A Laugh

At Berkeley, Calif., the University summer music session was officially closed by a concert of Henry Cowell's funny ultra-modern oddities, presented in Wheeler Hall by the Berkeley Greek Theatre Management. The titles read: Amiable Conversation, What's This, Advertisements, Piece for Piano With Strings. The performance was punctuated by snickers and guffaws on the part of the learned audience. This was just what Cowell tried to achieve. It is easy enough, he believes, to write music that will draw tears out of the emotional listener, but few composers have succeeded in pulling a laugh. Not even jazz can do it. Cowell thus promises to become the progenitor of a race of U. S. musicians exclusively devoted to the Comic Muse. France has already started such a line with Eric Satie and his followers, the "Group of Six."