Oberlin College Glee Club

              OPINIONS of the PATRONS
of the
OBERLIN COLLEGE GLEE CLUB

Figure


SEASON OF
1908—1909




Bucyrus
The Oberlin College Glee Club, composed of twenty singers, delighted a big audience at the opera house Tuesday evening with a program of eleven fine selections.  The glee club has appeared here before and pleased its old friends and made new ones by the entertainment they gave.
The twenty young men are all excellent singers and their voices blend in splendid harmony.  Their singing is finished and artistic, the heavier selections being handled with admirable skill while the lighter and humorous selections were given with a freshness and spirit which made them very pleasing to the ear.



The Daily News, Aberdeen.  (S. Dak.)
The concert by the Oberlin Glee Club Saturday evening under the auspices of the Quality Entertainment course was attended by a capacity house, and was one of the cleverest things that has appeared in the city.  The numbers rendered varied from the dignified to side-splitting and the boys proved themselves exceedingly versatile in their changes.  The lighter numbers were what might be expected from a rollicking bunch of young college men far from home at Christmas time and ready to make up for it by having as much fun as the audience.  The club gave a vesper program at the Presbyterian church yesterday afternoon and the building was filled.  The manner in which they gave the sacred pieces was excellent.


Wayne Democratic Press, Lyons, (N. Y.)
The Oberlin College Glee Club's concert on last Thursday evening was unquestionably the best entertainment of its kind ever heard in Lyons.  A program, the first part of which consisted of fine vocal selections, a snatch or two of most artistic piano playing, an extravaganza necessarily
 gleesome, and a short session of such songs as college boys will sing whenever they get together and have nothing else to do, was heard with far more that the customary enjoyment and enthusiasm, if one may judge by the apparent happiness of the audience and the numerous encores demanded.  The singers did not consider themsleves at their best, owing to a 300-mile ride on the cars which only ended two hours before the concert began, but the most critical ear could not detect that fatigue marred the concert in the least, so beyond reproach was the artistic excellence of their well blended tones, clear enunciation, beautiful shading and ensemble work.  The humorous element in the program was for the most part genuinely funny and the rendering of such numbers as Greeting to Spring, Danube Waltz, the Three Pictures from Childhood Days, A Summer Lullaby, The Elf Man and the Drum was so perfect that they would command admiration in the most highly rarified critical musical atmosphere.  It is not wondered that Oberlin's reputation as a great musical center is so universal if the young men who visited Lyons are but a sample of the student body.


The Daily Standard, Bridgeport, (Conn.)
Nearly three hundred people, representative of the social life of the city, enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. and Mrs. Lucien Thompson Warner and Mrs. Arthur Train Whitman on Saturday evening at a musical given by them in the ball room of the Stratfield in the program of which the Oberlin College Glee Club were the participants.
As to the excellence of the concert program too much cannot be said.  It was remarked on all sides that the whole affair was conspicuously marked by the absence of the rough and tumble music which is usually to be expected in programs rendered by college clubs.  Each and every one
 of the numbers given was of the highest type of musical arrangement, and while the youthful exuberance of the performance was always present, there was nothing during the hour and a half of the program to which the slightest objection could be found by even the most exacting person.  The vein of humor which ran through a great many of the selections was of the highest and most refined type and the music was, from a technical and artistic standpoint, very excellent.  The voices were all good and the balance of the parts was most admirable.



Public Opinion, Watertown, (S. Dak.)
The Oberlin College Glee Club has come and gone and left its impression upon the Watertown people.  That this was a favorable one was evidenced by the demonstration last evening after each number.
The music appealed not only to the trained ear of today, but those who were boys and girls of yesterday, also strained their hearing capacity to catch every note.  They made no work of it, these college boys, and sung with the ease of those thoroughly trained and the harmony was perfect.  Evenly balanced the parts from first tenor to baritone, were all equally pleasing.
As a whole their singing was a rich treat to be heard only by voices trained as their's are trained.  There was no loud demonstration, no sounds but pleasing ones, the classic as well as the gleesome being so happily intermingled as to make the entire program a joyous and appropriate benediction to the Christmas day of 1908 in Watertown.



New York Evening Mail
Between seeing New York by automobile, lunching in Chinatown, exploring the Italian and Jewish quarters, supping at the Cafe Boulevard
 and projecting a trip to Ellis island, the Oberlin College Glee Club, twenty strong, found time to appear at the Astor gallery of the Waldorf-Astoria last night, where it gave a really notable concert to a crowded house.
As disclosed by this program, the club was found to consist of a number of agreeable voices, cultivated beyond the wont of college gleemen, and trained as well for effects of delicacy as of strength.  The spirit and finish of the choral work made a most favorable impression.



Musical Courier, (Minneapolis Correspondent)
The musicians of tomorrow are the young men and young women of today.  That is the reason glee club work, when well done, is interesting.  The Glee club from Oberlin College visited Minneapolis last night and gave a concert to a very appreciative audience in the auditorium of the Y. M. C. A. building.  Although the length of the concert was more than doubled by encores, the interest never flagged.  Clearness of enunciation and cleanness of ensemble were noticable features of the club work.  There was also an artistic delicacy and refinement which, especially in selections like Gibson's Summer Lullaby, was quite irresistable.  The Soldiers' Chorus from Faust and the Eccoli from Carmen were the two big numbers on the program, and these were given with a spirit that many professional choruses might well emulate.  One of the best things was the fugue, Oft in the Stilly Night, by Brewer.  There were several vocal solos and one piano solo all of which were well given for amateurs, and might even stand well in comparison with professionals.  But the main interest lay in the chorus work, and for the splendid finish of this the young men and their conductor are to be heartily congratulated.




Sample Program

PART ONE


1.
Greeting to Spring

Johann Strauss


2.
Oft in the Stilly Night

John Hyatt Brewer


3.
Medley

Original


4.
Piano-Solo-Tarantelle

Moszkowski




Mr. Kenyon



5.
Duet—Two Beggars

H. Lane Wilson




Messrs. Hewes and Chamberlain



6.
The Rock-a-By-Lady

George L. Osgood





PART TWO


1.
Winter Serenade

C. Saint-Saens


2.
Sextette—The Colored Band

Dackstader




Messrs. Wirth, Sucher, Clegg, Ferris, Lesher, Doerchuck



3.
A Spring Shower

Moellendorf


4.
Trio—Good Umbrella

C. Hutchins Lewis




Messrs. Morris, Ferris and Snell



5.
Cossack War Song

Parker





PART III
Goupe of College Songs