The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1866-06-12 00:00:00

SALISBURY DIOCESAN CHORAL

FESTIVAL

(COIIMUNIC•TED.)

The Salisbury Diocesan Choral Association was re-
modelled the latter end of last year. The new rules
gave it a constitutional (orm, of which the leading
idea seem. to have been local freedom combined with
dioceean unity. It is, in fact, a federation of district
easociatious, with • central representative govern-
ment. This will be seen from the rules which are
given below. The first public act of the emaciation,
under its new constitution, has been to bold •
Diocesan Feetival of Parish Choirs in the Cathedral
Church. Circumstances, over which no one had any
control, gave the committee bat a very short tune for
making their arrangements for this festival, especially
for the /election of music, and this short time
occurred in Lent, when some of the clergy, most
competent to advise in such matters, could not at-
tend. Notwithstanding these difficulties, the festival
upon the whole was • suocessful one. Every one
concerned worked zealously and well ; the general
committee, and all the sub-committoes, with their
secretaries, the district secretaries, the choir-masters
and choirs, and it should be gratefully added the
publishers of the mum, the Masers Novelle, all
seemed animated by one spirit, and pulled heartily
together to make up for the shortness of the time.
The meet noticeable points to the proceedings out'
side the Cathedral were—first, the prctureeque pro-
cessions through the town of the different detach-
ments of choirs, as they arrived by the various epecial
trains ; secondly, the really imposing procession of
the whole body of the cholla from the cloisters to the
market-house to dinner; and thirdly, the remark-
able rapidity and ease with which some 1,400 on-
drilled men and boys entered that buildiag, and took
their places at the various Uhler. The whole of this
order hinged upon a fourfold division of all the choirs
and upon the numbering of each one—division A
haling the unsurplioed choirs which arrived by the
South-Weiner° Railway ; division B, those which
arrived by the Greta Western; division C the sue-
plioed choirs; division 1) uneurplioed local choirs, and
there who came by the high road. Each division on
its arrival at the station found the numbers of the
I various choirs put at proper intervals along the wall
of the platform, and each choir ranged itself by its
number under its own banner. In this order they
were led by • "conductor." appointed for that pur-
pose, through the town to the cloisters. There they
found identically the same arrangement ; each choir
again finding its number upon the wallet the cloister
assigned to its di•ision. They then placed their
l.anners by their numbers, and were taken into the
cathedral for a rehearsal of the service. After the
service, they again ranged themselves under their
banners, and division after division marched out of
the cloisters rapidly and evenly, and in an order
which enabled them to pass on at once in a lino which
I extended round two sicles of the Close, and their
well-nigh hundred banners glittering in the bright
sunshine, and • powerful band in their centre, under
'the archway into the main street, thence along its
whole length to the Torenhall, and so scrum the large
open Market-plane to the Market-house. Here they
were met by a staff of gentlemen, under the direction
of the Rev. B. Hutchings, the awaken mcretary or
the committee of management, under whose personal
I supenntendence all the arrangementa both at the
guidons and at the dinner, and many at the cathedral,
mere carried out without • single bitch or mistake.
Two divisions entered the Market-house at the mme
time by different game, and each choir walked
straight up at once to it/ o.io number, where pro-
vision was made for planting its banner. For the
rest of the day the order which had been intended
could not be observed ; the Sourh•Weetern train.
bringing up nearly 700 singers, had arrived an hour
after its time, thus making both the service and the
dinner so late that the afternoon cathedral service
could not be held till after five o'clock, Thus it was
impossible for the choirs, who had to leave by the
special trait's, to attend it in say order or for the
whole service. The bad time kept by this train
mused great anxiety and trouble to the manners of
the festival in many other ways all through the day,
both in the cathedral and nut of it; and they com-
plain, with greet justice, of the company, who did
not give an engine of sufficient power to do the work,
which they knew long beforehand would have to be
done. The three special trains of the Great Western
kept their time very well. The female choirs,
numbering, with their Woodside, upwards of 500,
were conducted from the stations after the male
choirs had left, and taken to the school for training
parish schoolmistresses, which is in the Close, just
opposite the west end of the cathedral. A large tent
had tern pitched on the leen behind the echoed, end
there the obi'''s afterward• dined altogether, waited
upon and attended to in tbe pleasantra possible
manner by the vouog student., of the achooL After
dinner they walked round the Cie.., and, by the
kind permission of the Bishop, through the palace
garden and grounds, and so hack through the cloisters
to the beentifully restored chapterhouss, and thence
to the cathedral, for such pert of the afternoon !service
an time might allow them to attend. The arrange-
ments in the cathedral were as follows :—As the • lid
choir screen still rentsios' with the organ upon it, it
was impossible to um the choir proper for lb. service.
The surpleed choristers were, thecae's, placed
under the tower, and the annuptioed in the PITO and
abase A very beautiful lateen, the gift of the
fazt4l of the late Dean Lear to the Garbed/ILM
W
p in the centre of the tower, with the onspboad