TUESDAY. JANUARY 29. 1963 Brand Delights Audience Willi Sengs, Comments By CLAUDIA LEVY Oscar Brand, perched on a tall stool, booted foot tapping, fingers busy at his 12-string guitar, brought the authentic, the satiri cal and the slightly risque to a delighted audience at a Folklore Society-sponsored concert Sunday night in Schwab. Referring occasionally to a list of songs taped to his guitar-and frequently straying from it, Brand sang and commented his way through a program which in cluded many of his better-known bawdy ballads and many of the old folk songs he -has sung since he was five years old. “Very often I change the sound of them to what is pleasing to me,” he said of traditional bal lads. He then illustrated how an ancient and bloody air like “Lord Randal” was revised through the years until it became “Billy Boy,” a “happy children’s song.” "WHAT MAKES these songs treacherous,” he conmmented, “is that you fall in love with the first version you learn and from then on all others are not right.- Munching cough drops, "forti fied with lint,” Brand reached into his songbag .and drew out ditties he learned from the Air Force, songs he has composed himself and parodies of old tunes. “This tune,” he said, picking out a gentle version of “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp the Boys are Marching,” “was old when Lon don Bridge was a plank and 'Beowoulf’ was the month,” He sang various versions of the tune to show how the Civil War soldier adapted it to his par ticular situation. AS BRAND sang “Flag of blue, white and red, man’s got a right to earn his bread,” the audience joined with him, as it did on var ious other numbers throughout the evening. “I prefer college audiences and | First Compulsory Meeting TONIGHT Non-Profit UNIVERSITY BOOK EXCHANGE children,” Brand commented be fore the program. “Children are such fun and students know ex actly what I’m talking about. It's unfortunate that I can’t sing for college audiences those songs which I learned fronj them.” Brand kept up a running com mentary during the program, tell ing of the adventures of fellow folk _ mongers, discussing folk singing'today and leveling charges at those aspects of the scene which displease him. "I DON'T like the self-conscious ethnic quality of some folk sing ing today—l’m against snobbery in folk music.” The commercial sound in folk music, he said, has produced some good sounds, but he condemned it for trying to reach an audience only for sale value. There are two schools of en thusiasts on American campuses, he said before the program, the pro-Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary or commercial division, and the anti-Kingston Trio, pro Joan. Baez or non-commercial half. 5% Discount Set In Terrace Room Otto E. Mueller, director of Housing and Food Services, said yesterday that beginning with the luncheon meal Friday, a student eating in the Terrace Room at the Hetzel Union Building will ’be eligible for a 5 per cent reduc tion on the price of his -meal. To obtain the discount, the stu dent need only show the cashier his current student identification card. The presentation- of the identification card will also exempt students from paying the 4 per cent Pennsylvania sales tax. ATTENTION BX CANDIDATES HUB Auditorium Attendance Q Limited to all Candidates who have turned in Applications $ Compulsory —lf absent , these candidates will automatically be dropped from the BX IEGIAN, UNIVERSITY PARK. PENNSYLVANIA TH'E DAILY COI Alard Quartet, Violist, Harpist To Perform Overda Lipp Pago, violist, and Nan Gullo, harpist, will perform with the Alard Quartet in a’ con cert at 8:30 tonight in Schwab. Mrs. Page, wife of Raymond Page of the quartet, will perform in the Mozart Flute Quartet in D Major and in “A Night Piece,” a string and flute quartet by Foote. Miss Gullo, State College resi dent and second harpist with the Pittsburgh Symphony, will per form with Mrs. Page and Ihe quartet in Debussy’s Sonata for flute, viola and harp. The quartet, currently in resi dence at the University, will play Dvorak’s “American Quartet.” Members include: Donald Hop kins, violinist; Joanne Zagst, violinist; Raymond Page, violist; and Leonard Feldman, cellist. MRS. PAGE has appeared as soloist with the Cincinnati Sym phony, the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra and the Alard Quartet. She was formerly a member of the Springfield Symphony and Day ton Philharmonic Orchestra and appears on occasion as first flutist with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. Miss Gullo has studied at the Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School and has appeared in a Young Artists Concert at Carnegie Hall. Last September she was invited to be the harpist with Juilliard Orchestra for its appearance at Philharmonic Hall at. the Lincoln Center for- the Per forming Arts in New York City. Silva Book Published "-Ruth C. Silva, professor of po litical science, is the author of the book, ’“Rum, .Religion, and Votes: 1928 Re-examined,” recently pub lished by'The Pennsylvania State University Press. 8:45 R.M. Student-Operated Spender Says Hew Social Class Provides Fresh Writing Milirial By NANCY EGAN A new post-war social class in England is providing the bulk of the subject material for England’s young playwrights and pods, ac cording to poet and critic Stephen Spender. Spender, who appeared Friday night in Schwab under the spon sorship of the Artists and Lecture Series, discussed many of the dif ferences between university-edu cated poets and the primarily anti-university playwrights. - The anti-university playwrights, with their views “of the extreme left,” are conscious of the new social class and its problems, Spender said. Their characters are “their own people,” and they are projecting the drama of their own feelings and conflicts onto the stage. LOOKING inwards in despair and employing violent solutions for their dramatic problems, the playwrights seem to use “sex, so cialism and peace,” as their by words, Spender said. Modern English poets, on the other hand, are more rational and Supplementing our regular daily menu are many of our regular and special Hot Plates, Pastries Sandwiches, and Drinks featured each day at . . . (Corner Dig this sound reasoning! Balfurd shirt and laundry care is kind to your budget and complimentary to your appearance ... so low-in price, yet so high in quality. So, make the switch and solo with Balfurd for all your clothes care needs. A trial Is all we ask, because we know that our work manship will rate encores. reasonable than the playwrights, Spender said. They believe es sentially in the intellect and in an Anglo-American intellectual com munity, opposing the anti-Ameri can English playwrights. The po ets have learned much about the techniques of poetry writing from the Americans, Spender said, and belong—with the Americans—to what he termed an .“International Academy of English Language Poetry.” UNFORTUNATELY. Spender added, the poets are generally content with "minor results" and have developed a feeling of com placency which is derived from a lack of competition in their field. During a coffee hour held in the Hetzel Union lounge after the lecture, Spender touched on topics ranging from beatnik poetry (“fundamentally boring") to Walt Whitman ("marvelous vision"). Before reading a few of his poems aloud, Spender said that one of the first pieces of advice he would offer to aspiring writers would be “to write as if no one has over written the same thing before.” "It tastes better at The Corner" i'Mi' So Low Soto^ ■ | I A a 2 B i •] f I «f LgajmJuMU- n Avenue ier Street PAGE THREE
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers