The Lowell House Bells

Among the many delights of the Reading Period, certainly none is more welcome than the Sunday serenade from the Lowell Bell Tower. Although these concerts provide, week in and week out, the greatest source of pleasure to the music-loving public in Cambridge, they seem particularly enjoyable at this otherwise bleak season of the year. One always fears that the pressures of studying may dampen the bell-ringers' wonted enthusiasm, and their devoted following was relieved by yesterday's unusually outstanding concert.

The program, which combined many of the old favorites with a couple of brilliant new works, started off with Bach's "Little" Fugue in G Minor, as arranged by Leopold Stokowsky. One is continually impressed by the faithfulness to the spirit and style of the original in Stokowsky's tasteful arrangements, and this is one of his very best. The clarity of the polyphony was especially remarkable in yesterday's reading.

Next was another familiar work, Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee, giving the ringers a chance to display the virtuosity for which they are so justly famous. Following this came one of the group's specialties, a group of Russian Folk songs, selected from The Fireside Book of Siberian Laments, an anthology which is second only to Bach's Clavieruebung in the ranks of the great musical collections. The ringers were generous enough to perform seven, the last in response to demands for an encore telephoned in during the intermission. It is hard to choose a favorite from among these miniature masterpieces, mainly because they are somewhat difficult to tell apart; the finest from an artistic point of view is the one entitled "Little Ivan sat in a Divan," which Tchaikowsky incorporated into the last movement of his Fourth Symphony.

After a short pause came the weekly "Free Play" period, which is in many ways the most interesting section on the program. Freed from the confines of an artificial, pre-arranged scheme of notes, the ringers are enabled to express themselves directly, each one following his natural and spontaneous whim, without the constraining necessity of noticing what his fellow-ringers are doing. The bells are without doubt an ideal medium for this kind of improvisation, providing an immediacy of response and variety of expression unsurpassable on any instrument. The popularity of these sections testify to the sensitivity and unerring rhythmic awareness of the ringers.

The major work yesterday was a new work by Stravinsky, written especially for the Lowell Bells. Stravinsky, having grown tired of the twelve-tone style of composition, was intrigued with the possibilities of a row of sixteen tones and an unpitched bong, and his piece exploits this unique combination fully. The next number, the finale of Haydn's "Toy" Symphony provided an effective contrast. In listening to yesterday's delicate performance, the acute and profound commentary of Leonard Bernstein came to mind: "This 'little' work is actually one of the greatest musical portrayals of the nobility of man, his struggle for freedom, and his indomitable Faith in the forces of good over evil."

The last number on yesterday's program was a medley of football songs, as arranged by G. Wright Briggs '31. One of his very finest, this medley shares with its band counterparts the ingenious device of playing one tune only until it is recognizable to the audience, and then quickly substituting another before the tedium should set in.

Looking back on yesterday's concert, only one slight complaint can possibly arise, and that has to do with the spacing of the numbers. The listener is caught, during the intervals, in a veritable frenzy of despair that the previous number was the last, and listeners have been known to stay glued to their windows for as long as half an hour in hopes of one last piece. This element of suspense is all that interferes with an otherwise totally exhilarating musical experience.