NEW COMMUNITY ORCHESTRA ORGANIZED IN HANOVER

A large audience which attended the first recital of the new Community Orchestra of Hanover, given in Webster Hall Sunday evening, May 6, testified to the increased interest in music which has been developed in Hanover within recent years, and gave enthusiastic approval to the plan for maintaining within the village a musical organization which should tarry on the tradition of the old Handel Society. The success of this initial appearance of the orchestra was so pronounced that there is little doubt but that the encouragement and support necessary for the continuance of the organization will be abundantly given. The orchestra is under the direction of Prof. M. F. Longhurst, of the Department of Music of the College and was assisted in its first appearance by five members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra whose interest in the new venture prompted them to offer their services.

This is the first year that a real orchestra has organized and worked consistently for any length of time. Its purpose is to act as a training school for some of the less skillful players as well as a means of self-expression for those who are more experienced.

In the older history of Dartmouth and Hanover, musical organizations took a very prominent part, there always being, from the time of the founding of the College, some musicians meeting" and working together to furnish special music for chapel, church and commencement. With the organization of the Handel Society of Dartmouth College, however, in 1807, a new era began, and the name of Dartmouth was well known, for more than half a century after that, throughout American musical circles.

After 1809 the society included instruments as well as voices. The work it did, during those several decades, was of such fine quality that the players and singers were frequently invited to perform in other places. Frederic L. Ritter, historian of American and European music, rates the Dartmouth society as second only to that of Boston in the quality and influence of its work in all New England.

After the middle of the century, however, the influence and prestige of the Handel Society waned, and it died a natural death in the eighties. For at least two decades after that Hanover and music had but slight acquaintance ; but since the College organized the Department of Music twenty years ago, more and more interest has been paid to things musical.

The series of concerts and recitals given by artists of international fame that have been provided in the last few years has stimulated this interest and increased it so that it seems to those interested in the cause of home-made music the proper time to form the two community groups of musicians, the chorus and the orchestra.