Connecticut western news., 1922-06-08
OPENING CONCERT AN
 INSPIRING EVENT
Rendition of "Tale of Old Japan" Thrills Local
 Music Lovers

|. to capacity and many more standing outside, the music festival of Litch- field County was ushered in Tuesday evening. Famed throughout the country as one of the most brilliant musical events of the year, the <Aitchfeld County Choral Union has sustained it's reputation in the rendl- tion of "The Beatitudes" and "A Tale of Old Japan"
 Even the untrained ear could not help but feel the thrill, the inspira- tion of the blending of over four hundred voices, whose harmonious notes swelled upon the air like giant wave, only to recede and give way to the sweetly trained voices of the soloists. Then came the orchestra; softly at first, with only few pieces and gradually all the 65 pieces to- gether, which reminded one of noth- ing more than the joyful acclaim of an army of old returning victorious.
 It was a wonderful occasion for Litchfeld County and a rare oppor- tunity for it's people, some of whom i've are afraid have become, through usage, dulled to the sublimity of the occasion.
 Following is Phillip Curtiss' report of the first concert, as printed in the Hartford Courant:
 sEYoung singers and music of an airiness unusual in cantata or ora- torio, gave to the evening a spirit peculiarly in tune with the warm June weather and the beautiful rus tic surroundings. The noble and sonorous "Beatitudes" of the Bel gian, Cesar Franck formed the solid choral number of the evening; but it would not be quite true report which did not say that it was the me- : 1odies of Coleridge- -Taylor's "A Tale of Old Japan" running through their memories that the 1,500 spectators left the hall and wandered up through the woodland. torchlit paths which form the approach to the concert building. Lest there seem to be sort of sacrilege in that statement, both spiritually and musically, it can be entirely dismissed by the simple fact that the tuneful cantata camelast onthe program.
 Probably in on other place in Am erica has musical festival succeeded in surrounding itself with the att mosphere which has made the Nor folk event unique in the musical world. A story will be written about the guests and this year the list carries an unusually distinguished gathering. The festival again has an official touch through the attendance of Governor Lake and his staff. Mrs. Lake was unable to be present. Miss Marjorie Sykes Lake, the Governors daughter, was among the guests.
 Return of R. P. Paine
 As prophesied last week the great event of the evening, for Litchfeld county was the return to the Con- ductor's desk of Richard P. Paine who built the choral union, musically, to it's present size and power but who has been absent from it's activities for six years. At his first appear ance with his broad smile, so we'll known of old, the audience, chorus and orchestra alike simply rose up to greet him in a burst, not of ap- plause, but of acclaim which lasted for several minutes.
 Tn the two weeks which he con- ducted MT. Paine had compositions exactly suited to his peculiar genius. ssThe Beatitudes", while a gigantic religious work, is in the epic rather than the dramatic style and makes it's appeal from the pathos of it's solo voices and the delicate picturizar tion of its descriptive passages rather than from thunderous effects While A Tale of Old. Japan" is simply poem-unbroken arrative-inter- twined with marvellous orchestral background. It is exactly in the eschooling of the vast chorus to such apparent impossibilities as delicate shadings of nature descriptions and exquisite depletion of delicately con- trasting scenes that MT. Paine is { master Not, unfortunately, like all choral conductors, he is technical ly powerful orchestral leader and in his readings Tuesday evening he had the chorus of over four hundred voices and the orchestra of seventy five pieces absolutely welded under his baton.
 In neither 'The Beatitudes" or "A Tale of Old Japan" are the solo parts tremendous, but they were all filled, as they should be in such work, as voices" in the technical sense, in the blended whole. Knight MacGre- gor young singer and a newcomer to Norfolk, who took Clarence White hills place when it was found that the latter would be unable to return from England, had probably the most difficult work in ''The Voice of Christ" passages in "The Beati- tudes." MT. MacGregor is called baritone and is amazed that anyone should consider him anything but baritone, but his voice has such startling tenor quality that anyone hearing him sing from outside the