The Music Box

The winter concert season is formally opened this week with the beginning of the Boston Symphony Orchestra's Friday and Saturday series. These concerts and the Sanders Theatre series, which will begin this year on October 19, are so important to us that this largest and most brilliant of the organizations who contribute to our music in Cambridge sometimes eclipses the numerous smaller groups whose activities are by no means unimportant.

A great many things have already been planned for this year, and a short summary of what to expect might be helpful now before the season gets under way. Before taking up the concerts, however, we would like to mention the Charles Eliot Norton lectures which will be given on Wednesdays by Igor Strawinsky-the first one on October 18. These lectures will be in French and will give us an opportunity to hear one of the greatest figures in modern music discuss the problems of musical expression.

Of the concerts planned for Cambridge those of the Stradivarius Quartet are probably exciting the greatest amount of interest. They will play publicity in a series of concerts beginning at the Fogg Art Museum on October 26, and will also give one concert in each of the Houses during the year.

A most important but rather inconspicuous part, of the Cambridge concert season is the regular Tuesday evening open house at the Longy School-not only for the large number of chamber and solo works which are presented, but also for the atmosphere of informal intimacy in which they are performed.

We are to hear a little more than usual this year from the Pierian Sodality. The first Cambridge performance will be a joint concert with the Radcliffe Orchestra in early November, which will be followed closely by a Bach and Handel program including the fifth Brandenburg Concerto. This latter concert so early in the season represents a change in policy as two Cambridge performances are planned for this year rather than the customary one.

The only Cambridge concert by the Glee Club this Fall will be the traditional concert with the Yale club the evening before the Yale game. The most ambitious Glee Club performances will be given in the Spring when they sing the annual Sanders Theatre concert and assist the Boston Symphony in Strawinsky's "Oedipus Rex" and Bach's B-minor Mass.

The Music Club and Collegium Musicum, though they are primarily for music concentrators are open to anyone interested in hearing and playing music not commonly done in concerts. The first open meeting of the Music Club is tentatively set for October 25, and the Collegium will begin its meetings very soon.

Of course, this is only a skeleton outline of the concert situation, but even such a survey is enough to show that an exceptional year is in store for concert-goers around the University.