December 11, 1932

The Vassar College Choir gave the first performance in the United States of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Magnificat (1932) for contralto, flute, organ and choir, as part of the annual Christmas Music program. Contralto Grace Leslie and flutist Mortimer Rapfogel assisted the choir, directed by E. Harold Geer, professor of music and director of the choir, in the performance of what Jeanne Schenck ’33, writing in The Miscellany News, called “the most interesting work in the program. The text is free and attempts to combine, as does the music, the mystic as well as the magnificent side of the annunciation.”

Vaughan Williams’s Magnificat was first performed at the 218th Three Choirs Festival, held in 1932 at Worcester.