The Band portion of yesterday's concert, with all its good points, was nearly eclipsed by the appearance of five suspendered individuals known as "Die Wursthausischen Philharmonischen Flugelhorn-Musikanten" who provided by far the best entertainment of the afternoon with a post-intermission selection of beer music in true Austrian style, fairly bringing down the house. Known otherwise as "The Hungry Five," these gentlemen sported the thickest of gutterel accents, the nattiest of knee-length stockings, and a monstrous tuba that was seven feet tall if it was an inch, grinding out such old favorites as "If You Knew Brunnhilde Like I Know Brunnhilde" ("wow--wow--wow what a frau") and Becthoven's 10th Symphony which smacked suspiciously of "Roll Out the Barrel." Fifteen minutes of slapstick were never more enjoyable as this bizarre ensemble umpahed its way through the finest of old Vienna schmaltz.

But while the Band was temporarily in second place, its performance was by no means second-rate. There can be no denying that it does its best on band music from Sousa on down; somehow the effect of sixty ponderous brasses proclaiming Bach chorales seems a little foreign. The same situation in reverse came up several years ago when the Boston Symphony recorded "stars and Stripes Forover" and did a creditable job but might better have left such undertakings to the Harvard Band. To do long-hair (and that portion of the program was not limited to Bach) in such fine style, however, is a feather in the car of any military band. Perhaps the best of these "straight" numbers was the Suite in E Flat for Military Band, by Gustav Holst, which was played with finesse and showed off to best advantage the Band's excellent brass sonority, as well as the adeptness of its wind section in soft passages. One part of the "Intermezzo" reminded this listener of that hideous monstrosity, the Khatchatourian "Sabre Dance," but after the initial shock had subsided, the "Intermezzo" emerged as the most enjoyable part of the Suite.

Admirably done were the marches which generously sprinkled the program. Sousa and several medleys of college songs were topped by the inevitable "Wintergreen," whose arranger, Leroy Anderson '29, was on hand to acknowledge the applause. Also to be commended was the Second Harvard Medley, a modernistic first class arrangement by John Finnegan '47. It all added up to an afternoon well spent, and cooped up though it was in the dim recesses of Sanders Theater, yesterday's concert made the halves of next fall's football games all the more eagerly awaited.