The Boston Symphony in giving the fifth concert in its Sanders Theatre series tonight. The program consists of Beetheven's Sixth Symphony (the Pastoral), Debussy's "Prelude a I' Apres-midi d'un Faune," "Till Eulcnspiegel's Merry Pranks," by Richard Strauss, and Professor Piston's Concerto for orchestra. Of these, the first three have already been performed this year at the concerts in Boston. The concerto by Mr. Piston, who is sometimes known as a "classicist," was composed in 1933 and was recently played by the Boston Symphony in New York. It will be remembered that the Second String Quartet of the Harvard composer was played in Paine Hall a week ago.

The Weekly Concerts in Boston

Haydn's Symphony in E flat No. 99 opens the program at the regular Friday and Saturday symphony concerts in Boston. As the figure indicates, it is number 99 of a series of 104 symphonies published by the enormously productive composer; it was written in 1793 for use in Baydn's second trip to London.

Casella's Trio Italiano

The Concerto for Violin, Violoncello, Piano, and Orchestra by Alfredo Casella will also be played with the composer at the piano and with the other solo parts being taken by members of his own Trio Italiano. Casella is an Italian-one of the few important modernists of that country. A most gifted musician, he has made many tours in America, and only last year gave an interesting concert in Sanders Theatre. His music is conservative, polished, and in its interpretation truly national.

Glazounov's Eighth Symphony

Glazounov's Eighth Symphony completes the program. This work, composed in 1906, is the last of the symphonies which the seventy-year old Russian has written. Unlike many of his countrymen, Glazounov does not give his music a pervasive tone of pessimism. Instead, he has acquired a spirit of optimism--a product no doubt of the comparatively easy and successful path along which the course of his life has run. To him, the problem in music is that of perfection, not of experimentation. B. G. Wells' description of the man who "walks backwards into the future" might easily be applied to him. Indeed, he has been spoken of as the Russian Brahms because of his respectful reverence for the past. In his Eighth Symphony, Glazounov has tried to break away completely from any and all worldly tics and to form that which is sufficient unto itself. Unfortunately, this noble endeavor has met with varying emotions on the part of the critics.