Hutt Valley Choral Society

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 14, 18 October 1929, Page 8

Hutt Valley Choral Society

Performance of "A Tale. of Old Japan"

QN October 21, 2YA ‘will broddcast the performance by the Hutt Valley Choral Society of "A Tale of Old Japan," Alfred Noyes’ fine poem with musie by Coleridge-Taylor. The story of the poem is that Yoichi Tenko, the painter, taught his art to many pupils by the purple sea. Little Kimi, the

beautiful daughter of a brother who had been lost at sea, lived with him there and brightened his lonely life. One day in May when. the peonies were blooming, Sawara, young, poor and proud, came ‘to the school of Tenko. Quickly he mastered the painter’s art; his inspiration came on golden wings expanding; Tenko marvelled at the work of that young hand. Kimi, too, watched him in awe and wonder and gave him her wistful love. When the time came for his departure, Kimi was heart-broken and beseeched him to take her away with him; but instead he lightly made her promise to wait for his return. They plighted their promise there, Kimi yearning and dreaming that all his words of love were true.

For*three long years Kimi waited for. Sawara’s return, but in vain. Then Yoichi Tenko treacherously promised her: hand to a rich merchant, slyly telling her that Sawara had wedded another niaid. Weeping. and desolate Kimi left him and wandered, frail as a flower’s white ghost, by the darkened shore of the sea. Tenko followed and

searched for her in vain. All he heard was the cry of a wandering bird. Many went out to seek her, but none ever’ found her. . When the peonies were blooming again, Sawara returned to paint the. golden scenes near Tenko’s school. : He was now rich and of great fame and he hardly thought of little Kimi, who had waited for him so long. And now. she was gone. She was unfaithful. There were truer and fairer maids than Kimi, said the lying ‘Tenko, and Sawara was easily persuaded to wed another maid. One day. Sawara thought he would journey to the islands out in the sunset haze to paint his greatest masterpiece. It was thither that Kimi had fled to hide her bitter woe. -There, white as a moonlight blossom, she came out to meet him. Long, long awaited, he had come. Nothing so wondrously fair as Kimi had Sawara ever seen, but with a sad heart he told her that he had already wedded another, A last whispering wish she uttered: that he would give her one parting kiss. He gathered her in his arms and held her 2 moment till like a broken blossom her head fell on his arm. She was dead.