THE GILBERT LECTURE

Harvard is blessed with advantages that make it especially attractive to the musically inclined student. The part of the faculty devoted to this subject is gifted: the Glee Club, the University Orchestra, and the Instrumental Clubs depend on student talent: the Music Building furnishes accommodations: the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Whiting concerts are visitors from outside that help endow the University in that art. Likewise the history and current events of music are here, to be had for the asking, or, as tonight, for the slight labor of attending a lecture.

Henry I. Gilbert is eminently qualified to speak on contemporary music, since his name has stood among the best of American composers for nearly forty years. What his attitude toward the more drastic of modern modern compositions will be is hardly problematical. The rancous Symphonie Mechanique and Flivver Ten million are aberrations, extremes from which he is guarded by a native good taste. The cacaphoniesof the musical rebels of Europe and America have already reached the verge of sounds that would come even within a physical definition of music; they are, furthermore, of an international or rather unnational character, while Mr. Gilbert has always been a nationalist in respect to his art.

American history should be as adaptable to musical interpretation as is French, Italian, German, or Hungarian. This idea is recurrent in his long series of works, which reached its height in the music of the Ter-centenary Celebration at Plymouth. In Mr. Gilbert's lecture tonight will meet traditions already builded and those still unformed. Because the union is probably an impermanent one, it should be remarked at this opprtunity.