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5423969_2_1457.xml
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5423969_2_1457.xml
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<bibl><title>Skandinaven</title>,
<date when="1920-04-11">Apr. 11, 1920</date>.
<title level="a">What the Critics Say</title></bibl>
</title>
</titleStmt>
<publicationStmt>
<publisher>The Newberry Library</publisher>
<pubPlace>Chicago, Illinois</pubPlace>
<address>
<addrLine>60 West Walton</addrLine>
<addrLine>Chicago, IL 60610</addrLine>
<addrLine>USA</addrLine>
<addrLine>http://www.newberry.org</addrLine>
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<idno>5423969_2_1457</idno>
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<notesStmt>
<note>Transcribed from digital images contributed to the Internet
Archive by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.</note>
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<bibl><title>Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey</title>, <date>1936-1941</date>,
<sponsor>Works Projects Administration</sponsor>,
<sponsor>Chicago Public Library Omnibus Project</sponsor></bibl>
<bibl>
<title>Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey [microform]</title>
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<div type="group">
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<item>NORWEGIAN</item>
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<item>II B 1 a</item>
<item>I A 2 a</item>
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<div type="citation">
<bibl><title>Skandinaven (Daily Edition)</title>,
<date when="1920-04-11">Apr. 11, 1920</date>.
<title level="a">WHAT THE CRITICS SAY</title></bibl>
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</front>
<body>
<p>One of the great surprises of the musical season occurred last night at Orchestra Hall, where the St. Olaf Choir, from the college of the same name, made its first appearance here.</p>
<p>Seldom has a musical organization of its size come into this city with less preliminary heralding. Seldom has there been one that deserved it more, or was more capable of living up to advance enthusiasm. In many ways this was the most interesting choral group that has been heard in Chicago since the Russian choir from New York gave a few concerts in Chicago suburbs some six years ago. When it is considered that the St. Olaf organization is a college choir, and that its personnel changes from year to year by virtue of graduations, its accomplishments are extraordinary.</p>
<p>The program opened when the mixed chorus of some fifty members in vestments, square-shouldered and vigorous looking, marched upon the stage and grouped <pb facs="5423969_2_1458.jpg" n="2"/>itself on a temporary platform. After a pause the door again opened and Director Christiansen walked rapidly to the center stand, raised his baton, and without pause the singing began.</p>
<p>It always is mystifying how a really expert choir manages to start on key. There was no pianist to strike a preliminary chord; there was nothing visible or audible such as a pitch pipe or tuning fork. All that happened was that the baton fell and the singers began, on the note. And their singing was nothing short of superb. They were well past the youthful immaturity that might reasonably have been expected of a college choir. They were perfectly balanced and flexible; they could raise their voices to a thrilling, exultant shout, or throttle them down to the merest tonal whisper; an eight-part motif presented no more difficulty to them than a passage in unison. They had spirit, they had refinement, and they kept under perfect control.</p>
<p>At that, they were merely a body of ordinarily good individual singers, which <pb facs="5423969_2_1459.jpg" n="3"/>makes their total effect more surprising still. There were no astonishing voices among them, none of the unbelievably subterranean bassos that made the Russian choir a topic of conversation for weeks afterward. They were just fifty good voices--with four extra good soloists--that had been trained and wrought into the very perfection of style, fine tone, and clear ennunciation.</p>
<p>The program was short. Had it not been for two intermissions, there would not have been much more than an hour of singing. There were compositions by Bach, Grieg, Mendelssohn, Johan Kruger, Philip Nicolay, and Grethaninov; traditional melodies of ancient date, Martin Luther's "A Mighty Fortress," an unusually fine "Hosanna" by the director, Mr. Christiansen. All were in English. In conclusion the choir sang "The Star-Spangled Banner," and it was an education in how our national air ought to be sung.</p>
<p>The next time the choir sings here it will be better known. It is now starting on a series of about twenty concerts that will carry it from coast to coast. It should sing here again, and when it does the admirers of fine <pb facs="5423969_2_1460.jpg" n="4"/>choral singing will miss something if they do not hear it.</p>
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