Harvard's Musical Chairs

HARVARD HAS NEVER been known as a place that gives much institutional support to the creative arts, and 414 student musicians signed a petition last week objecting to some of the less benign aspects of the University's neglect. The specific charges in the petition are undeniable: that there is a serious shortage of decent pianos, rehearsal space and sheet music, and that a single course in musical performance--with enrollment limited to less than thirty--hardly begins to fill the needs of Harvard's instrumentalists.

More than the petition indicates, Harvard's attitude toward the performance of music often shades over toward the wrong side of indifference. Most colleges subsidize their student orchestras and choruses; instead, Harvard makes its musical groups pay rent when they perform in Sanders Theater. Concerts that take place here do so without either the aid of the University or the interest of most of the music faculty.

It would not take much to make Harvard a more comfortable place for performers. At a minimum, the administration should satisfy the nuts-and-bolts demands in last week's petition--there is no excuse for the University's failure to provide adequate rehearsal facilities. The Music Department should devote more of its resources to the practice of the art it is named for, by expanding its program in performance to meet the demand. Harvard need not provide financial support for its musical groups, and direct subsidization might weaken the healthy diversity that now exists in musical life here. But Harvard must end its niggardly, hostile policy of charging them for the use of its facilities.