Concert with the Virginia Symphony (1939)

Flier advertising the concert with the Virginia Symphony

The 1939 Virginia Glee Club Concert with the Virginia Symphony was held on January 17, 1939 in Old Cabell Hall. A joint performance with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, the Glee Club, prepared by Harry Rogers Pratt, performed two works for men's chorus and symphony orchestra to open the Glee Club 1938-1939 season: Edvard Grieg's "Landsighting" and the Finale to "Die Meistersinger" by Richard Wagner.

The performance gained some notoriety when Pratt reported in the Washington Post that the Glee Club men refused to sing the passage "honor your German masters" in the Wagner work:

Prof. H.R. Pratt, director of the University of Virginia Glee Club, said today members of the glee club had refused to sing praise to "German masters" even though set to Wagner's immortal music. Prof. Pratt said members of the club demanded a revision of the wording of a line of the finale to the Wagnerian opera, "Die Meistersinger," before they would agree to sing it with the Virginia symphony orchestra in a joint concert at Cabell Hall tomorrow night. The line objected to, translated, reads: "Honor your German masters," and the score requires all 80 voices to sing it in crescendo. The club director said he had rewritten the line to read "honor your master singers."