DARTMOUTH SONG BOOK
ed. PaulR. Zeller, Dartmouth Publications, Baker Library, Hanover, N. H.; 87 pages;$2.50.
Alumni and friends of the College will welcome this new edition of the Dartmouth Song Book for several reasons. The book has been out of print for some time, and Professor Zeller, the present director of the Glee Club, together with some able assistants, has undertaken a thorough overhauling of the contents in an endeavor to make the book more useful and interesting to the many admirers of Dartmouth's rich heritage of song.
Because Dartmouth has been more fortunate than perhaps any other school in the country in the variety and quality of talents that have enshrined the different aspects of her spirit in song, it is always an event worthy of note when her music is published. One need only mention a few of the names—Richard Hovey '85, Ernest M. Hopkins '01, Harry Wellman '07, Franklin McDuffee '21, and Don Cob leigh '23—to be impressed anew with the deep devotion and splendid talents that have provided the College with her unrivalled music, lyrics, and arrangements. And now Professor Zeller's name must be added to the long list, for the present volume represents the happy result of a careful and sympathetic study of each of the songs included, so that now at last many long-standing errors and inconsistencies have been eliminated, and all the best of Dartmouth's music is available in its best form.
There are two particularly interesting and valuable new features in this edition. The more striking of these is the inclusion after each song of a brief editorial note recounting the origin and history of the song. These notes are full of rich lore and curious bits of information, adding a new dimension to the song book which will particularly please the alumnus, and which will also be of considerable interest to others who use the book. Richard W. Morin '24 and Miss Dorothy Cleaveland, who compiled these notes, deserve congratulations for the painstaking research which has assembled this rare and sometimes amusing information. For example, it is a delight to learn that the last line of Eleazar Wheelock originally read, "Where he mixed drinks for the heathen for the saving of his soul," and that in deference to the ministerial misgivings of President Tucker, Hovey was induced to change it to "in the goodness of his soul."
The other important new feature will be particularly welcome to former glee clubbers, who may have regretted the fact that in previous editions of the song book only a few of the selections, such as the Hanover Winter Song, Dear Old Dartmouth, and Men of Dartmouth, were done out in four-part harmony. In this edition for the first time about half of the numbers appear in two forms, one for unison singing and the other in harmony for glee club or quartet use. Thus if a group wishes to test its barber-shop finesse on the rich harmonies of Dartmouth Undying, the glee club version appears on page 8, while for those less ambitious throstles who choose to warble in unison, the elusive melody of the song is disengaged from the various parts and printed separately on page 72.
As for the contents of the new edition, there may be a few minor disappointments because certain of the older songs which are no longer widely sung have been omitted in favor of this fuller treatment of the songs of more enduring or contemporary appeal. Nevertheless on the whole the representation is excellent, and I think it is safe to say that this volume contains more of the really great favorites than any of the previous editions has. For example, one can now find the TwilightSong and Dartmouth Undying between the same covers, which, I believe, has never been possible before. Probably no single omission will grieve a very large number of the owners of this new book, for the truth of the matter is that fashions change in the field of college songs, and while many new songs are written over the years to express the sentiments of successive generations of college men toward the institution, other songs are gradually consigned to oblivion by general consent, and then it becomes necessary to perform a few reluctant amputations on the song book. Fortunately the taste of the alumni is kept abreast of the developments on the campus through the Glee Club's concerts and recordings, and there are many fine Dartmouth songs which will never lose their wide appeal, for they bear indelibly the stamp of what Dartmouth is and always will be. Such songs are Menof Dartmouth, the Winter Song, EleazarWheelock, and the Twilight Song. All of these and others like them are among the 23 songs in this volume, and with them are to be found the best of those other Dartmouth songs that are being sung on the campus today.
