The Princeton Glee Club Concert

The Harvard Glee Club outsang Princeton 14-6 Friday night. The Crimson selected a more difficult program than the Tigers, and they handled it more capably.

Princeton kicked off the concert with an unnecessarily dull interpretation of a selection from Heinrich Schutz's "Symphoniae Sacrae I." The major portion of Princeton's first half was given to a semi-dramatic treatment of selections from the opera "Richard Coeur-de Lion" by Andre Ernest Modeste Gretry. Despite the appropriateness of the light-hearted portions they performed, the choice was unfortunate. The Princeton Glee Club did not have soloists capable of handling the piece technically, with the notable exception of Marion Sleet.

In the second half, Princeton presented Walter Piston's "Carnival Song," which was barely audible over my neighbor's yawns. Not until they resorted to English folksongs about girls and drinking did Princeton find its own level. They sang "The Turtle Dove" and "Swansea Town" spiritedly and winningly. Princeton's only real threat came in the third quarter with a hilarious Lehreresque parody of football cheers, Harvard style. But then they sang that silly song about the tiger that goes wowwww.

Harvard began with a lively presentation of Hans Leo Hassler's "Cantate Domino." Their major effort was the "Quatre petites Prieres de Sainte Francois d'Assise," by Francis Poulenc, and they sang this difficult work masterfully. The closest the Crimson came to English folksongs was Richard Dering's "Cease thy affections to avoid her reproving." Although the Princeton boy in front of me couldn't resist snickering at the lyrics, the song was charming.

The most memorable moment of the evening, though, was James Jones's solo in the "Glory to God" from Handel's Joshua. Mr. Jones gave a strong, well-intoned and highly musical performance, supported ably by the Glee Club. And our football songs were, of course, superior to their football songs.

All in all, we may have been vanquished at the Stadium, but we certainly shone in Sanders.