Risen from Wartime Ashes, Music Club Celebrates Fiftieth Anniversary Sunday

At a concert by the Chamber Orchestra on Sunday evening in Sanders Theater, the Harvard Music Club will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. Founded in 1898 by George B. Weston '97, the group has flourished; withered, and now flourishes again, sponsoring Harvard's only chamber orchestra, its own chorus, and the popular series of House Concerts.

In the years preceding World War I, the Club held regular monthly meetings, featuring lectures on music by outstanding authorities around Boston, and informal concerts by members of the group. Appearing frequently on the programs at this time was the name of Edward Balantine '07, later a professor in the Music Department and a well-known composer and planist. The year 1917-18 brought the famous choral composer, Randall Thompson '20, to membership in the Club.

Post-Bellum Heights

Continuing the successful first quarter century of the Club's history, the inter-war period added such familiar names to the roster as Virgil Thomson '22, music critic of the New York Herald-Tribune, Walter Piston '24, recently named Naumberg Professor of Music whose Third Symphony was awarded the Pulitzer Music Prize this week, and G. Wallace Woodworth '24. Ralph Kirkpatrick '31, famed harpsichordist of the duo, Schneider and Kirkpatrick, was a featured performer in the group during his college days.

One of the most active members in the Club's history was Leonard Bernstein '39, protege of Serge Koussevitzky and well-known conductor and composer, who headed the program committee and managed to perform at all but one of the regular meetings of the Club in the year 1936-37 and played two works, including one of his own compositions, at the annual concert that year.

The Club began to wither after the successful '38-39 season and went into a serious decline which led to its virtual disappearance during the War. Under the leadership of Nicholas Van Slyck '46, however, the group made a vigorous and successful comeback beginning in January 1946 with Assistant Professor Irving Fine '37 as faculty adviser and conductor.

With the start of the 1946-47 season, Noel Lee '46 was chosen president, and a new policy was instituted of playing contemporary and rarely performed older music in the belief that the Club could do a real service in presenting works which could not be heard elsewhere.

At the Fiftieth Anniversary Concert Sunday evening in Sanders Theater, the Chamber Orchestra will continue the policy of presenting lesser known older works, when it performs the Bach Triple Concerto in A-Minor for flute, violin, and piano, and Mozart's Divertimento in D. There is no record of performance for either of these compositions. Also sched- uled on the program are the Handel Oboe Concerto in B Flat and the first performance of Van Slyck's Sonatine for Clarinet and Strings. The orchestra will be under the direction of Van Slyck and the soloists include: Uni Springing, violin; flutist, Lois Schaefer, a frequent performer with the Boston Symphony; Wade Fite 1G, oboe, and Noel Lee '46, piano