University of Virginia Library

Artistic Excellence

After several days of frantic preparation,
and many weeks of more leisurely spadework,
the University Union's Artist Series presented
a splendid evening of entertainment Monday
night in University Hall. In a place more
accustomed to the Virginia basketball team
than to excellence, the Boston Symphony
Orchestra delighted a capacity crowd with
renditions of Beethoven's Overture to the
consecration of the house, Brahms' Second
Symphony, Starer's starkly modern Concerto
for violin, cello, and orchestra, and finally
Strauss' Til Eulenspiegels Iustig Streiche.

It was a concert that combined the old and
the modern in classical music, one which tried
with some success to please all of the diverse
elements in the audience. Perhaps the only
conceivable shortcoming was the uncomfortable
level to which the temperature in the
building climbed; but it is, after all, a
gymnasium rather than a concert hall.

If there were flaws in the orchestra's
performance, they were discernible only to
the musical martinets in the audience. The
Union is to be congratulated for bringing such
entertainment to Charlottesville. We wish
them continued success with the rest of the
Artists Series.