The man who took the "glee" out of Glee Club with the theory that "good music" is the best music will be honored next week by a series of concerts celebrating his seventieth birthday.

This tribute to Archibald T. Davison '06, James E. Ditson Professor of Music, is not merely a sentimental birthday gift; it is another credit to the man who has devoted 43 years to popularizing worthwhile music at Harvard and who now plans to retire at the year's end.

The basic philosophy that has characterized Davison's teaching career, which has appeared in his reformation of the Glee Club and throughout his theory of musical education, is best illustrated in a discussion of his earliest work, the Concord-Series of Song Books:

"The place where lasting music will be built is where the two great roads of popularity and of lasting beauty interest. In the pursuit of music, as in the acquirement of every form of artistic expression, we encounter the aesthetic paradox, that what we like first we seldom like best--that we prefer our second choice to our first.

Collaborates with Surette

"It would seem at first evident that the way to like music is to sing the music that you like, but it is not so. If you just sing the music that you like, you often get tired of it and find the you have burned the ground over and left nothing there to grow.

"The real way to grow the power of musical or any other sort of artistic appreciation is to live upon the edge of your taste . . ."

Davison's collaborator in arranging these song books was Thomas W. Surette '93 whom he, first met when asked to help organize a system of music training in the Boston public schools. Critics acclaimed this series as "revolutionizing the whole method of secondary school music."

In 1909, after earning his A.B., M.A., and Ph.D. (the second in music ever awarded at Harvard) in less than six years, Davison settled down at the College as an instructor with vague notions of composing orchestral music. Encouraged by Dr. Karl Muck, conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Davison composed his "Tragic Overture," an orchestral piece founded on Hawthorne's gruesome tale of Rappacini and the sacrifice of his daughter. Performed by the BSO, the overtime brought favorable reviews which praised Davison's "uncrring taste and exceeding skill in the handling of thematic material and the arrangement of orchestral color."

Such comments necessarily pointed toward a life-long career as a composer--except that the young instructor's interests had begun to change. "I began to realize that there already was so much beautiful music in the world that wasn't being played," he recalls. "Then I became interested in students and I saw what could be achieved if I could get them interested in worthwhile music instead of the usual ephemeral songs."

In 1910 Davison was appointed conductor of the Chapel Choir and the reformation began. Some of the choir boys who were also in the Glee Club began to like "Doc" and asked him if he would also take over the "coaching duties" of the Club.

The duties of a "professional coach" of the Glee Club were simply to train the members to sing such songs as "Down by the Stream Where I First Met Rebecca," and "Stein Song."

He accepted the position on the condition that he be allowed to do it without pay. The Glee Club was a semi-social club which held concerts mainly because of the dances that followed and which performed with the aid of the Banjo and Mandolin Clubs.

Polly Doodle All the Day

During a rehearsal shortly after he had become coach, Davison asked the members to try a little Mendelssohn piece called "Der Jagers Abschied." They did it "out of curosity," and they liked it. After Mendelssohn came Bach and Palestrina and finally Stravinsky.