Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Encyclopedia
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (15 August 1875 – 1 September 1912) was an English
composer who achieved such success that he was once called the "African Mahler
".
, London
, to Alice Hare Martin, an English
woman, and Dr Daniel Peter Hughes Taylor, a Sierra Leone
an Creole
. They were not married. He was named Samuel Coleridge Taylor. His surname was Taylor, and his middle name of Coleridge was after the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge
. His family called him Coleridge Taylor. He later affected the name Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, allegedly following a printer’s typographical error.
Daniel Taylor returned to Africa by February 1875 and did not know that he had a son in London. He was appointed coroner
for the British Empire
in The Gambia in the late 1890s.
Coleridge-Taylor was brought up in Croydon
by Martin and her father Benjamin Holmans. Martin's brother was a professional musician. Taylor studied the violin at the Royal College of Music
and composition under Charles Villiers Stanford
(who would conduct the first performance of his Hiawatha's Wedding Feast
in 1898.) He also taught and conducted the orchestra at the Croydon Conservatoire.
, born Gwendolyn (1903–1998).
, who recommended him to the Three Choirs Festival
. There his Ballade in A minor was premiered. His early work was also guided by the influential music editor and critic August Jaeger
of music publisher Novello; he told Elgar that Taylor was "a genius."
His successes brought him a tour of the United States in 1904, which increased his interest in his racial heritage. He sought to do for African music what Johannes Brahms
did for Hungarian music
and Antonín Dvořák
for Bohemian
music. Having met the American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar
in London, Taylor set some of his poems to music. Dunbar and other black people encouraged him to consider his Sierra Leonean ancestry and the music of the African continent.
Coleridge-Taylor was sometimes seen as shy, but effective in communicating when conducting. He was very kind. Composers were not handsomely paid for their efforts and often sold the rights to works outright, thereby missing out on royalties (a scheme which became widespread only in 1911) which went to publishers who always risked their investments. He was much sought after for adjudicating at festivals.
Coleridge-Taylor was 37 when he died of pneumonia
. His widow gave the impression that she was almost penniless but King George V
granted her a pension of £
100, evidence of the high regard in which the composer was held. A memorial concert was held later in 1912 at the Royal Albert Hall
and garnered £300. His estate was thus worth approximately the price of three houses, and there were royalties from compositions (but not from Hiawatha, which he had sold outright for 15 guineas).
Coleridge-Taylor's work was later championed by Malcolm Sargent
, who between 1928 and 1939 conducted ten seasons of a costumed ballet version of The Song of Hiawatha
at the Royal Albert Hall
with the Royal Choral Society (600 to 800 singers) and 200 dancers.
Coleridge-Taylor's greatest success was undoubtedly his cantata
Hiawatha's Wedding-feast
, which was widely performed by choral groups in England during Coleridge-Taylor's lifetime and in the decades after his death. Its popularity was rivalled only by the choral standards Handel
's Messiah
and Mendelssohn
's Elijah
. The composer soon followed Hiawatha's Wedding-feast with two other cantatas about Hiawatha, The Death of Minnehaha and Hiawatha's Departure; all three were published together, along with an Overture, as The Song of Hiawatha
, Op. 30. The tremendously popular Hiawatha seasons at the Royal Albert Hall, which continued till 1939, were conducted by Sargent and involved hundreds of choristers, and scenery covering the organ loft. Hiawatha's Wedding-feast is still occasionally revived.
Coleridge-Taylor also composed chamber music
, anthem
s, and the African Dances for violin
, among other works. The Petite Suite de Concert is still regularly played. He set one poem by his near-namesake Samuel Taylor Coleridge
, The Legend of Kubla Khan.
Coleridge-Taylor was greatly admired by African American
s; in 1901, a 200-voice African-American chorus was founded in Washington, D.C.
, named the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Society. He visited the USA three times, receiving great acclaim, and earned the title "the African Mahler" from the white orchestral musicians in New York in 1910.
Coleridge-Taylor composed a violin concerto for the American violinist Maud Powell
, the American performance of which was subject to rewriting because the parts were lost en route - not, as legend has it, on the RMS Titanic but on another ship. The concerto has been recorded by Philippe Graffin
and the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Anthony Marwood
and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
under Martyn Brabbins
(on Hyperion Records
) and Lorraine McAslan and the London Philharmonic Orchestra
conducted by Nicholas Braithwaite
(on Lyrita
). It was also performed at Harvard University
's Sanders Theatre in the autumn of 1998 by John McLaughlin Williams
and William Thomas as part of the 100th anniversary celebration of the composition of Hiawatha's Wedding-Feast.
(RCM) Library, had been prepared earlier by violinist Martin Anthony Burrage of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. The first modern performance of the Piano Quintet was given on 7 November 2001 by Burrage's chamber music group, Ensemble Liverpool / Live-A-Music in Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. The lunchtime recital included the Fantasiestücke. Live recordings of this performance are lodged with the RCM and the British Library. The artists were Andrew Berridge (violin), Martin Anthony (Tony) Burrage (violin), Joanna Lacey (viola), Michael Parrott (cello) and John Peace (piano).
After receiving copies of the work from the RCM in London, Patrick Meadows made printed playing editions of the Nonet, Piano Quintet, and Piano Trio. The works were performed in Meadows's regular chamber music festival on the island of Majorca, and were well-received by the public as well as the performers. The first modern performances of some of these works were done in the early 1990s by the Boston, Massachusetts-based Coleridge Ensemble, led by William Thomas
of Phillips Academy
, Andover
. This group subsequently made world premiere recordings of the Nonet, Fantasiestücke for string quartet and Six Negro Folksongs for piano trio, which were released in 1998 by Afka Records. Thomas, a champion of lost works by black composers, also revived Coleridge's Hiawatha's Wedding feast in a performance commemorating the composition's 100th anniversary with the Cambridge Community Chorus at Harvard's Sanders Theatre in the spring of 1998.
The Nash Ensemble
's recording of the Piano Quintet was released in 2007.
In 2006, Meadows finished engraving the first edition of Coleridge-Taylor's Symphony in A minor. He has also finished transcribing from the RCM manuscript the Haytian
Dances, a work virtually identical to the Noveletten, but with a fifth movement inserted by Coleridge-Taylor, based on the Scherzo of the symphony. This work is for string orchestra
, tambourine
, and triangle
.
. She assembled a libretto and catalogued the opera in her thesis, presenting a first critical examination of the work by a thorough investigation of the discovered manuscripts (including copious typeset examples). The work subsequently appeared as such on the catalogue of the British Library.
Thelma is a saga of deceit, magic, retribution and the triumph of love over wickedness. The composer has followed Richard Wagner
’s manner in eschewing the established ‘numbers’ opera format, preferring to blend recitative, aria and ensemble into a seamless whole. It is possible that he had read Marie Corelli
’s 1887 "Nordic" novel Thelma (it appears that the name ‘Thelma’ may have been created by Corelli for her heroine). Coleridge-Taylor composed Thelma between 1907 and 1909; it is alternatively entitled The Amulet.
The full score and vocal score in the British Library are both in the composer's hand – the full score is unbound but complete (save that the vocal parts do not have the words after the first few folios) but the vocal score is bound (in three volumes) and complete with words. Patrick Meadows and Lionel Harrison have prepared a type-set full score, vocal score and libretto (the librettist is uncredited and may be Coleridge-Taylor himself). As to the heroine of the title, the composer changed her name to ‘Freda’ in both full and vocal scores (although in the full score he occasionally forgets himself and writes ‘Thelma’ instead of ‘Freda’). Perhaps Coleridge-Taylor changed the name of his heroine (and might have changed the name of the opera, had it been produced) to avoid creating the assumption that his work was a treatment of Corelli’s then very popular novel. Since that precaution is scarcely necessary today, Meadows and Harrison decided to revert to the original Thelma.
There are minor discrepancies between the full score and the vocal score (the occasional passage occurring in different keys in the two, for example), but nothing that would inhibit the production of a complete, staged performance. Thelma will be performed in 2012 (the centenary of the composer's death) by Surrey Opera and Pegasus Opera for the first times since it was rediscovered.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
composer who achieved such success that he was once called the "African Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
".
Early life and education
Coleridge-Taylor was born in 1875 in HolbornHolborn
Holborn is an area of Central London. Holborn is also the name of the area's principal east-west street, running as High Holborn from St Giles's High Street to Gray's Inn Road and then on to Holborn Viaduct...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, to Alice Hare Martin, an English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
woman, and Dr Daniel Peter Hughes Taylor, a Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...
an Creole
Sierra Leone Creole people
The Sierra Leone Creoles, or Krios, are an ethnic group in Sierra Leone, descendants of West Indian slaves from the Caribbean, primarily from Jamaica; freed African American slaves from the Thirteen Colonies resettled from Nova Scotia; and Liberated Africans from various parts of Africa...
. They were not married. He was named Samuel Coleridge Taylor. His surname was Taylor, and his middle name of Coleridge was after the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
. His family called him Coleridge Taylor. He later affected the name Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, allegedly following a printer’s typographical error.
Daniel Taylor returned to Africa by February 1875 and did not know that he had a son in London. He was appointed coroner
Coroner
A coroner is a government official who* Investigates human deaths* Determines cause of death* Issues death certificates* Maintains death records* Responds to deaths in mass disasters* Identifies unknown dead* Other functions depending on local laws...
for the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
in The Gambia in the late 1890s.
Coleridge-Taylor was brought up in Croydon
Croydon
Croydon is a town in South London, England, located within the London Borough of Croydon to which it gives its name. It is situated south of Charing Cross...
by Martin and her father Benjamin Holmans. Martin's brother was a professional musician. Taylor studied the violin at the Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
and composition under Charles Villiers Stanford
Charles Villiers Stanford
Sir Charles Villiers Stanford was an Irish composer who was particularly notable for his choral music. He was professor at the Royal College of Music and University of Cambridge.- Life :...
(who would conduct the first performance of his Hiawatha's Wedding Feast
The Song of Hiawatha (Coleridge-Taylor)
The Song of Hiawatha, Op. 30, is a trilogy of cantatas by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, produced between 1898 and 1900. The first part, Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, was particularly famous for many years and it made the composer's name known throughout the world.-Background:In 1898, Coleridge-Taylor was...
in 1898.) He also taught and conducted the orchestra at the Croydon Conservatoire.
Marriage and family
In 1899 Taylor married a fellow student at the RCM, Jessie Walmisley, despite her parents' objection to his mixed race parentage. She left the college in 1893. They had a son Hiawatha (1900–1980) and a daughter AvrilAvril Coleridge-Taylor
Gwendolyn Avril Coleridge-Taylor was an English pianist, conductor, and composer.-Biography:She was born in South Norwood, London, the daughter of composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. She wrote her first composition, Goodbye Butterfly, at the age of twelve...
, born Gwendolyn (1903–1998).
Musical career
By 1896, Coleridge-Taylor had earned a reputation as a composer. He was later helped by Edward ElgarEdward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
, who recommended him to the Three Choirs Festival
Three Choirs Festival
The Three Choirs Festival is a music festival held each August alternately at the cathedrals of the Three Counties and originally featuring their three choirs, which remain central to the week-long programme...
. There his Ballade in A minor was premiered. His early work was also guided by the influential music editor and critic August Jaeger
August Jaeger
August Jaeger was an Anglo-German music publisher, who developed a close friendship with the English composer Edward Elgar.Born in Düsseldorf, Germany, Jaeger met Elgar through his employment at the London music publisher Novello...
of music publisher Novello; he told Elgar that Taylor was "a genius."
His successes brought him a tour of the United States in 1904, which increased his interest in his racial heritage. He sought to do for African music what Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
did for Hungarian music
Hungarian music
The term Hungarian music may refer to:*The music of Hungary, which includes many kinds of music associated with Serbian, Roma and ethnically Hungarian people...
and Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
for Bohemian
Bohemian
A Bohemian is a resident of the former Kingdom of Bohemia, either in a narrow sense as the region of Bohemia proper or in a wider meaning as the whole country, now known as the Czech Republic. The word "Bohemian" was used to denote the Czech people as well as the Czech language before the word...
music. Having met the American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Paul Laurence Dunbar was a seminal African American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 "Ode to Ethiopia", one poem in the collection Lyrics of Lowly Life....
in London, Taylor set some of his poems to music. Dunbar and other black people encouraged him to consider his Sierra Leonean ancestry and the music of the African continent.
Coleridge-Taylor was sometimes seen as shy, but effective in communicating when conducting. He was very kind. Composers were not handsomely paid for their efforts and often sold the rights to works outright, thereby missing out on royalties (a scheme which became widespread only in 1911) which went to publishers who always risked their investments. He was much sought after for adjudicating at festivals.
Coleridge-Taylor was 37 when he died of pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
. His widow gave the impression that she was almost penniless but King George V
George V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
granted her a pension of £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
100, evidence of the high regard in which the composer was held. A memorial concert was held later in 1912 at the Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
and garnered £300. His estate was thus worth approximately the price of three houses, and there were royalties from compositions (but not from Hiawatha, which he had sold outright for 15 guineas).
Coleridge-Taylor's work was later championed by Malcolm Sargent
Malcolm Sargent
Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works...
, who between 1928 and 1939 conducted ten seasons of a costumed ballet version of The Song of Hiawatha
The Song of Hiawatha (Coleridge-Taylor)
The Song of Hiawatha, Op. 30, is a trilogy of cantatas by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, produced between 1898 and 1900. The first part, Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, was particularly famous for many years and it made the composer's name known throughout the world.-Background:In 1898, Coleridge-Taylor was...
at the Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
with the Royal Choral Society (600 to 800 singers) and 200 dancers.
Legacy
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
Hiawatha's Wedding-feast
The Song of Hiawatha (Coleridge-Taylor)
The Song of Hiawatha, Op. 30, is a trilogy of cantatas by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, produced between 1898 and 1900. The first part, Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, was particularly famous for many years and it made the composer's name known throughout the world.-Background:In 1898, Coleridge-Taylor was...
, which was widely performed by choral groups in England during Coleridge-Taylor's lifetime and in the decades after his death. Its popularity was rivalled only by the choral standards Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
's Messiah
Messiah (Handel)
Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742, and received its London premiere nearly a year later...
and Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
's Elijah
Elijah (oratorio)
Elijah, in German: Elias, is an oratorio written by Felix Mendelssohn in 1846 for the Birmingham Festival. It depicts various events in the life of the Biblical prophet Elijah, taken from the books 1 Kings and 2 Kings in the Old Testament....
. The composer soon followed Hiawatha's Wedding-feast with two other cantatas about Hiawatha, The Death of Minnehaha and Hiawatha's Departure; all three were published together, along with an Overture, as The Song of Hiawatha
The Song of Hiawatha (Coleridge-Taylor)
The Song of Hiawatha, Op. 30, is a trilogy of cantatas by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, produced between 1898 and 1900. The first part, Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, was particularly famous for many years and it made the composer's name known throughout the world.-Background:In 1898, Coleridge-Taylor was...
, Op. 30. The tremendously popular Hiawatha seasons at the Royal Albert Hall, which continued till 1939, were conducted by Sargent and involved hundreds of choristers, and scenery covering the organ loft. Hiawatha's Wedding-feast is still occasionally revived.
Coleridge-Taylor also composed chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
, anthem
Anthem
The term anthem means either a specific form of Anglican church music , or more generally, a song of celebration, usually acting as a symbol for a distinct group of people, as in the term "national anthem" or "sports anthem".-Etymology:The word is derived from the Greek via Old English , a word...
s, and the African Dances for violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
, among other works. The Petite Suite de Concert is still regularly played. He set one poem by his near-namesake Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
, The Legend of Kubla Khan.
Coleridge-Taylor was greatly admired by African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
s; in 1901, a 200-voice African-American chorus was founded in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, named the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Society. He visited the USA three times, receiving great acclaim, and earned the title "the African Mahler" from the white orchestral musicians in New York in 1910.
Coleridge-Taylor composed a violin concerto for the American violinist Maud Powell
Maud Powell
Maud Powell was an American violinist who gained international acclaim for her skill and virtuosity. She was born in Peru, Illinois. She was the first American violinist to achieve international rank...
, the American performance of which was subject to rewriting because the parts were lost en route - not, as legend has it, on the RMS Titanic but on another ship. The concerto has been recorded by Philippe Graffin
Philippe Graffin
Philippe Graffin is a French violinist and recording artist. He was born in Romilly-sur-Seine, France.The French Violinist Philippe Graffin was a student of the late Joseph Gingold and Philippe Hirschhorn and has established a particular reputation for his interpretations of his native repertoire...
and the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Anthony Marwood
Anthony Marwood
Anthony Marwood is a solo classical violinist, appearing in concerto performances worldwide with orchestras such as the Boston Symphony, LA Philharmonic, St Louis Symphony, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the UK's BBC orchestras, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony and the...
and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra is a broadcasting symphony orchestra based in Glasgow, Scotland. One of five full-time orchestras maintained by the British Broadcasting Corporation , it is the oldest full-time professional orchestra in Scotland...
under Martyn Brabbins
Martyn Brabbins
Martyn Brabbins is a British conductor. He studied at Goldsmiths College, London University, and later was a conducting student of Ilya Musin at the Leningrad Conservatory....
(on Hyperion Records
Hyperion Records
Hyperion Records is an independent British classical record label.-History:The company was named after Hyperion, one of the Titans of Greek mythology. It was founded by George Edward Perry, widely known as "Ted", in 1980. Early LP releases included rarely recorded 20th century British music by...
) and Lorraine McAslan and the London Philharmonic Orchestra
London Philharmonic Orchestra
The London Philharmonic Orchestra , based in London, is one of the major orchestras of the United Kingdom, and is based in the Royal Festival Hall. In addition, the LPO is the main resident orchestra of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera...
conducted by Nicholas Braithwaite
Nicholas Braithwaite
Nicholas Paul Dallon Braithwaite is an English conductor. He is the son of the conductor Warwick Braithwaite.Braithwaite studied at the Royal Academy of Music, at the Festival masterclasses in Bayreuth, and with Hans Swarowsky in Vienna. In the 1960s, Braithwaite was associate conductor of the...
(on Lyrita
Lyrita
Lyrita is a classical music record label, specializing in the works of British composers.Lyrita began releasing LPs in October 1959 as Lyrita Recorded Edition for sale by mail order subscription. The founder of the company, Richard Itter of Burnham, Buckinghamshire, was a businessman and record...
). It was also performed at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
's Sanders Theatre in the autumn of 1998 by John McLaughlin Williams
John McLaughlin Williams
John McLaughlin Williams is a Grammy award-winning American orchestral conductor and violinist.He attended the Boston University School of Music, the New England Conservatory and is a graduate of The Cleveland Institute of Music. His violin studies were with Dorothy Delay, conducting with Carl...
and William Thomas as part of the 100th anniversary celebration of the composition of Hiawatha's Wedding-Feast.
Posthumous publishing
In 1999, freelance music editor Patrick Meadows discovered that three important chamber works by Coleridge-Taylor had never been printed nor made widely available to musicians. A handwritten performing parts edition of the Piano Quintet, from the original in the Royal College of MusicRoyal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
(RCM) Library, had been prepared earlier by violinist Martin Anthony Burrage of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. The first modern performance of the Piano Quintet was given on 7 November 2001 by Burrage's chamber music group, Ensemble Liverpool / Live-A-Music in Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. The lunchtime recital included the Fantasiestücke. Live recordings of this performance are lodged with the RCM and the British Library. The artists were Andrew Berridge (violin), Martin Anthony (Tony) Burrage (violin), Joanna Lacey (viola), Michael Parrott (cello) and John Peace (piano).
After receiving copies of the work from the RCM in London, Patrick Meadows made printed playing editions of the Nonet, Piano Quintet, and Piano Trio. The works were performed in Meadows's regular chamber music festival on the island of Majorca, and were well-received by the public as well as the performers. The first modern performances of some of these works were done in the early 1990s by the Boston, Massachusetts-based Coleridge Ensemble, led by William Thomas
William Thomas
-Politics:* William Thomas , clerk of Edward VI's privy council, executed for treason after Edward's death* Sir William Thomas, 1st Baronet , British Member of Parliament for Seaford and Sussex...
of Phillips Academy
Phillips Academy
Phillips Academy is a selective, co-educational independent boarding high school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12, along with a post-graduate year...
, Andover
Andover, Massachusetts
Andover is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. It was incorporated in 1646 and as of the 2010 census, the population was 33,201...
. This group subsequently made world premiere recordings of the Nonet, Fantasiestücke for string quartet and Six Negro Folksongs for piano trio, which were released in 1998 by Afka Records. Thomas, a champion of lost works by black composers, also revived Coleridge's Hiawatha's Wedding feast in a performance commemorating the composition's 100th anniversary with the Cambridge Community Chorus at Harvard's Sanders Theatre in the spring of 1998.
The Nash Ensemble
Nash Ensemble
The Nash Ensemble of London is an acclaimed English chamber ensemble. It was founded by Artistic Director Amelia Freedman in 1964, while she was a student at the Royal Academy of Music, and was named after the Nash Terraces around the Academy...
's recording of the Piano Quintet was released in 2007.
In 2006, Meadows finished engraving the first edition of Coleridge-Taylor's Symphony in A minor. He has also finished transcribing from the RCM manuscript the Haytian
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
Dances, a work virtually identical to the Noveletten, but with a fifth movement inserted by Coleridge-Taylor, based on the Scherzo of the symphony. This work is for string orchestra
String orchestra
A string orchestra is an orchestra composed solely or primarily of instruments from the string family. These instruments are the violin, the viola, the cello, the double bass , the piano, the harp, and sometimes percussion...
, tambourine
Tambourine
The tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....
, and triangle
Triangle (instrument)
The triangle is an idiophone type of musical instrument in the percussion family. It is a bar of metal, usually steel but sometimes other metals like beryllium copper, bent into a triangle shape. The instrument is usually held by a loop of some form of thread or wire at the top curve...
.
The missing opera
Coleridge-Taylor's only large-scale operatic work, Thelma, was long believed to have been lost; as recently as 1995, Geoffrey Self in his biography of Coleridge-Taylor, The Hiawatha Man, stated that the manuscript of Thelma had not been located, and that the piece may have been destroyed by its creator. Whilst researching for a PhD on the life and music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Catherine Carr unearthed the manuscripts of Thelma in the British LibraryBritish Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
. She assembled a libretto and catalogued the opera in her thesis, presenting a first critical examination of the work by a thorough investigation of the discovered manuscripts (including copious typeset examples). The work subsequently appeared as such on the catalogue of the British Library.
Thelma is a saga of deceit, magic, retribution and the triumph of love over wickedness. The composer has followed Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
’s manner in eschewing the established ‘numbers’ opera format, preferring to blend recitative, aria and ensemble into a seamless whole. It is possible that he had read Marie Corelli
Marie Corelli
Marie Corelli was a British novelist. She enjoyed a period of great literary success from the publication of her first novel in 1886 until World War I. Corelli's novels sold more copies than the combined sales of popular contemporaries, including Arthur Conan Doyle, H. G...
’s 1887 "Nordic" novel Thelma (it appears that the name ‘Thelma’ may have been created by Corelli for her heroine). Coleridge-Taylor composed Thelma between 1907 and 1909; it is alternatively entitled The Amulet.
The full score and vocal score in the British Library are both in the composer's hand – the full score is unbound but complete (save that the vocal parts do not have the words after the first few folios) but the vocal score is bound (in three volumes) and complete with words. Patrick Meadows and Lionel Harrison have prepared a type-set full score, vocal score and libretto (the librettist is uncredited and may be Coleridge-Taylor himself). As to the heroine of the title, the composer changed her name to ‘Freda’ in both full and vocal scores (although in the full score he occasionally forgets himself and writes ‘Thelma’ instead of ‘Freda’). Perhaps Coleridge-Taylor changed the name of his heroine (and might have changed the name of the opera, had it been produced) to avoid creating the assumption that his work was a treatment of Corelli’s then very popular novel. Since that precaution is scarcely necessary today, Meadows and Harrison decided to revert to the original Thelma.
There are minor discrepancies between the full score and the vocal score (the occasional passage occurring in different keys in the two, for example), but nothing that would inhibit the production of a complete, staged performance. Thelma will be performed in 2012 (the centenary of the composer's death) by Surrey Opera and Pegasus Opera for the first times since it was rediscovered.
With opus number
- Piano Quintet in G minor, Op.1 - 1893
- Nonet in F minor for oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, viola, cello, contrabass and piano, Op.2 - 1894
- Suite for Violin and Organ (or piano), Op.3 (Suite de Piêces)- 1893
- Ballade in D minor, Op.4 - 1895
- Five Fantasiestücke, Op.5 - 1896
- Little Songs for Little Folks, Op. 6 - 1898
- Zara's Earrings, Op.7 - 1895
- Symphony in A minor, Op.8 - 1896
- Two Romantic Pieces, Op.9 - 1896
- Quintet in F sharp minor, Op.10 - 1895
- Southern Love songs, Op.12 - 1896
- String Quartet in D minor, Op.13 - 1896 (lost)
- Legend (Concertstück), Op.14
- Land of the Sun, Op.15 - 1897
- Three Hiawatha Sketches for violin and piano, Op.16 - 1897
- African Romances (P.L. Dunbar) Op,17 - 1897
- Morning and Evening Service in F, Op. 18 - 1899
- Two Moorish Tone-Pictures, Op. 19 - 1897
- Gypsy Suite, Op.20 - 1898
- Part Songs, Op.21 - 1898
- Four Characteristic Waltzes, Op.22 - 1899
- Valse-Caprice, Op.23 - 1898
- In Memoriam, three rhapsodies for low voice and piano, op.24 - 1898
- Dream Lovers, Operatic Romance, Op.25 - 1898
- The Gitanos, canata-operetta, Op.26 - 1898
- Violin Sonata in D minor, Op.28 - ?1898 (pub. 1917)
- Three songs. Op.29 - 1898
- The Song of Hiawatha, Op.30 (Overture to The Song of Hiawatha, 1899; Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, 1898; The Death of Minnehaha, 1899; Hiawatha's Departure, 1900)
- Three Humoresques, Op.31 - 1898
- Ballade in A minor, Op.33 - 1898
- African Suite, Op.35 - 1899
- Six Songs, Op.37
- Three Silhouettes, Op.38 - 1904
- Romance in G, Op.39 - 1900
- Solemn Prelude, Op.40 - 1899
- Scenes From An Everyday Romance, Op.41 - 1900
- The Soul's Expression, four sonnets, Op.42 - 1900
- The Blind Girl of Castél-Cuillé, Op.43
- Idyll, Op.44 - 1901
- Six American Lyrics, Op.45 - 1903
- Concert Overture, Toussaint L'Ouverture, Op.46 - 1901
- Hemo Dance, scherzo, Op.47(1) - 1902
- Herod, incidental music, Op.47(2) - 1901
- Meg Blane, Rhapsody of the Sea, Op.48 - 1902
- Ullyses, incidental music, Op.49 - 1902
- Three Song Poems, Op.50 - 1904
- Four Novelletten, Op.51(1?) - 1903
- Ethiopia Saluting the Colours, march, Op.51(2?) - 1902
- The Atonement,sacred cantata, Op.53 - 1903
- Five Choral Ballads, Op.54 - 1904
- Moorish Dance, Op.55 - 1904
- Three Cameos for Piano, Op.56 - 1904
- Six Sorrow Songs, Op.57 - 1904
- Four African Dances, Op. 58 - 1904
- Twenty-Four Negro Melodies, Op.59(1) - 1905
- Romance. Op.59(2) - 1904
- Kubla Khan, rhapsody, Op.61 - 1905
- Nero, incidental music, Op.62 - 1906
- Symphonic Variations on an African Air Op. 63 - 1906
- Scenes de Ballet, Op.64 - 1906
- Endymion's Dream, one act opera, Op.65 - 1910
- Forest Scenes, Op.66 - 1907
- Part Songs, Op.67 - 1905
- Bon-Bon suite, Op.68 - 1908
- Sea Drift, Op.69 - 1908
- Faust, incidental music, Op.70 - 1908
- Valse Suite: "Three fours", Op.71- 1909
- Thelma, opera in three acts, Op.72 - 1907-9
- Ballade in C minor, Op.73 - 1909
- Forest of Wild Thyme, incidental music, Op.74 (five numbers) - 1911-1925
- Rhapsodic Dance, The Bamboula, Op. 75 - 1911
- A tale of old Japan, Op.76 - 1911
- Petite Suite de Concert, Op. 77 - 1911
- Three Impromptus, Op.78 - 1911
- Othello, incidental music, Op.79 - 1911
- Violin Concerto in G minor, Op.80 - 1912
- Two Songs for Baritone Voice, Op.81 - 1913
- Hiawatha Ballet in five scenes, Op.82 - 1920
Recordings
- Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Chamber Music – Hawthorne String QuartetHawthorne String QuartetThe Hawthorne String Quartet is an American string quartet, all four of whose members are players from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Although its repertoire ranges from the 18th century to contemporary works, the ensemble specializes in works by composers who were interned at the Terezín...
. Label: Koch InternationalKoch RecordsE1 Music , the primary subsidiary of E1 Entertainment LP, is the largest independent record label in the United States. It is also distributed by the Universal Music Group in Europe under the name E1 Universal...
3-7056-2 - Hiawatha - Welsh National Opera, - Cond. Kenneth Alwyn, soloist Bryn Terfel Label: DeccaDecca RecordsDecca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
458 591-2 - Piano & Clarinet Quintets - The Nash Ensemble Label: HyperionHyperion-Computing:* Hyperion , an early portable computer* Hyperion Entertainment, a computer game producer* Hyperion Solutions, a business software company owned by Oracle* Hyperion, an IRC daemon previously used by the Freenode IRC network-In fiction:...
CDA67590 - Violin Sonata; African Dances; Hiawathan Sketches; Petite Suite de Concert]] - David Juritz(violin) Michael Dussek (piano) Label: EpochEpoch-An epoch :* Epoch , a moment in time chosen as the origin of a particular era* Epoch or geologic epoch, a span of time smaller than a "period" and larger than an "age"...
CDLX 7127 - Sir Malcolm Sargent conducts British Music includes Othello Suite - New Symphony Orch. Label: BeulahBeulahBeulah is a female given name from the Hebrew word meaning "married", and may refer to:-People:*Beulah , UK-based female singer-songwriter*Beulah Bondi , American actress...
1PD13
External links
- Biographical essay on Coleridge by Mike Philips at the British libraryBritish LibraryThe British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
. Retrieved 2010-10-19 - Samuel Coleridge-Taylor resources
- Coleridge-Taylor biography
Scores
- The Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Collection at the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, Yale University
- Four characteristic waltzes. Op. 22. at the Sibley Music Library Digital Scores Collection
- Five and twenty sailormen at the Sibley Music Library Digital Scores Collection
- Concerto in G minor for violin & orchestra, op. 80 at the Sibley Music Library Digital Scores Collection
- Organ music, Selections at the Sibley Music Library Digital Scores Collection
- Sonata in D minor for violin and piano, op. 28 at the Sibley Music Library Digital Scores Collection
- Variations in B minor for violoncello & piano at the Sibley Music Library Digital Scores Collection
- Liner Notes for the Hyperion recording of the Violin Concerto Op. 80