Tomorrow evening, the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra (HRO) will open its bicentennial season. Over 100 musicians will play in the concert. Yet, in 1832, HRO’s predecessor—the Pierian Sodality of 1808—had been whittled down to a single member.

The intrepid flautist Henry Gassett ’34 (1834, that is) played on in solitude before convincing another flautist to join him in duets, and eventually coaxing others to help reinvigorate the organization.

Besides the HRO, one of America’s oldest musical organizations, other groups ranging from the Harvard Glee Club to the Boston Symphony Orchestra can trace their roots back to the Sodality.

The road to tomorrow’s performance has been a rocky one, both in the institution’s recent and distant past. But its members and leaders remain optimistic that the bicentennial concert will signal a bright future for an organization that has played on since the days when Napoleon walked the earth.

‘SERENADE THEIR DAUGHTERS’

Though it’s considered venerable nowadays, the organization did not always have a perfect reputation. Indeed, the University so loathed their practices that the administration once tried to stamp the group out.

The Pierian Sodality—named after Pieria, the home of the mythological muses—was started as a group intended for “mutual improvement in instrumental music” in 1808 by either six or eight undergraduate musicians, depending on whom you believe. The HRO Web site says the former, but the 1935 book “Music at Harvard” by Walter R. Spalding, Class of 1887, says the latter.

One of the group’s earliest and most infamous practices was their nighttime trips to serenade the young ladies of the Boston area.

According to a Time Magazine article from March 29, 1943, their lantern-lit jaunts took Pierian members from Brattle Street to Beacon Hill. The HRO website quotes orchestra records from 1840:

“It came to pass in the reign of Simon the King, that the Pierians did meet in the tabernacle. And lo! A voice was heard saying, Let us go serenading and they lifted up their voice as one man and they said, Let us go. And behold we went to the city of the Philistines, and did serenade their daughters, and came home about the third hour. And the fame of the Pierians did wax exceedingly great, and did reach all the places round about Cambridge.”

The evening revelry so irritated the University administration that the group was asked to disband. Gassett ignored the official request.

After an uncertain first century, The Crimson congratulated the Sodality on the group’s centennial in 1908.

“The hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Pierian Sodality is an event of considerable significance in the musical world,” The Crimson wrote. “For a century the Pierian Sodality has held its own through varying fortunes and has made valuable contributions to the study of music at Harvard.”

Gassett would be happy to know the organization he helped save is now thriving, entering its 200th year.

BICENTENNIALITY

As part of the festivities, James Yannatos, the music director of the HRO, is including several perennial audience favorites in the season’s program, such as Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony and George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris.”

Other works planned for this season have close Harvard ties. On the programs for the November and March concerts are “Overture to The Great Gatsby,” composed by John H. Harbison ’60, and “Dances from West Side Story,” by Leonard Bernstein ’39. Gustav Holst, whose “The Planets Suite” will be paired with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony tomorrow night, was a member of Harvard’s faculty and also conducted the Sodality’s second incarnation, the Harvard University Orchestra, in several concerts during the 1930s.

Due to the celebratory nature of this year’s season, Yannatos allowed the orchestra members to have a deciding hand in the programming.

“HRO votes on the repertoire we play, so our season really reflects what the orchestra loves,” says Christine L. Barron ’09, violinist and president of the HRO. “In particular, ‘The Planets’ and Mahler’s 5th were among the highest voted pieces.”

THE REIGN OF YANNATOS

The orchestra as it appears now was firmly shaped by Yannatos’s arrival at Harvard, which came at a troubled time for the HRO.

“Dr. Y,” as members of the orchestra affectionately call him, became music director in 1964, after students selected him out of six candidates. The man who has nurtured several generations of Harvard musicians says the orchestra was in bad shape organizationally and financially when he first arrived.

“There was no permanent position [of music director],” says Yannatos. Conductors of the group quickly came and went. At one point, the concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra moonlighted as the conductor of the HRO for a few concerts, according to Yannatos.

The Harvard University Orchestra had begun playing concerts with the Radcliffe Orchestra in the 1936, and the two groups were merged as the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra in 1942. But, Yannatos put his own stamp on the organization. Within several years of his arrival, the Pierian Sodality—a society for senior members of the orchestra—became the Pierian Foundation, an alumni association that currently serves as an advising board for the HRO.

“The leadership of the orchestra turns over yearly and therefore, like most student-run organizations at Harvard, there is no institutional memory,” says Norman L. Letvin ’71, the current president of the Pierian Foundation and a former clarinetist in HRO. “So if there are certain types of mistakes the students are just about to make, we remember the last time the mistake was made and we give the orchestra advise and counsel.”

THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS?

Today, the HRO has traveled far from its origins as a group of rowdy young men “dedicated to the consumption of brandy and cigars as well as the serenading of young ladies,” as the group’s website describes the orchestra’s early days.

As well as providing a valuable outlet for musicians with other academic interests to pursue a treasured hobby—most of its current members are concentrating in fields other than music—the HRO has also serves as a professional training ground. Many current and past members of prominent American and international orchestras have played in the HRO, according to Yannatos.

John D. Kapusta ’09, a trumpet player as well as a vocalist in the five-year joint degree program between Harvard and the New England Conservatory, is serving as assistant conductor this season. He is following in the footsteps of such heavyweights as Leon Botstein—now the music director of the American Symphony Orchestra and president of Bard College—and Alan T. Gilbert ’89, the music director-elect of the New York Philharmonic.

“I think I’ve always wondered just how much of what the great conductors got out of their orchestras could truly be attributed to the genius of the conductor, as opposed to the virtuosity and natural musicality of the players as an ensemble,” says Kapusta, who, besides leading occasional rehearsals, will also be conducting Brahms’ “Tragic Overture” in March. “I’m thankful to say that the players of HRO take a lot of pressure off of my job,”

“It’s really unique because even though there are music majors, I would say the majority of the orchestra isn’t going into professional music,” says Barron. “What keeps us here is a love for music and a love for HRO and for making music and brining it to the community,”

CHALLENGES AHEAD

At the end of one recent rehearsal in the midst of midterm week, Yannatos lamented the absence of a large portion of the orchestra.

“I bellyache so much about the intrusion of the academic on the extracurricular, and I don’t know if we’ll ever get anything solved there,” says Yannatos. “That’s one thing I would love to see corrected, if there can be some kind of recognition at least that the nighttime should be for [extracurricular activities].”

Like many other student groups on campus, continuing as a self-sustaining organization remains a major difficulty for the orchestra.

“Something I’d love to see Harvard take on in the near future is a real effort to increase funding and support for our arts programs,” says Barron. “Personally, I think it’s very important for Harvard’s community. Art defines a person and a society as a whole.”

In spite of setbacks, the orchestra has managed to take on formidable musical challenges through the years.

Yannatos has remained a champion of contemporary music, and believes in Classical music as a living art form, despite resistance from both more traditionally-minded orchestra members and audiences irritated with challenging contemporary music.

Last year alone there were two world premieres, a work by Hsueh-Yung Shen ’73 and a cello concerto by Yannatos himself. This year, contemporary music is represented by the “Overture to The Great Gatsby.”

The HRO has also started several new traditions in the past few years. The final concert this year will be a performance of Brahms’s “German Requiem” with the Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus during Arts First weekend. It is the latest in a series of annual performances of large choral and orchestra works which have been occurring regularly in the past several years.

“Looking toward the future, HRO would like to set a precedent of collaborating with other musical groups on campus, such as for this year’s Arts First performance of Brahms ‘Requiem’ with HCS,” says Barron. “It’s a rare opportunity to have the resources and manpower to perform these large, epic pieces, and I think they add something unique to the music community on campus for both performers and audiences.”

BEST DAYS AHEAD?

Despite nearing the age of 80 and having conducted the HRO for more than 40 years, Yannatos continues to be a vital presence and the guiding spirit of the orchestra.

In a recent rehearsal, the spry Yannatos carefully guided the orchestra from the hushed and tense ending of the third movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony into the explosive and majestic opening of the final movement.

Despite the fact that only half of the orchestra was present, the orchestra still sounded magical.

In a way, Yannatos is a microcosm of the HRO—darting into the future, no matter what burdens the past has put upon him.

“I’m not sure how many more years I’ll be here,” says Yannatos. “But I’m still here and I still intend to be here.”

—Staff writer Eric W. Lin can be reached at ericlin@fas.harvard.edu.