The May Festival Concerts

SOMETHING ABOUT WHAT IS OFFERED MUSIC LOVERS

The great educational value of the May Festivals can hardly be overestimated. The good work has gone on quietly, so quietly indeed that many musicians have not realized its true and far reaching significance. Through the unselfish labors of those who have had the organization and development of this great work at heart, it has been made possible for the student, as a part of his university career, to hear the greatest music performed by the greatest artists that money can secure, at a price within the reach of all. While presenting artist and choral works that rank the Ann Arbor Festival with the Cincinnati and Worcester festivals, through the generous co-operation of a few leaders in artistic life here, the cost of hearing the performances here has been kept far below that in other places.

This year the opening of the Tenth May Festival, Thursday evening, May 14th, will be marked by the performance, for the first time in America, of one of the last and greatest choral works of the latter half of the nineteenth century Caractacus, by Edward Elgar. It is only within a few years that this composer has come into prominence, but already his compositions have won a prominent place in our concert programs, and he has been pronounced "the greatest musician England has produced." "Nothing for years has made such a stir in musical circles as the productions of his 'Dream of Gerontius',". Some unhesitatingly call it the "greatest choral work of the nineteenth century." In both those great works Elgar has followed much the same lines, of composition, but here the resemblance ends; each preserves to a remarkable degree its own individuality–its own suggestive atmosphere. Elgar writes for a tremendous orchestra, and, like Wagner, gives it an important part in the interpretation of the dramatic action. For this purpose he employs certain Wagnerian reduces, such as the motive, but in no sense is he slavish imitator of any one. In spite of the enormous complexity of his work, which in every sense is thoroughly modern, it possesses a most delightful freshness and vigor. Elgar has at all times a perfect mastery of his resources. The work is based upon an episode in the Roman conquest of Britain, and from the first stirring chorus, "Watchman, Alert," to the final magnificent paean of triumph the work preserves a thorough unity. Rising at times to wonderful choral climaxes with full chorus organ and orchestra, it never falls into anticlimax. All moves along with perfect spontaneity and naturalness. Few things more etherically beautiful than the song of the hill spirits, more weird than the druid rites, more moving than the lament, of more exquisite lyric beauty than the love scene between Eijen and Orbin have ever been written. The cast for the initial performance is a strong one; Mme. Shannah Cumming takes the part of Eigen, the British princess; Mr. William Wagner, that of her lover, the young Druid priest, Orbin–a role that calls for the powers of a Wagnerian tenor. Sig. Emilio de Gogorga appears as Caractacus; and Mr. Frederic Martin as Claudius.