Double Brass

The Rollo admissions book tells prospective Freshmen that one of the juiciest cultural plums awaiting them at Harvard is the Boston Symphony Orchestra concert series in Sanders Theatre. Yet, at these monthly concerts, the mellowed brass of the B.S.O. play mostly to the privileged brass of the University, not to students. Faculty members, instructors, and mysterious "friends of the University" monopolize the seats, and for an undergraduate to get a subscription, he needs more connections than a switchboard.

A good number of these professors and "friends" have long since dissloved their ties with the University Yet they still remain high on the B.S.O. priority list. Even professors who cannot attend the sereis often keep subscribing in order to pass the tickets on to acquaintances.

When students complain about the great orchestra coming so near and yet so far, the B.S.O. management tells them to try the week-night open rehearsals. But these are mere paste-and-scissors concerts which always subordinate the satisfaction of the audience to the preparation of the music for the weekend main event. And even if the orchestra is in the middle of a Beethoven crescendo, union rules make the musicians stop the music at ten o'clock and walk out on their audience.

If only to keep its word in the Rollo book the University should let some students into the Sanders concerts. A judicious pruning of subscribers no longer attached to the University would help do this. So would renewing the sale of the forty "rush" scats, which students used to line up to buy the day before the first concert. In these ways, at least some student music lovers would be able to enjoy the B.S.O. in full dress and full score.