JONNY STRIKES UP

The Dramatic Club and the Cercle Francais are not along among undergraduate organizations in their seeking of the new as a bracer for the time-tested values of the classical. The past few weeks have seen the announcements of the former's premiere of a drama, and the decision of the latter to go modernistic; and now the oldest of America's musical organizations voices its intention of offering two compositions that are very definitely novelties.

The difficulty of sustaining interest in activities that require a year-round and constant attendance at rehearsals is notorious. Undeniably the Plerian Sodality has suffered from the aversion that the monotony of unvariated repetition must rouse even in the musician most given to his art, and all the more powerful in the amateur environment of a college orchestra. But the possibility of reviving enthusiasm by appeal to the desire for novelty in music has been rather completely neglected at Harvard until the regime of Mr. Slonimsky. Apparently the example of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, with its successful treatment of new selections has inspired the conductor of the Pierian to attempt a similar step.

The artistic merits of the type of music represented by Krenek's opera are sure to be unsettled for a long time; but this very difference of opinion and the debatable questions inspired by it give pungency to every performance of works in the new manner. The old has played to nearly empty houses; the new has at least regained interest.