The Freshman Glee Clubs

The first concert of the Harvard Freshman Glee Club and the Radcliffe Freshman Chorus was very carefully planned. For three months the singers had been rehearsing three times a week and, for their initial program, they chose no pieces of extraordinary difficulty. This care was well worth while; on Sunday night an overflow crowd at the Union was treated to an excellent concert.

Both the Harvard and Radcliffe groups had excellent diction. I was able to understand almost every word they sang, despite the barn-like acoustics of the Union. A lovely French carol, Le Miracle de Saint Nicholas, was especially well articulated by the Radcliffe Chorus and six soloists. Among the modern pieces which Radcliffe performed were Britten's exquisite Balulalow, originally written for children's voices, and Christmas Bell by Thomas Beveridge '59. Beveridge combined modal harmony to a nicely vocal melody but, for the only time during the concert, the singers' intonation was somewhat faulty. Radcliffe sang Vaughan Williams' Winter, and the chorus' cleanest attacks of the evening helped make this piece strong and exciting. The first sopranos were shrill, however, in the upper register.

The Harvard Freshmen exhibited a well-blended tone, from pianissimo to forte, in three of Brahma' Liebeslieder Waltzer. At fortissimo, however, the tone sometimes became a little heavy and unmusical, as in Godiam la Pace from Mozart's Idomenco. Conductor Allan D. Miller trained his singers beautifully for Byrd's three-voice canon Non Nobis Domine; the performance was clear-cut and well balanced.

The Radcliffe and Harvard groups joined forces at the end of the concert for the Credo from the Lord Nelson Mass, by Haydn, and Bach's Wir Sctzen Uns from the St. Matthew Passion. A freshman chamber orchestra accompanied the Passions' magnificent lullaby. The two choruses sang well together; in the future they should join forces for a larger portion of their joint concerts. Both Miller and Radcliffe's Cornelia Davenport conducted with an agreeable lack of interpretive mannerisms. They deserve credit for building the freshman choruses into a fine musical organization.