Tanglewood of the South

High atop Tennessee's Cumberland Ridge, on the 10,000-acre campus of Sewanee's University of the South, cool breezes carried the sounds of chamber music over the nearby countryside. From the windows of five fraternity houses came the practice sounds of 40 "serious students" from 15 states and Canada, happily scrubbing and scratching on assignments set by their teachers.

Episcopal Sewanee and Nashville's Peabody College were having their first Cumberland Forest Festival: a kind of Tanglewood of the South, directed by lean, sandy, U.S. Symphonist Roy Harris. The festival highlight: a mid-century survey of 20th Century music.

In Sewanee's All Saints' Chapel last week, a capacity crowd of 600 heard the second concert in the festival's survey. The audience was lulled into false security with some Haydn and Mozart quartets, then given the business: Walter Piston's new (1949) piano quintet, with Harris' wife Johana ("Lady Jo") at the piano. Written in modern idiom, with awkward, angular intervals, grating harmonies and jolting semi-jazz rhythms, it left its listeners bewildered and politely awed. When it was over, the audience stood up (applause in the chapel was ruled out) to show its reverent appreciation.

Before the eight-week festival is over, audiences will hear works of Bela Bartok, William Schuman, Samuel Barber, Peter Mennin, Arnold Schoenberg, Paul Hindemith and Composer Harris himself. Said he: "I'm not worried about people liking contemporary music; all I want is for them to get acquainted with it." People who don't get acquainted this summer will have another chance next year.

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