Major for Unaccompanied Cello, performed by Pablo Casals.