FULL POWERS REVEALED BY GLEE CLUB

Thursday evening in Symphony Hall, the Glee Club gave the first concert of its third series, with Mme. Louise Homer assisting. In a long and trying program, traveling from Bach and Palestrina through Brahms to Bossi and Coleridge-Taylor they outdid themselves. Were their talents not so well known hereabouts, much might be said of their round and liquid sustained tones, their inclsive staccati, their impeccable diction, their lightnesses and their depths; as it is, a few words about their programme will suffice.

One had anxiously looked forward, perhaps, to the Brahms rhapsody for contralto voice and chorus as a piece only too rarely performed. But, as with breakfast-foods, "there's a reason!" In contrast with the rest of the program, the work seemed somewhat dry and uninteresting. True, the solo voice is well blended in the chorus, but one wondered whether the responsibility for that lay most with Brahms or with Mme. Homer, who singing without rehearsal, gave a nearly perfect performance.

And that, perhaps, is the best way to describe her part in the concert. It took her two songs to "warm up", and at times after that there were indications that she was not in best voice. But for the most part she sang beautifully; by the time she reached Strauss's "Mit deinen blauen Augen" she had recovered all her powers and from then on she gave a flawless and impressive performance. Of simple charm was Warlock's "That Even I Saw"; Respighi's "Pioggia" rivals Strauss's "Schlechtes Wetter" in picture painting; "From the Brake the Nightingale" by Mme. Homer's husband, Sydney Homer, equals Macdowell's beauty, and dispenses with his cloying sweetness; while the same composer's "How's my boy?" is of strange power, reminiscent in general spirit of Synge's "Riders to the Sea", and of equally compelling force.

But finest and most eloquent of all the programme was the Glee Club's third Russian Folk song: "At Father's Door". The Volga Bargemen's song arrangement is original and convincing; the "Fireflies" very effectively done. But the third one more than any of the others is worthy of the great powers of the Glee Club; in it, the listener felt the pent-up energy, the restlessness, the subterranean mutterings, the whole background of the Russian Revolution; the Glee Club vivified this remarkable feeling to an extreme degree. No one who heard them will ever doubt their greatness everyone who heard that song will feel confident that of the elements necessary for the working out of Russia's fate, the power, at least, is there.