Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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Standing for better tone and volume, Woody and the Glee Club punch home a crescendo in the Sever 11 practice room. The Glee Club is one of the Nation's Foremost Clioruses One of the series of spring Yard Concerts on the steps of Widener. At the end of each program students join the Glee Club to sing College songs. The present Harvard Glee Club is a far cry from the days when no College man dared to sing anything more classi- cal than Swmzee River even in the shower, and it was thought improper for Harvard and Radcliffe students to sing together in a mixed choir. Since then, through the inspiration and perspiration of its two great conductors, Professors A. T. Davison and G. Wallace Woodworth, the Glee Club has grown into one of the nation's foremost choruses, possessing its own large and varied library of choral music, and regularly present- ing the masses and requiems of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. The Club's self-effacing but astute business management has made it finance itself from numerous concerts and recordings, so that it need follow the dictates only of its own high stand- ards of musical achievement. ' During the war, Woody and the Club officers de- liberately lowered voice requirements and shortened rehearsals, in order to give as many as possible the opportunity to par- ticipateiin great music. Some 55 members of '46 warbled their way successfully through quartet trials and were later elected to membership and entitled to the Club shingle Their first season, 1942-1943, was marked by creditable per- formances of Brahms' Requiem and Beethoven's Ninth Symplaony. 12761-

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Pierian Sodality, the College's Oldest Musical Group, Has Weathered Four Wars One hundred and forty years of tradition as a rich source of connoisseurs and performers of fine orchestral music helped the Pierian Sodality weather the fourth war in its history with no major ill effects, though the concert orchestra formed by its members was reduced for a time nearly to a quartet. In the spring of 1943, Conductor Malcolm Holmes '28 left for war service, shortly followed by many of the '46 members who had recently joined the Society, including Manager Edward Troupin. Conductor George Brown '24 took up the baton in the interim, however, aided by Chemistry Professor A. Sprague Coolidge, and the Club adjusted itself to wartime conditions. Led by an able group of ofiicers including Vice- President Edmund Chastagner '46 the Pierian instituted summer orchestra rehearsals and continued its joint rehearsals and concerts with Radcliffe, begun as an experiment in 1942. The annual Paine Hall concerts were presented with success despite the personnel shortage, and Pierian performed in a joint concert with Colbyjunior College. The 1944 and 1945 seasons saw the orchestra's activity very nearly reduced to periodic sight reading rehearsals, classi- cal jam sessions to which anyone who could play an instru- ment was welcome. The return of Conductor Holmes from the Army in 1945 encouraged the orchestra to present a fine performance of the Brahms Requiem, in memory of President 1943-44. Bark Rowxjohn A. Finnegan '47 fAfri.rlanl Treaiurerj, David Kligler '47, Bert A. Knight '46, Howard A. Diller '44 CSeerelaryD, H. B. Nelson '47 Q Armi- ant Managed. Front Row.-jay C. Hornberger '45 flwdlldglfb, Edmond A. Chastag- ner '46 CVire Preridentj, Wyman T. Vaughan fPre,fidentJ, Vernon H. Head '44, Not in Pi:1ure.' Alexander T. Shulgin '46, Edward C. Troupin '46 fMamzgerJ. 42751- A Pierian quartet tries out its new instruments. Left to right: Albert Cline '49, Mitchell Sharmat '48, Judy Davidoff, and Conductor Malcolm Holmes. Roosevelt, at Bowdoin College, but the revival of a full concert schedule had to wait until 1946. Ed Troupin '46 returned to become president of the Sodality in the fall of 1946, and he and his associates staged over ten successful concerts, with Radcliffe, Colby, Wellesley, and Mt. Holyoke, at Choate and Groton schools, at the Tedesco Country Club, and in Sanders Theater. A wartime innovation, the Pops concert, was perpetuated with a per- formance in Lowell House, and a Pierian competition to en- courage student orchestral composition produced a concerto for piano and orchestra by Nicholas Van Slyck '44, which was performed with Noel Lee '46 as featured soloist in the Sanders Theater concert and won praise from Boston critics. An Unbroken Tradition Troubled by financial difficulties, as are most good musical organizations, the Pierian solved some of its problems in 1946 by a successful venture as impresario, presenting the Budapest String Quartet in a Cambridge concert whose profits went to bolster the Sodality's sustaining trust fund. The new creative vigor in both musical and business fields did not herald a departure from the group's prized traditions, however, and many of the original customs and rituals, abandoned for the duration, were revived among the Pierian's increasing membership. Over 150 returning veterans and eager prospective members were on hand in 1947 as Conductor Holmes raised his baton at the first sight-reading rehearsal, and the interest of the orchestra's members was matched by that of such of its patrons as Alfred Gott, a California fan and hobbyist, who presented Pierian with a string quartet of instruments con- structed by himself. Sustained through the lean years by '46, Pierian traditions seemed safe for the future.

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Continuing its reduced but ambitious wartime pro- gram, the Glee Club in 1943-1944 sang in 20 concerts, including first performances in Boston and in Carnegie Hall, New York, of the difficult Free Song, 1943 Pulitzer prize-winning composi- tion by William Schuman around words by Walt Whitman. A combined Harvard-Radcliffe chorus also sang the powerful Bach Il4cl.f.f1:l2 B Minor with the Boston Symphony. Woody's Missionaries Membership hit an all-time low in 1944-1945, but the season was memorable nonetheless for Randall Thompson's Termment of Freedom, which the Club sang with the Boston Symphony and recorded for RCA Victor. Another musical achievement was the Gabriel Faure music festival in 1945, under the direction of Mme. Nadia Boulangerg and a new recording was made, Bach's Cantata No. 106, Goefx Time ix Bert, with Rad- cliffe and members of the Boston Symphony. In 1947-1948 Sever 11 began to be crowded at rehearsals again, and returning '46 veterans sang in parts of Handel's zlfletriab with Wellesley, Stravinsky's Symjzbony ofP.rezlm.s' with Radcliffe and the Boston Symphony, and the now familiar Brahms Requiem. A projected summer tour to Holland, Belgium, and Denmark had to be abandoned for lack of funds, but it occupies high priority in the Club's ambitions for the future. As graduation severs them from these ambitions and there remain only memories of stiff collars, Symphony Hall, spring trips, and the tempests of sound as Bach's Matt and Woody's anecdotes alternately rocked the walls of Sever Koussevitzky reaches for second bass as Harvard and Radcliffe jointly rehearse Beethoven's Ninth Symphony for the Boston Symphony Pension Fund Concert. Hall, '46 Glee Club members scatter on their several ways with a new artistic appreciation, missionaries of Harvard's faith in good choral music wherever they go. Long hours of rehearsal culminate in the annual Sanders Theatre spring concert. 12771-