Symphony Concert.

The third of the Symphony Concerts was given last night in Sanders Theatre before the usual large audience. Mme. Helen Hopekirk, who appeared in Walker Hall, Amherst, two days ago, for the first time this season in America, was the soloist. The programme was a varied one, including a Suite by MacDowell, representing the modern school and Beethoven's Seventh Symphony composed in the early part of this century, and Rubinstein's Concerto for Pianoforte in G major. The work of Mme. Hopekirk was very favorably received; her wonderful accuracy and precision in the most intricate parts of the Concerto showed plainly her mastery of her art.

The first number on the programme, MacDowell's Suite, reminds one repeatedly of Grieg's "Peer Gyut" Suite. There is the same strangeness and weirdness about the various movements, so characteristic of this latter work. The first movement is entitled "In a Haunted Forest." It represents the sounds of a forest on a windy night, the effect of the moaning and shrieking wind being brought out very distinctly by a rapid crescendo by the violins from lower to higher tones. The movement suggests the approach, the actual presence and the departure of a tremendous gale. Then follows a short movement, full of the finest harmonies, entitled "Summer Idyl" and a less brilliant movement, "The Shepherdess Song." The Suite ends with the "Forest Spirits," a quick, gay, movement, without any one theme, but expressing the idea suggested by the name, very vividly.

It hard to say too much in praise of the rendering of the concerto by Mme. Hopekirk. The selection, in its three parts, gives ample opportunity for variety of expression and technical skill. It contains passages requiring the greatest power and force and others demanding great delicacy of touch. The rendering given by Mme. Hopekirk of these utterly dissimilar parts proves her ability.

The last number, and the great task of the orchestra, was Beethoven's seventh Symphony, which is popularly considered nearly, if not quite, the equal of the famous fifth. The symphony in all its motives is essentially a dance rhythm. It contains many beautiful passages for solo instruments, notably that for second horn in the next to the last movement and one for clarionet near the beginning. The orchestra did not seem in their best form in this last number; several careless mistakes marred the rendering of the programme from a critical standpoint, but these came in minor details so that they did not have a material effect.