“The Tale of the Viking” was written in competition for the prize offered by the Cincinnati Musical Festival Association in 1879, and though unsuccessful, is still regarded as one of the most admirable and scholarly works yet produced in this country. The text of the cantata is Longfellow’s “Skeleton in Armor,” that weird and stirring story of the Viking, which the poet so ingeniously connected with the old mill at Newport.
The work comprises ten numbers, and is written for three solo voices (soprano, tenor, and barytone), chorus, and orchestra. A long but very expressive overture, full of the dramatic sentiment of the poem, prepares the way for the opening number, a short male chorus:—
“‘Speak! speak! thou fearful guest
Who, with thy hollow breast
Still in rude armor drest,
Comest to daunt me!
Wrapt not in Eastern balms,
But with thy fleshless palms
Stretched, as if asking alms,
Why dost thou haunt me?’”