e considerations it may become intelligible
that to some hearers Mr. Paine's cadences have seemed unsatisfactory,
their ears having missed the positive categorical assertion of finality
which the 6/4 cadence alone can give. To go further into this subject
would take us far beyond our limits.

The pleasant little town of Portland has reason to congratulate
itself, first, on being the birthplace of such a composer as Mr. Paine;
secondly, on having been the place where the first great work of America
in the domain of music was brought out; and thirdly, on possessing
what is probably the most thoroughly disciplined choral society in this
country. Our New York friends, after their recent experiences, will
perhaps be slow to believe us when we say that the Portland choir sang
this new work even better, in many respects, than the Handel and Haydn
Society sing the old and familiar "Elijah"; but it is true. In their
command of the pianissimo and the gradual crescendo, and in the
precision of their attack, the Portland singers can easily teach the
Handel and Haydn a quarter's lessons. And, besides all this, they know
how to preserve their equanimity under the gravest persecutions of the
orchestra; keeping the even tenour of their way where a less disciplined
choir, incited by the excessive blare of the trombones and the undue
scraping of the second violins, would be likely to lose its presence of
mind and break out into an untimely fortissimo.

No doubt it is easier to achieve perfect chorus-singing with a choir of
one hundred and twenty-five voices than with a choir of six hundred.
But this diminutive size, which was an advantage so far as concerned the
technical excellence of the Portland choir, was decidedly a disadvantage
so far as concerned the proper rendering of the more massive choruses in
"St. Peter." All the greatest choruses--such as Nos. 1, 8, 19, 20, 28,
35, and 39--were seriously impaired in the rendering by the lack of
massiveness in the voices. For example, the grand chorus, "Awake, thou
that sleepest," begins with a rapid crescendo of strings, introducing
the full chorus on the word "Awake," upon the dominant triad of D major;
and after a couple of beats the voices are reinforced by the trombones,
producing the most tremendous effect possible in such a crescendo.
Unfortunately, however, the brass asserted itself at this point so much
more emphatically than the voices that the effect was almost to disjoin
the lat