a:r PAGE EIGHT THE MICHIGAN DAILY SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1954 MUSICIANS IN KHAKI TOUR EUROPE: KP Plays Second Fiddle to Viola for GI I BOOKS, ART, MUSIC, SPORTS, FASHIONS jjg iuTr ri an UAAa ii4q (Editor's Note: The following article is written by Grant Beglarian, a graduate student at the University working on a doctoral degree of musical arts in composition. Beg. larian served a two-year stint with the Seventh Army Symphony Or- chestra in Europe.) By GRANT BEGLARIAN AVING just come marching home after spending two years as a draftee in our Army, I feel impelled to share with you, who are anticipating this duty, and oth- ers, some experiences and one piece of advice: Be a musician! For those in fields other than mu- sic there is hope too. If you are a dancer, or if you sing, you can be used in musicals. Do you write? Youcanwrite them. An artist will paint murals in mess halls or the service clubs or design sets far shows. All is not lost. The Army's new policy of placing men in po- sitions for which they are trained (or as nearly as possible) works quite well. I was first assigned to teach the- ory to band musicians at a band school near Munich, Germany. When the school closed, I was amazed to find myself transferred to an "outfit" called the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra, as a violist. This Symphony was first or- ganized by Thor Johnson immedi- ately after the Second World War. It toured Germany for about a year and was then dis- banded.. Two years ago it was re-established, and during my tour of duty, was under the di- rection of James Dixon. He is a talented young conductor, now teaching at Iowa University, and a student of Dimitri Mitropoulos. The Orchestra, within a year, traveled twice over all of Western Germany and Austria. Not only did we play ih large cities-Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, M u n i c h, Bremen, Vienna, Salzburg-but al- so in the smaller towns and in some villages so tiny and remote that, I believe, only the persons who live there and Army Intelli- gence know of their existence. The attendance at these concerts was always tremendous, no matter how thick the fog or how deep the snow. Curiosity and skepticism brought people to the first concerts. Most people had never heard an American orchestra and in many towns no orchestra had ever per- formed. The fact that the Orches- tra was composed of soldiers-, real soldiers, playing, violins, bas- soons and oboes stunned their imaginations. Who ever heard of an Army's maintaining a sympho- ny orchestra? But when no chorus line of chest heavy beauties ap- peared and no Hill-Billy jamboree took over during intermission, Ger- man fears were allayed and Aus- trian scoffs turned to cheers. Our programs of Berlioz, Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven and Tschaikow- ski delighted them and the works we performed by the American composers, Piston, Barber and Del- lo Joio, were enthusiastically re- ceived, A LL BUT ONE or two members of the Orchestra are young drafted men. Some were formerly assigned either to bands or to spe- cial services to play in soldier shows. Perhaps a third of the mem- bers were, or hope to be, profes- sional musicians in civilian life. They, of course, gained invaluable experience playing with the Or- chestra and some also performed Mother's Bad Seed' Seen I n Actions of Daughter as soloists in Concertos with the Orchestra. Last fall and winter, the Orches- tra dwindled to a size where it seemed almost impossible to con- tinue. Many persons were sent home to be released from the Army and replacements were dif- ficult to find. I must mention here that this is when my wife, who just "happened" to have her flute along, became the second flutist with the Seventh Army Symphony and toured with us for six months. I do not know who was more amazed--the Germans-as she took her place on the stage, or the old Army Master Sergeants-as she stood in chow-line in the mess halls. After Christmas, the Orchestra was too small to give full con- certs, so we became an opera or- chestra. Singers were hired by the State Department and Ameri- ka Haus and we toured with them giving performances of Gian-Carlo Menotti's "The Old Maid and the Thief," "The Tele- phone," and "The Medium," which were most successful During this period, Maestro Mi- tropoulos, in Europe for an engage- ment, met the Orchestra and real- ized that unless new men were found immediately, the Orchestra would be without the necessary players to do anything. The time and interest he generously gave to us influenced the Army to take a more serious view of the worth and use of the Orchestra. By spring the Army, by check- ing their records, had found more than 100 young musicians, sent them to the Orchestra to be audi- tioned, and rehearsals began for a new tour of the Operas and, once again, the concerts. The Army now has a balanced and excellent sound- ing orchestra of seventy men. The second year, we were invited to play a series of concerts at the Passau Music Festival. In Passau, the Orchestra also played for te appearance of the Paris Ballet at the Festival and for the opera per- formances of Beethoven's "Fi- delio." Truly, this orchestra is one of the two things in Germany and Austria which gain respect and good feeling for the United States from the people. The Orchestra and the Amerika Haus Libraries and Information Centers, (whose funds have been reduced) reach thousands of people who otherwise are ignorant of any good Orches- tras, literature or music coming from America. The Orchestra even pleases those who do not like us very much. -The Russians loved us in Vienna. (Continued from Page 6) deress who killed her own family and then the family of her husband except for one little girl. Looking up newspaper accounts, Christine finds that her father (though she now knows it was her adopted fath- er) reported the event. She also learns that he wrote what became a famous story about the one per- son saved from the clutches of the woman; a little blonde girl named Christine. THE REALIZATION of the "bad seed" that she has passed on to her daughter is overwhelming, yet author March has written with such great understanding and depth about the psychological as- pects of the event and its environs that the reader cannot help but see the situation before him. Rhoda goes into action a third time and Christine is determined that this morbid and lethal drive with which she has impregnated her daughter come to a halt. Fate's intervention at the novel's con- clusion is the author's way of pointedly showing how catastrophic fate can be. The strength of Christine lies in her weakness while Rhoda's weak- ness is her strength. Christine does not like to think and prefers to let life go on around her. Her daughter would rather enter the world about her. While making it' a maelstrom, she does only what she desires, for, in reality, the girl has.no relative sense of right and wrong. The first few chapters are a little weak in construction for the narra- tive, in the third person, tells the reader of impending doom rather than permitting the action to speak for itself. Later in this terse work, March lets his characters speak and immediately the novel proceeds on its suspense-filled well-conceived way. "The Bad Seed" is worth the experience in its reading to show what can be done not only with good plot and theme but with a masterful story-teller who knows how to write, and most important, to write well. It is too bad that there will be no other books by William March. h .______ SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1954 ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN Foreign Policy in Perspective: 195 Invites You To Hear "High Fidelity Worthy of the Name" THE, INCOMPARABLE "Bolero" By DANIEL WIT Visiting Assistant Professor Department of Political Science LEADING Republicans have said that *their "dynamic, new, foreign policy" has "eliminated war," ended appease- ment of the Communists, created a strong Asian policy and "laid it on the line" to our European allies in order to compel them to cafry their full load in the strug- gle against the Soviets. Former President Truman has noted 'blunder after blunder" in the conduct of our foreign affairs since 1952, while other Democrats have charged the Ad- ministration with complete confusion, war mongering and total ineptness. Amidst all this sound and fury, bluster and bravado-intensified of late by pant- ing politicians frantically charging to- wards the electoral finish line-what ba- sic significance can be found in the course of American foreign policy during the last two years? What sort of reasonably objective analysis can be made? To begin with, one must realize that, in the policy conflict between isolation- ism on the one hand and some form of collective security, support for interna- tional organization and participation in balance of power politics on the other, isolationism has gained only minority political support in the United States since 1932. The reasons for this derive from the very nature of the Twentieth Century and America's position in it. The mass of the population and its leaders have found it extremely difficult to ignore the fact that technology has almost destroyed the relative insularity of Nineteenth Century America. Know- ledge of the existence of Soviet bombers capable of reaching us in some half doz- en hours across the Arctic has forced most Americans into an awareness of the fact that the world is really round-that Europe and Asia are not just remote continents on'the other side of vast ex- panses of water which function as im- pregnable defenses for the U.S. Frequent headlines which describe American dependence for vital resources on areas outside the Western Hemisphere, the degree of popular, physical, psycho- logical, and material participation in the struggle to defeat Germany and Japan, and the post-war position of leadership thrust upon us have all served to height- en American insight into the nature of our involvement with the rest of the world. One must indeed be living in an ivory tower to be able to ignore the ex- tent to which isolationism, today, rep- resents no more than meaningless nega- tivism incapable of resolving any of our foreign policy problems but fully capable of promoting our collective assassination. THAT SUCH was realized by all major post-war points of view was clearly demonstrated during the "great debates" which raged from 1947 to 1952. For, in the course of those widely publicized ex- changes concerning the definition and propriety of the Truman Administration's containment policy, both of the leading critics of elaborate U.S. involvement in global leadership-former Senator Taft and ex-President Hoover-insisted with some measure of validity that they were not traditional isolationists, either. Sen. ator Taft thus argued in behalf of ex- tremely limited American military aid to Europe and avoidance of military en- tanglements on the Asian mainland un- less and until the Europeans could them- selves produce armed might capable of stopping the Russians in the event of an attack. Even Mr. Hoover, however-whose position was more extreme than Taft's- emphasized the importance to American security of a friendly British bastion while agreeing with Senator Taft on the necessity for great air and naval power based outside what he felt to be our Western Hemisphere Gibraltar. In effect then, by 1952 the cause of full blown isolationism was pretty dead. The real foreign policy alternatives involved either the perpetuation of some combina- Death of Isolationism Has Led to Many Splits pullin effort these gested natior The ty an and C dent closer contir foreig that i pro-A lectiv Mr. '] mains policy east A hesive The has r Secrei econo expen views duced shorts man g thoug: enoug: Londo lish a man port f ed rel since multi- has al vi erally Durin been "dyna the or pose a decide area f a rest "mass taken about enslav lies o tional foreigi dy" R9 brava or wil traditi mann U.S. I Ho eign p wer w within outlin and h contin the Cc collect deter our o objecti ing ec tures nomic and, f ued to munisi pre-19 beyonc sive, a. Mao new weel Sun clud atur spor azin of e 1' - AT THE ART MUSEUM-Described as a "very good reproduction," this copy of the famous "Victory of Samothrace" dominates the main hall of the Univer- sity Museum of Art in Alumni Memorial tion of collective security and balance of power politics, capped by continued though no longer excessively optimistic participation in the United Nations, or what might be called the Taft-Hoover neo-isolationism. THE CAPTURE of the Republican nom- ination in 1952 by General Eisen- hower settled the "great debate" as fat as official policy was concerned. For, the Eisenhower defeat of Taft constituted one more victory for the advocates of an American foreign policy of active inter- national leadership. Prior to his nomina- tion, Mr. Eisenhower had made it very clear in testimony before the Senate committees and in debate by press con- ference with Senator Taft that he re- garded any withdrawal from Europe or reliance on air and naval power as an invitation to disaster. In fact, during the last few months preceeding the Republi- can Convention, Eisenhower openly stat- ed that he had become interested in the Presidential nomination not so much through opposition to the Truman poli- cies as through fear that the neo-isola- tionists would take over the Republican party and then go on to capture the White House. It was this very agreement on major foreign policy alternatives with the Democrats, as well as the General's vote-getting possibilities, which also led so many Democrats to urge earlier that their nomination be offered to the future Republican President. Moreover, the most powerful' Eisenhower supporter among 1 Republicans-Governor Dewey-had him- self clearly indicated prior to 1952 that he was in favor of a policy of global containment of the Soviet Union which went beyond the Truman position of com- mitting us to defend key areas through partial mobilization. The stated Dewey view was that we should draw a line around the globe and then engage in full mobilization in order to defend it against any Russian incursion. THE PERIOD from 1947 to 1952, there- fore, indicated quite clearly that an Eisenhower Administration, whether in behalf of the Democrats or the Republi- cans, would perpetuate the T. R. Roose- velt-Wilson-F.D.R.-Truman advocacy of U.S. leadership in world affairs. In addi- tion, the Eisenhower-Dewey views ex- pressed during the same period made it a good bet that 1952 to 1954-with Mr. Dewey's former foreign affairs advisor as Secretary of State-would not involve any drastic departure from the containment policy embarked upon in 1947 by Mr. Truman. From the hindsight of 1954, the ex- pected has generally occurred. A foreign policy combining aspects of collective se- curity, balance of power, and support for the United Nations has been conducted with some new verbal twists but also with a continuation of many of the same strengths and weaknesses characteristic of "Trumanism." During the last two years the Eisen - hower Administration thus has com- pleted the Korean truce negotiations in- itiated by its predecssor instead of just