Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

[namoji]

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, I listened to your music to camera and it seems very charming, plus we can perceive the spiritual elements in his music, someone else has heard of this composer's works apart from his chamber music?
whenever I think of Coleridge, it is impossible not to remember the music of boulogne, more commonly known as black mozart, both musics are excellent

[JimL]

Try the Violin Concerto.  There are a couple of commercial recordings available.

[FBerwald]

Dont forget the Clarinet Quintet... especially the 2nd movement.

[albion]

Regarding commercial recordings of C-T's orchestral music, these are all very worthwhile:

Ballade in A minor & Symphonic Variations on an African Air [with MacCunn and Butterworth] (RLPO/ Grant Lllewellyn) Argo 436 401-2
Violin Concerto, Legend & Romance [with Julius Harrison] (Lorraine McAslan/ LPO/ Nicholas Braithwaite) Lyrita SRCD.317
The Bamboula [with 'Hiawatha's Wedding Feast'] (Bournemouth SO/ Kenneth Alwyn) EMI Eminence CD EMX 2276
Symphony in A minor [with Cowen's 6th] (Aarhus SO/ Douglas Bostock) Classico CLASSCD 684

The Symphonic Variations were subsequently re-issued as a coupling for the complete 'Hiawatha' trilogy by Decca in 2002, but the Ballade was unfortunately not included in this repackaging. Likewise 'The Bamboula' (a 'Rhapsodic Dance' lasting some ten minutes) was reissued by EMI under the Classics for Pleasure imprint in 2005, but coupled with Sargent's 1962 recording of 'Hiawatha's Wedding Feast'. The original Alwyn disc is worth seeking out!

[Alan Howe]

The VC is utterly gorgeous. It even gets a pretty regular airing on Classic FM!

[albion]

With his recently-rediscovered and newly-edited opera Thelma due to be premiered next year and Stephen Banfield's 1983 revival of A Tale of Old Japan now in the BMB archive, it might be worth mentioning that a substantial new biography of Coleridge-Taylor has just this year been published -

http://www.pickeringchatto.com/monographs/samuel_coleridge_taylor_a_musical_life

Despite already having Geoffrey Self's very readable volume (The Hiawatha Man) and this new publication being quite expensive, I'm still putting it on my Christmas list!

[albion]

Probably of no interest to anybody, with the possible exception of Eric, is the fact that the vocal score of A Tale of Old Japan at IMSLP,

http://imslp.org/wiki/A_Tale_of_Old_Japan,_Op.76_(Coleridge-Taylor,_Samuel)

although not labelled as such, is actually a second edition.

The most obvious differences between the two are: in the first edition the substantial orchestral passage (second edition pp 46-48) is entirely missing; in the second edition much of the contralto solo has been rewritten taking it from the 'Clara Butt' register to something that might actually be heard above a large orchestra.

[Lionel Harrsion]

Actually, I'm interested too!    I'm very glad he produced that second edition, given the power of the inserted passage that you refer to.

[albion]

Coleridge-Taylor was very sensitive to criticism, especially from Jaeger at Novello, and was perhaps all too ready to give in to suggestions for revision after scores were printed.

I've also got both editions of The Atonement (1903), again neither is labelled 'first' or 'second', but in the latter a baritone solo (Christ) Be not afraid, a tenor solo for Pilate Breath of my life and a subsequent love duet for Pilate and Mrs Pilate Ye mighty gods of ancient Rome are all quietly excised. When first performed at Hereford in 1903 these items were deemed 'vulgar'.

[Lionel Harrsion]

That's interesting.  I knew that Elgar was very sniffy about The Atonement and that Jaeger had told Coleridge that the first version of Hiawatha's Departure "wouldn't do at all".   And that, in correspondence with Elgar and others, Jaeger had been scathing about some of Coleridge's other works.  Nevertheless, in the (sadly) unlikely event of The Atonement ever being professionally recorded, I trust the conductor will elect to include the 'vulgar' passages so we may judge for ourselves.

Jaeger was safely dead by 1911 and so Coleridge escaped any criticisms he might have leveled at The Tale of Old Japan!

[Jimfin]

I second the comment about the clarinet quintet: absolutely beautiful, especially the slow movement. Apparently Stanford challenged his pupils to write a work in the genre not influenced by Brahms' example, and when C-T produced this exclaimed 'He's done it'. Though the influence of Dvorak instead is perhaps discernable.

[eschiss1]

Editions of Tale of Old Japan: noting!

[eschiss1]

hrm. yes, it was composed in 1910, not 1911, which makes more sense- the first edition might have been published in 1910, the first performance (in Albany, NY under Arthur Mees) that same year perhaps, and a second edition maybe in 1911 judging from the copyright (unless the copyright is still for the first edition and the date of publication of the 2nd edition is later, which given that the plate numbers would seem to place it in about 1911 too, is a bit confuzzling, but... not unknown)

[albion]

hrm. yes, it was composed in 1910, not 1911, which makes more sense- the first edition might have been published in 1910, the first performance (in Albany, NY under Arthur Mees) that same year perhaps, and a second edition maybe in 1911 judging from the copyright (unless the copyright is still for the first edition and the date of publication of the 2nd edition is later, which given that the plate numbers would seem to place it in about 1911 too, is a bit confuzzling, but... not unknown)

A Tale of Old Japan was largely composed during the Summer of 1910 but the orchestration was not completed until April 1911 and the first performance was given by the London Choral Society conducted by Arthur Fagge at Queen's Hall on 6th December 1911.

The first edition of the vocal score is copyright 1911.

[eschiss1]

hrm. the program notes to a 1922 performance would have it that "The union gave up the right to the first performance to a choral society at Albany, N.Y., directed by Arthur Mees (as we could not give it at once)... the second performance ... by one of our socieies, the Winsted Choral union, the third by the entire union in the Music shed." (from notes to a June 1922 performance by the Litchfield Choral Society. not sure who the notes are by - Rev. John C. Goddard, president or someone else?)
Well, as you see, the edition of the vocal score that we have (courtesy of Sibley) is copyright 1911 - if we have the 2nd edition, wouldn't it have a different copyright date? That's (one of many things, but the relevant thing) confusing me... and is the reason I was conjecturing an earlier publication date for the 1st edition, since the 2nd edition was copyright 1911, ergo... !