General Education

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Harvard's General Education program is not complete without a new Humanities course in music appreciation. At present, non-concentrators must be content with a year of Music 1, which is a broad survey of the history of music that has been criticized as dwelling over-much on obscure ancient composers.

What is needed is a semosterly course to serve as a compliment to Humanities 12a--"Great Artist." This course should concern itself not only with great composers and musical works of the past, but should attempt to approach music from a more modern view, analyzing it as an outpouring of the emotions and social terminant. Also, it should strive to link up music with the other humanistic fields of art and literature. It should try to teach some understanding of the principles of the main forms and modes of musical expression, such as the sonata and symphony. By making the course only a semester in duration, the Committee on General Education would allow students with otherwise crowded programs to improve their understanding of musical expression, as well as investigate the relation of music to the other branches of knowledge. A Humanities course in music with such motives would be very much in keeping with the definition of General Education in as expressed in the report on General Education in a Free Society, i.e, ". . . that part of a student's education which looks first of all to his life as a responsible human being and citizen. Lionel Braham '51