Virginia Glee Club: A Shadow’s on the Sundial (Credits and Liner Notes)

Editor’s note: The Virginia Glee Club’s 1972 record A Shadow’s on the Sundial was recorded to commemorate the group’s 100th anniversary and to raise funds for its 1972 European tour. The credits and liner notes are below. Judging from the notes, the album may have originally been called Songs of the University of Virginia, after the group’s earlier 1951 recording, but was evidently retitled prior to the release.

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

GLEE CLUB

Donald Loach, Director
James Richardson, Accompanist

Assisted by:

John Pherson, guitar
Dean DeBuck, guitar
Edward Wine, percussion
John Burwasser, bassoon
David Ritchie, bass
Howard Hanson, piano

SONGS OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

Side one

MADRIGALS

Hark, all ye lovely saints – Thomas Weelkes
Moncouer se recommande à vous – Orlando di Lasso
Su su su pastorelli vezzosi – Claudio Monteverdi
Shoot, false love, I care not – Thomas Morley

LAUDS OF ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA – Francis Poulenc

O Jesu perpetua lux
O proles Hispaniae
Laus regi plena gaudio
Si quaeris miracula

SALVATION BELONGETH TO OUR GOD – Paul Tchesnokov

CANTATE DOMINO – Dietrich Buxtehude

Side Two

SUMMER SONGS – David Davis

Love is a green girl
Alas, alack!
By the farmer’s fields
A shadow’s on the sundial

TESTAMENT OF FREEDOM – Randall Thompson

I. The God who gave us life

IV. I shall not die without a hope

SONGS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

Vir-ir-gin-i-a
From Rugby Road to Vinegar Hill
Glory, glory to Virginia
Virginia yell song
Alma maters: The good old song/Ten thousand voices

SONGS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

Among songs rightly belonging to the University are the compositions included here by two of the University’s formerly vigorous musical leaders, David Davis and Randall Thompson. David Davis, a former director of the Glee Club, set the Summer Songs in 1968, drawing his poems from The Owl’s Parasol by Michael B. Stillman, business manager of the Glee Club, 1961-1963. Randall Thompson composed The Testament of Freedom in honor of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson, father of the University. Dedicated to the Glee Club, the work was first performed on Founder’s Day, April 13, 1943. The following texts from the writings of Mr. Jefferson constitute the two movements of Thompson’s work recorded here.

The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy but cannot disjoin them. –A Summary View of the Rights of British American (1774)

I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on steady advance … And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them … The flames kindled on the 4th of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them. — Letter to John Adams, Monticello

Added recently to the repertory of Virginiana is the song “Vir-ir-gin-i-a” on stanzas by Arthur Kyle Davis, Jr. The music recommended by Professor Davis is Handel’s, as it was adapted by John Pepusch for Peter Gay’s satirical Beggar’s Opera. The harmonization and arrangement is Professor Loach’s. On April 11, 1968, Professor Davis sang his new song before the Jefferson Society, to whom he dedicated it.

EARLY HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA GLEE CLUB

Ever since Thomas Jefferson, the “Sage of Monticello,” founded the University, bands of troubadours have reaffirmed his assertion that “music is the favorite passion of my soul.” The Carr’s Hill Glee Club, a notorious group active in 1861, is the earliest known. Ten years later the men of Cabell House organized the forerunner of today’s Glee Club and received special commendation, in The University of Virginia Magazine (1871):

There is one point on which we are deficient, and that is college musical groups. There is no lack of instrumental talent among us, as clearly evidenced by the soft, plaintive strains of violin music which frequently enter at the back window of our sanctum. We are not wanting in vocal powers, as proven by the deep sounds that rise in sweet cadence from below us, and also by the sudden outbursts of Shoofly, Upudee, Little Brown Jug, and other melodies that occasionally startle “the drowsy ear of night.” But there seems to be little disposition to collect this scattered talent. We know of but one exception to this rule. Those gentlemen rooming at the Cabell House, and in that neighborhood, have made great efforts, and we understand tolerably successful ones, to form a Glee Club. They certainly deserve great credit, and they should also command the hearty cooperation and good wishes of all who are not fit “for stratagems and spoils.”

Renamed the Claribel Club, the group embarked on its first officially approved tour in 1874. Later it merged with other organizations, became the Glee, Mandolin and Banjo Club, and continued to tour, visiting Atlanta, New Orleans, Lousiville, St. Louis, and New York. The University Glee Club emerged out of this organization in 1893 under the brilliant leadership of the Chapel’s organist, Harrison Randolph. In 1915 it was re-organized, after a brief decline, by Professor Hall-Quest, who modeled it after his alma mater’s at Princeton. His successors, including Henry Rogers Pratt, Stephen Tuttle, Donald MacInnis, David Davis, and Donald Loach, have kept the Glee Club vigorous by continually renewing its musical spirit. This recording is issued as part of the Glee Club’s Centennial Celebration.