An Irishman's Diary

If you tune into BBC Scotland today, you might notice something odd. There will be no records playing. Or jingles. Or theme tunes. Or any form of what radio people call "musical furniture". Even tonight's edition of The Jazz House will be devoid of melody, offering discussion, analysis, and "jazz poetry" instead.

You might be forgiven for thinking the station has been taken over by an ultra-dour sect of Presbyterians, who think the devil has all the tunes, good and bad. But the truth is less dramatic.

Radio Scotland is merely taking a lead in No Music Day, the third annual edition of which is now being marked - or more likely ignored - throughout Britain. Far from being dour, the Scots' initiative has a sense of humour. As well as policing its own musical fatwa, the radio station will send a snatch squad into the streets to perform "citizen's arrests" on anyone found wearing headphones.

No Music Day began as the brainchild of the writer, artist, and former rock star Bill Drummond, who wanted to protest against the saturation of modern life by music in all forms. Worried at his own jaded response to records a few years ago, the 50-something Drummond has also taken to restricting his listening in any 12-month period to artists with a particular initial. Wisely, he began with "B". And progressing through the alphabet, he is now on "G" - intensely aware that he may never hear Bach, Beethoven, or the Beatles again, which is the whole idea.

But probably his best-known experiment was in 1992 when, as leader of the band KLF (also known as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu), he disbanded the group - then at the height of its fame - deleted its back-catalogue, and publicly burned £1 million worth of its profits in a filmed ceremony on the island of Jura.

By contrast, No Music Day is a fairly moderate initiative. And a pro-music one, essentially, based as it is on the old-fashioned idea that you can appreciate something more by having less of it.

Which is why, although still well short of becoming a mass movement, No Music Day has more supporters than Radio Scotland. Backers also include the growing anti-muzak lobby, headed by a group called Pipedown International, whose patrons include Julian Lloyd Webber and the splendidly named conductor Simon Rattle.

Pipedown compares piped music in shops to its use in cowsheds by dairy farmers. The idea is to lull shoppers into a calm in which they can be milked more easily, the organisation claims. But with the Christmas season already upon us, when the tills are alive with the sound of muzak and shopping assistants everywhere are being exposed to lasting psychological damage as a result of hearing Slade's Merry Christmas 20 times a day for two months, PI's is an uphill struggle.

The choice of November 21st for No Music Day is deliberately ironic. Tomorrow marks the feast-day of St Cecilia, the patron saint of music (and of muzak, presumably). By abstaining from all forms of melody today, NMD activists are having a sort-of Mardi Gras before Lent, but with a twist. This time the short period of denial comes first, to be followed by a six-week splurge.

In the war between music and muzak, the Lassus Scholars are a crack corps of elite troops. They are named after a famous Belgian - an achievement in itself - albeit one who lived long before the concept of Belgium emerged. Orlande de Lassus was born in what were then the Low Countries, some time in the early 1530s. It is said that, such was the beauty of his voice, he was kidnapped three times by music enthusiasts while still a choirboy. But his lasting fame was to be as a composer of choral music.

Today his work - and a wide repertoire by other composers through the centuries - is performed by the Lassus Scholars and Piccolo Lasso, the adult and children's wings of the Dublin Choral Foundation. Both choirs will perform in a special Christmas concert at the National Concert Hall on December 6th, when the forces of muzak will be repulsed for one evening at least by Bach's Magnificat, Oratorio de Noel by Saint-Saëns and Handel's Zadok the Priest. (Details of many other Lassus Scholars events are listed at www.

dublinchoralfoundation.ie).

Their crusade to promote choral music does not end there, however. The scholars also present an annual bursary of €1,000 - the Ite O'Donovan Award, named in honour of their director and founder - to the winners of a chosen competition at the Feis Ceoil. This year the target competition is the Alice Yoakley Cup for post-primary school choirs. Entry forms are in the Feis Ceoil syllabus and must be submitted by December 8th (Tel: 01-6767365; info@feisceoil.ie; www.feisceoil.ie).

Although one of the supreme masters of the genre, Lassus did not confine himself to polyphonic church music. He also produced numerous French chansons - the pop music of his day - including bawdy ballads and drinking songs that were loved throughout Europe.

Shakespearian students among you are probably asking: "Remember the ditty that the drunken country justice sings in Shallow's orchard during Act V, Scene iii, of Henry VI Part II? Was that by any chance a Lassus number?" Well, I'm very glad you asked. Because yes it was, albeit with English words. It might also be worth noting the happy coincidence - given the day that's in it - of the drunken justice's surname. Which, in case you've forgotten, was "Silence".