Litchfield enquirer., 1873-11-20
The Creation.

Tn0 creation. The performance of the Creation al l Washington was great success in every
 respect The solos, the choruses. and
 the accompaniments, were all well done
 and the audience was large enough to full
 ly meet the rather large'expenses of the
 undertaking.
 The weather, indeed, was very unfavor-
 able. It showed little, Tuesday, and drizzled all day Wednesday, making the travelling as bad as it well can be at this season of the year. An extraordinarily dark night made coming from any distance difficult and dangerous, so that we were much surprised to see as large an audi ence as assembled on the night of the con- cert It is but fair to say that Litchield turned out nobly, weather considered, about seventy excursionists crowding the single car the railroad company could spare us, while the teams that transport ed us to and from the station were obliged to make two or three trips to accommo- date the unexpected number that needed their assistance.
 The solo singing entirely met our ex- pectation. Mrs. Kimberley sang the so- prano parts very sweetly and in excellent taste. Her voice is, perhaps, not quite so admirable in itself as the way in which she uses if. It lacks somewhat of the fullness and roundness of tone that we hear in some of the great professional opera and concert singers; but, in delica- cy of expression and neatness of execu- tion, Mrs. Kimberley has few superiors. We were especially pleased with her rend- ering of "With Verdure Clad" and the soprano of the duet with MT. Wickes.
 Mr. Wickes, the bass, had one of the finest voices we have ever heard. It is powerful yet sweet-toned throughout. He sang the parts of Raphael and Adam very well, indeed, especially in his duet with Eve (Mrs. Kimberley. His voca1i- zation was not as perfect, 1t struck us, as that of either of the other solo perform CTS, but his voice was certainly the best of the three.
 Mir. Smith, the tenor, has an excellent voice, and performed his parts very well, indeed. We heard many of his hearers ranking him highest among the soloists
 MT. Shepard played the organ parts admirably. Although powerful and fine toned instrument, the organ at Wash ington wants the variety of stops necessa- " for an adequate rendering of the va- ried orchestral effects with which the Creation abounds. He succeeded, how ever, much more perfectly than we had supposed possible, and gave the audience a much better idea of what the organ can do than any performer most of them had ever heard
 The choruses went off with force and precision refecting great credit on the training of Mr. Buckingham and showing the steady confidence of singers of con- siderable exper1ence.
 We hope the success of this enterprise, under every Encouragement of hasty pre- paration and bad weather, will encour- age the 'FChoral Union' to further effort. There are now many good organs in the county and there ought to be occasional sacred music concerts in every church that has good organ. There is nothing that infuses new life into choir like an effort of this kind. Our popular tune books. too, are full of trashy anthems of no merit that the performance of better kind of music soon teaches choirs to avoid. Anyone who has ever led 8 choir knows how easily they sink into apathy, singing the same dull hymns in the same dull way Sunday after Sunday, till their tiresome performances become 8 positive drawback instead of the most attractive feature of the service. -a