I am so glad Donald is putting Hiawatha's Wedding Feast in the context of its time, and not being sniffy about it. The fact is, it belongs to an era when Choral Societies were at their zenith...and they loved especially works which had lots for the chorus to do. So works such is this and, for instance, Handel's Israel in Egypt were a gift. In my younger days Hiawatha was still widely done, and Onaway! Awake, beloved! earned me quite a few quid over the years. IMVHO, no-one matched Richard Lewis...e.g. on the old Malcolm Sargent/Royal Choral Society disc. It's a gift for tenors, and again IMVHO that top B flat near the end needs to be floated mezza-voce and not blasted out like Pavarotti. It is marked pp after all.
I'm having a nostalgia trip, leafing through my old Novello score (Scenes from the Songs of Hiawatha) price three shillings and sixpence, with a page at the back informing us of 'The Pronunciation of Indian Words' !
I'm having a nostalgia trip, leafing through my old Novello score (Scenes from the Songs of Hiawatha) price three shillings and sixpence, with a page at the back informing us of 'The Pronunciation of Indian Words' !
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