1912 Olympic Games Official Report Part 2

Olympic Games were advertised and the lengthy preparations made,economical expectations were raised to the very highest pitch, andthe result was disappointing to the more sanguine of the speculators.As a result of the contracts which the Entertainments Committeehad been empowered to make, the body in question was able, however, tohand over to the Swedish Olympic Committee, at the conclusion ofthe Games, the sum of a little more than £ 2,000($ 10,000), as shownin the Report of the Finance Committee.The great Swedish Choral Festival at the OlympicGames of Stockholm, 1912.The Swedish Choral Association, which embraces singers from everypart of Sweden, and the object of which is to create an interestin the execution of four-part songs for men’s voices, and also to increasepatriotism in Sweden, organized a grand Choral Festival in connectionwith the Olympic Games of Stockholm, in 1912.More than 4,400 singers from the whole country took part in thismusic festival. A temporary concert hall was erected for the occasion,seating 8,000 persons, in addition to the singers. The festival lastedthree days, during which time two concerts were given at the hall,an open-air performance took place at Skansen, and one was held atthe Stadium. At the concerts, which were attended, at Skansen, byan enormous crowd, and at the other places by full houses, thesongs were rendered, in part, by the grand choir of 4,400 men, and,in part, by smaller choirs from the provinces, each numbering from200 to 800 singers. The concert at the Stadium, which was attendedby an audience numbering 27,000, was preceded by an immensechoral procession, in which 6,000 persons took part. In the cortegethere were allegorical groups representing “Patriotic Songs”, “WarSongs”, “Church Choral Music”, and “Ballads”, besides which therewere groups from each province of Sweden illustrating some peculiarfeature of the district represented. A most imposing sight was presentedthis lovely summer evening by the entrance into the Stadiumof the enormous procession of 4,400 singers, in their white corps-capsand with their banners, and preceded by the allegorical groups —whose gigantic platforms were drawn by teams of six horses — theheralds and horsemen, the thousand schoolboys and the thousandboy-scouts with little Swedish flags in their hands, which marchedinto the arena amid the applause of nearly three times ten thousandexpectant sightseers. It made an impression which can be imagined,but hardly described.After the singers had taken up their station in the middle of thearena and Mr. Hultquist, principal conductor of the Association andsole arranger of the festival, had mounted the tribune, the concertbegan with a special greeting to Their Majesties the King and Queen,consisting of a feeling speech by H R. H. the Crown Prince, Chairmanof the Swedish Choral Association, followed by a song of homagecomposed for the occasion and dedicated to their Majesties. Then830