Connecticut western news., 1919-05-29
PROGRAM FOR TUESDAY
 EVENINGS CONCERT
World-Famous Music on Open ing Night at
 Norfolk

Choral Union could not more appro-
 priately open it's festival than by the singing of the Festival Chorale, com
 posed by the man in whose honor the
 Union was founded. The music is to
 be sung by the chorus and audience
 with orchestral accompaniment.
 A new work will follow-Lyric
 Suite No. 2, composed for the festi-
 val by Victor Kolar who will also
 conduct his composition. The work
 consists of three movements as fol-
 lows: pastorale, cortege and finale.
 The composer wishes his work to be
 regarded as absolute music; symbolic
 and free from any so-called program.
 It is written in the lyric vein and
 could be interpreted to the action of
 a mimic pantomime; pantomime of
 the great drama of life, with it's joys
 and sorrows. Victor Kolar is one of
 the younger group of American com
 posers and studied with Dvorak when that great master came to this
 country and resided in New York to give instruction in composition to a
 limited number of promising pupils.
 Of this number Victor Kolar has
 been the most successful to marked
 degree. His first Symphony has been
 performed by the leading orchestras
 of the country and several conduc-
 tors of Symphony Orchestras in the
 United States will be present at this
 concert to hear his new work. MT.
 Kolar is gifted not only in compost tion but also as an expert violinist,
 having for number of years played among the first violins of the New
 York Symphony Society where he has also officiated as assistant con-
 ductor, post which he resigned few days ago in order to accept a similar position with the Detroit
 Symphony Society. MT. Kolar in past years has played in our festival orchestra several times but will not do so this year as he wishes to devote his entire time to the rehearsing and conducting of his new Lyric Suite.
 The Hiawatha Wedding Feast and the Death of Minnehaha have become associated with the Nor folk Festival owing to the visit of the composer, Coleridge Taylor, in 1910. He crossed the ocean express ly to direct the performances of these compositions and the Bamboula Dance which he had com- posed for one of our concerts. He remained in Norfolk a week and he frequently declared that it was the happiest period of his life; he also remarked several times that the per- formances of his works by the Litch- field County Choral Union was the finest he had ever heard. The Indian music was composed when he was studying at the Royal College of Mu- sic; it was something in an entirely new vein, and attracted the attention of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford who was one of Taylor's instructors. The work was first brought out under Stanford's direction, but so fearful was Taylor as to it's success that he did not dare to enter the hall; he from the outside and not un- til the concert was all over did he learn, what was afterward proved to OO u oO, tIloO IllC WOlh WOulu UCCOUlG world famous. It has been given in almost every civilized country on the globe and has earned large sums of money for it's publishers. Both Hiawatha and Minnehaha have the oriental splendor in their orchestra ton, so much so that Massenet, the famous French composer, when ex- the score of the work with out knowing that Coleridge Taylor was of negro ancestry, remarked that the work was written by an Oriental. In the Hiawatha Wedding Feast the chorus may be said to be an interpreter of the orchestral score. The beauties of this number and it's novel treatment are apparent and the wealth of melodic beauty in the Onaway Love Song, is in beautiful contrast to the other DOT tions of the work. The Death of 1 which is one of the most moving musical pictures ever writ ten, is more evenly divided between chorus and orchestra. The pathetic death of Minnehaha from Fever and | Hunger is the keynote of this work
 a or unconsciously the en- tire composition is grand funeral march and the imagination needs but | little taxing to visualize this touching episode of Longfellow's poem and Taylor's music which are married ! with great poetic beauty. The Cole ridge Taylor music was first given in the old Armory at Winsted by the Norfolk Glee Club and the Winsted | Choral Union. At that time Emilio | Di Gogorza was comparatively un- known but he sang, with great effect, the part of Hiawatha in "The Death of Minnehaha". Now after many | years he returns to us once more, admitted to be possessed | of the finest baritone voice on the concert stage. ,1ta2b tag gir l
 A beautiful monument marks the grave of Coleridge Taylor. On the