Davison himself remained as popular as ever. The club's membership expanded from 40 in 1911 to more than 200 in 1926 primarily due to the personality of its conductor.

"Watch him as with his quick step he walks upon the concert platform and begins to lead the chorus. He is electric with energy and controlled enthusiasm . . . Listen to him as he talks to the men between pieces . . . They follow his every motion, listening to his every word . . . It is the old, old story of the power of personality." So eulogized a Boston critic.

Not the least of Davison's achievements was the subtle manner in which he managed to combine Radcliffe's Choral Society with his own Glee Club. After arranging a program with Dr. Muck, leader of the BSO, and Mrs. Gallison, Radcliffe conductor, in 1917 the Harvard-Radcliffe's combined choruses presented Brahm's "Schicksalslied" with the orchestra at Symphony Hall. It proved to be the first of a series of many similar combination performances.

Davison, in fact, recalls one of his most gratifying teaching experiences from his work with the Annex chorus. "My interest," he says," has always been in the student that couldn't, but wanted to. I remember there were once two sisters who had indescribable delight at being permitted to take part in chorus rehearsals and I didn't see how it was possible to keep them out of the Club. The only trouble was, of course, both were monotones and each had her own note.

"Even then I couldn't stop them from singing when we performed with the Boston Symphony so I found a place for them under the organ pipes where the tones were completely deafening. I'm sure Koussevitsky didn't even realize they were there. They sang in no less than four major choral works with the Boston Symphony, without deleterious effect."

Hardly any ex-Glee Club member who sang under Davison can forget his manner of conducting. In his pamphlet "The Reformation of the Glee Club" published in 1922, Frederick Lewis Allen '12 described a typical Davisonian rehearsal: "As you slip into a seat at the rear of the room, you hear, cutting through the deep, swelling tones of the chorus, Davison's sharp voice: 'Now's your chance! That's it! Good! First rate! This is a bad place; look out for it! That's the way, basses! Eyes! Eyes!'"

It is undoubtedly this very enthusiasm as a conductor which inspired Davison's book "Choral Conducting" which appeared in 1940. "Zeal for fine music," wrote Davison, "depends not at all upon education, musical or otherwise. It grows out of an experience of the satisfaction that springs only from the association with the highest manifestations of musical art.

Woodworth is Successor

"To initiate this experience, to cultivate it, to enlighten it with technical resource, these are the duty, but still more, the privilege of the conductor."

Then in 1935 Davison chose his longtime assistant, G. Wallace Woodworth '24, to succeed him as the Club's conductor. The two had met in 1920 when Woodworth, a freshman, tried out unsuccessfully as a singer for the Club and was taken on as an accompanist. The retirement, however, by no means ended Davison's musical career.

Immediately after becoming conductor emeritus, he began, with Donald Grout, now a professor at Cornell University, to assemble a general course in in music history which since has become the most popular music course at Harvard. Its enrollment averages almost 400 students each year.

The course, now taught with recordings of opera, orchestral and choral works, is perhaps one of the most pleasant to sit through. For example, Davison describes Schumann's meeting with Johannes Brahms in this fashion: "'Guten Morgen, I am glad to know you. Won't you come in?' The two moved into the living room where the visitor's eyes immediately rested on the piano. Schumann hastened to ask, 'Won't you please play something of your own composition?'

"Without more encouragement the gauche musician sat down and began to play his C major Sonata. Before he had proceeded far, his host cried, 'Walt, Gott im Himmel, Clara must listen to this!'"

Davison's honors have been too varied and numerous in past years to include in a list here. Four of his most significant, appropriately enough, come from universities. He has been awarded honorary degrees in music from Oxford, Williams, and Harvard Universities, and he has been presented with the first and only Glee Club medal in the history of Harvard University.

Perhaps the best example of exactly what it is that has inspired his 43 years of outstanding work as an instructor at Harvard can be drawn from the pages of his book, "Choral Conducting." This is, in essence, the credo by which "Doc" has lived and taught.

"He has the thrill of companionship with eager men and women whose joy it is to create beauty by breathing life and significance into music which, without the exercise and skill of their attention, would remain cold symbols on the printed page; to have a part with them in the accomplishment of high artistic ends arrived at only after enthusiastic cooperation and painstaking labor; to see them grow in sensitiveness to the refinements of performance and in the appreciation of what is true and enduring in art--I cannot believe many professions have greater rewards.