COLERIDGE-TAYLOR BRITISH LIGHT MUSIC - Hiawatha Overture Petite Suite - Chandos Records

BRITISH LIGHT MUSIC
                      Samuel
       COLERIDGE-TAYLOR
    Hiawatha Overture • Petite Suite
Gipsy Suite • Othello Suite • 4 Characteristic Waltzes
     RTÉ Concert Orchestra • Adrian Leaper

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912)
British Light Music • 5
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was born on 15 August 1875 in London. His father was a physician from Sierra Leone, West Africa, and
his mother was white English. When the medical practice failed, his father returned to Africa, leaving young Samuel and his mother.
The boy’s love of music led to violin studies that soon progressed to the point where he was able to give his first public recital aged
only eight. He also sang as a choirboy in Croydon and, encouraged and helped by his choirmaster, he eventually entered the Royal
College of Music in 1890. Initially he enrolled as a student of the violin, and in the same year his first important composition, a Te
Deum, was published.
   In 1891, when Coleridge-Taylor was still only 16, Novello published one of his anthems, In Thee O Lord, followed by four more
in 1892. In 1892 he began studying composition under Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, and he won a composition scholarship in
1893. A chamber music concert in Croydon on 9 October the same year included in its programme Coleridge-Taylor’s Piano
Quintet, part of his Clarinet Sonata, and three of his songs, with the composer at the piano.
   Like most young composers, many of Coleridge-Taylor’s early works received their first performances at students’ events, and
between 1894 and 1897 Royal College of Music concerts included the Nonet, the Clarinet Quintet, 5 Fantasiestücke, Op. 5 for
string quartet, and the String Quartet in D minor. Stanford personally conducted the first three movements of his Symphony in A
minor in St James’s Hall (which later became the Piccadilly Hotel) in 1896. It was hardly surprising that this outpouring of talent
gained Coleridge-Taylor the Lesley Alexander composition prize in both 1895 and 1896. He completed his studies at the Royal
College of Music in 1897.
   Away from the comforting security of the Royal College, Coleridge-Taylor won his first commission in 1898 from the Three
Choirs Festival. A valuable influence during this formative period of his career was the publisher A.J. Jaeger, who made
Coleridge-Taylor’s music known to Edward Elgar. It was Elgar who had recommended the young composer for this festival
commission, for which Coleridge-Taylor wrote his Ballade in A minor for orchestra.
   Two months later Sir Charles Stanford conducted the first performance of Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast (the first part of the
Hiawatha trilogy) at the Royal College of Music on 11 November 1988. From contemporary reports it does not appear to have
been a very good performance, but the work was received with great enthusiasm from critics and public alike.
   Coleridge-Taylor’s genius now became evident to the musical public at large, and in their eyes he had achieved fame
overnight. The success of Hiawatha prompted many commissions from various music festivals, for which Coleridge-Taylor
created his Overture to The Song of Hiawatha, The Death of Minnehaha, Hiawatha’s Departure and various cantatas, of which A
Tale of Old Japan became the most highly regarded.
   While at the Royal College of Music, Coleridge-Taylor met his wife Jessie Walmisley, a fellow student who came from
Wallington in Surrey, and they married on 30 December 1899 at the Church of Holy Trinity in Selhurst. It was hardly surprising
that they named their son, born on 15 October 1900, Hiawatha. A daughter, Gwendolen, who later adopted the name Avril, was
born on 8 March 1903, and both children possessed considerable musical talent.
By now Coleridge-Taylor was moving into the field of incidental music as another of his main areas of composition. The English
actor Herbert Beerbohm Tree commissioned him for four plays by Stephen Phillips, Alfred Noyes’s The Forest of Wild Thyme and
Shakespeare’s Othello. Coleridge-Taylor also became recognised as an accomplished conductor.
   As early as 1901, Coleridge-Taylor was appointed by the Westmoreland Festival, a position he held until 1904, and he became
permanent conductor of the Handel Society from 1904 until his death. Many choral and orchestral societies also sought his
services in this capacity. His scholarship was recognised by London’s Trinity College of Music, which appointed him professor of
composition in 1903. A similar position with the Guildhall School of Music followed in 1910. Even before his first visit to the United
States, in 1901, a Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society was founded for black singers in Washington, D.C. He crossed the Atlantic in
1904, 1906 and 1910 to direct performances of his music. Described by New York orchestral players as the ‘black Mahler’, he
assumed a mission to help establish the dignity of African Americans, and he regarded his 24 Negro Melodies as being of
particular importance in this respect. He seriously considered emigrating to the United States so that he could pursue this work
more directly.

Coleridge-Taylor’s musical idol had always been Dvořák, whose influences scholars have noted, often somewhat
disparagingly, but from time to time, mainly in his shorter works, Coleridge-Taylor displayed a maturity and originality which fully
justified his status, and the considerable success accorded to him.
   During his tragically short lifetime Coleridge-Taylor was to become best known for his choral and vocal music, but he was also
very active in other musical forms. Reference books reveal an astounding output, ranging from his early Symphony to a Violin
Concerto, ballads, piano music and many small instrumental and orchestral works. Some of his more important works include:

  Operatic: Dream Lovers (1898)
  Incidental: Herod (1900), Ulysses (1901–02),
  Nero (1906) and Faust (1908)
  Choral and Vocal: Kubla Khan (1905),
  Endymion’s Dream (1910)
  Orchestral: Prelude (1899), Scenes from an
  Everyday Romance Suite (1900), Four Noveletten
  (1903), Minnehaha Suite (1912)

   Despite his growing importance internationally, Coleridge-Taylor chose to remain in Croydon, teaching and composing, and
travelling considerable distances to conduct. He was greatly respected as a man for his dignity and patience, as well as for his
immense musical output. Sadly, it appears that his early death from pneumonia was caused by overwork. He died on 1 September
1912 in Croydon at the age of 37. His music remained popular for many years after his death, and his son Hiawatha conducted his
father’s ballet music in a number of staged performances of Hiawatha at London’s Royal Albert Hall, the first on 19 May 1924. His
daughter Avril also upheld the family tradition through her conducting and composing, including a Piano Concerto in F minor.

The Song of Hiawatha, Op. 30 – Overture (1899)
It is entirely appropriate that this collection of Coleridge-Taylor’s music should commence with part of his most famous work – his
setting of American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s renowned poem, The Song of Hiawatha. In fact, this subject was to
frame the composer’s musical achievements, since Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast firmly launched his career in 1898, and his
Hiawatha Ballet Music, Op. 82 (1912) was to prove to be his last composition. The full title of the original complete score was The
Song of Hiawatha; the most famous aria in this large choral work was On Away Awake Beloved, which formed part of the
repertoire of almost every concert tenor for the following 50 years.
    Today’s theatre audiences expect the ‘overture’ to feature excerpts from the best songs from the musical they are about to
see, but this has certainly not always been the case. The Hiawatha Overture does not contain Coleridge-Taylor’s most famous
aria; instead, it can be regarded as an individual work – at times romantic, on other occasions almost demanding to be used as
exciting film background music.

Petite Suite de Concert, Op. 77 (1910)
Le Caprice de Nannette – Demande et réponse –
Un sonnet d’amour – La Tarantelle frétillante
The Petite Suite de Concert is rightly regarded by many of Coleridge-Taylor’s admirers as a masterpiece, and it is undoubtedly
the work by which he is best known today. One could almost imagine a man of Coleridge-Taylor’s abilities producing such a work
as, perhaps, a slightly annoying commission, interrupting the steady flow of choral and vocal writing (especially those influenced
through his respect for the African American), which had become his forte.
   If such a hypothesis contains a grain of truth, then Coleridge-Taylor would have been in good company. Many writers have
created some of their greatest works under pressure, often finding themselves in areas slightly alien to their personal preferences.
Had he lived a normal lifespan, one is tempted to believe that Coleridge-Taylor could have rivalled Eric Coates, Haydn Wood and
Edward German as a major force in light music when this style became so immensely popular in the 1920s and 1930s.

The first movement, Le Caprice de Nannette, has an impressive opening which quickly develops into a charming little waltz.
Naturally there are influences of the great European composers of the 19th century, yet one can sense that Coleridge-Taylor was
looking forward to – almost anticipating – the popular styles that would soon gain such widespread support. Demande et réponse has
the strongest melody in the suite, reminiscent of many of the popular ballads of its day. Critics have likened it to Elgar’s Salut d’Amour.
Coleridge-Taylor employed a balletic style for the third movement, Un sonnet d’amour, providing a peaceful interlude before the
Tarantella frétillante (as promised in the title) explodes into a frisky finale.

4 Characteristic Waltzes, Op. 22 (1898)
Valse bohémienne – Valse rustique – Valse de la Reine
– Valse mauresque
A relatively early work, Four Characteristic Waltzes dates from the time when Coleridge-Taylor was courting his future wife. He
explained to her that he was not writing music for dancing (in later years Eric Coates was to describe his waltzes, or valses, in a
similar way): quoting Brahms as an example, he said he just wanted to treat the subjects in a waltz rhythm.

Gipsy Suite (arr. L. Artok, 1927)
Chorus of Gitanos – Song of the Gipsy Girl – Ballade – Gipsy Dance
This orchestral suite was arranged by Leo Artok (Lothar Windsperger) for salon orchestra in 1927, utilising melodies by
Coleridge-Taylor.

Romance of the Prairie Lilies (arr. P.E. Fletcher, 1931)
Romance of the Prairie Lilies, a ‘dream poem’, was arranged by P.E. Fletcher. Like the Hiawatha Overture, it is packed with
interesting ideas, many of them giving further confirmation of the influence that Coleridge-Taylor would exert on later generations
of British composers.

Othello Suite, Op. 79 (1909)
Dance – Children’s Intermezzo – The Willow Song – Military March
The Othello Suite was commissioned for a Herbert Beerbohm Tree production of Shakespeare’s Othello at His Majesty’s Theatre
in London. Originally comprising five movements (the Funeral March has been omitted from this recording), the work contains
several strong and contrasting themes, which must have sounded most impressive in their original theatrical setting.
   The gramophone was still in its infancy when Coleridge-Taylor created most of his works, and he died before it became a major
force in home entertainment. 78 rpm recordings were destined to predominate for over 50 years, thereby imposing a discipline on
future light orchestral composers, obliging them to develop fully their ideas within three or four minutes. The three-minute single
orchestral cameo would probably have seemed trivial to 19th-century composers, more familiar with grouping their works in suites
of three or four movements. No doubt this was necessary in many instances to ensure concert performances, yet when we listen
to these pieces individually today, they can usually stand alone. Possibly titles such as Four Waltzes or Gipsy Suite may seem
somewhat mundane by our standards (although purists would probably strongly disagree!), but it is the music that matters. On
this basis, the work of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor compares most favourably with the very best.

                                                                                                                             David Ades

RTÉ Concert Orchestra

 Photo: Andres Poveda

The RTÉ Concert Orchestra (Conductor Laureate Proinnsías Ó Duinn; Leader Mia Cooper) is part of RTÉ, Ireland’s national
public service multimedia organisation. Founded in 1948, the orchestra specialises in eclectic programming and has performed
with Luciano Pavarotti, Lang Lang and Cleo Laine, and Irish artists including Sinéad O’Connor and Imelda May. Its recent series
of 90s dance music events won the IMRO radio Outstanding Achievement Award for 2018. The RTÉ CO has performed in seven
Eurovision Song Contest song competitions; film credits include Stephen Rennicks’ score to Room and Brian Byrne’s Golden
Globe-nominated score to Albert Nobbs. Recent recordings include Howard Shore’s A Palace upon the Ruins and Flicker with
Irish singer Niall Horan, and the orchestra has also collaborated with Irish National Opera, English National Ballet and Our Lady’s
Choral Society, as well as giving the Ireland premieres of Jaws in Concert, Amadeus and The Nightmare Before Christmas with
Danny Elfman. During the Covid-19 pandemic the RTÉ CO has continued to produce a wide range of work including new Guy
Barker arrangements of Aretha Franklin numbers, an award-winning John Lennon anniversary tribute, a 50th anniversary
celebration of Clannad and a chart-topping single.

www.rte.ie/co

Adrian Leaper

Adrian Leaper’s career began with a five-year tenure as assistant conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester. He was later
principal conductor of the Gran Canaria Philharmonic for eight years and principal conductor and artistic director of the RTVE
Symphony Orchestra in Madrid for nine years. He has conducted orchestras all over the world and has recorded a series of
Spanish music of the 20th century for ASV.

www.adrianleaper.com

The Hiawatha trilogy, with its stirring overture, established Coleridge-Taylor as one of Britain’s
leading young composers and stimulated commissions in a wide variety of music. The Othello Suite
was written for a stage production of the play, its powerful and contrasting themes illustrating the
composer’s prowess in characterisation. Redolent of popular ballads and romances, the Petite Suite
de Concert is a masterpiece of light music, while the charming Romance of the Prairie Lilies shows
Coleridge-Taylor’s lasting influence on future generations of British composers.

                   COLERIDGE-TAYLOR
                                              Samuel

                         (1875–1912)
         The Song of Hiawatha,                            Gipsy Suite (arranged by
         Op. 30 (1899)                     11:21          Leo Artok, 1927)         12:41
         No. 3. Overture                                  I. Chorus of Gitanos                 4:06

         Petite Suite de Concert,                         II. Song of the Gipsy Girl           2:03
     1                                                0

         Op. 77 (1910)                     16:03          III. Ballade                         4:05
                                                      !

                                                          IV. Gipsy Dance                      2:20
                                                      @

         Le Caprice de Nannette              3:48
                                                          Romance of the Prairie Lilies
                                                      #

         Demande et réponse                  5:33
     2

         Un sonnet d’amour                   3:56         (arranged by P.E. Fletcher,
     3                                                $

         La Tarantelle frétillante           2:39         1931)                       6:30
     4

         4 Characteristic Waltzes,                        Othello Suite, Op. 79
     5

         Op. 22 (1898)             13:42                  (1909)                            10:37
         Valse bohémienne                    2:21         1. Dance                             2:15
         Valse rustique                      3:00         2. Children’s Intermezzo             3:42
     6                                                %

         Valse de la Reine                   5:13         4. The Willow Song                   2:33
     7                                                ^

         Valse mauresque                     3:01         5. Military March                    1:59

       RTÉ Concert Orchestra • Adrian Leaper
     8                                                &
     9                                                *

                              Previously released on Marco Polo 8.223516
     Recorded: 20–21 January 1993 at the Radio Centre, RTÉ Dublin, Ireland • Producer: Murray Khouri
         Booklet notes: David Ades • Cover illustration by Maryna Kriuchenko (Dreamstime.com)
                    1995 & 훿 2022 Naxos Rights US, Inc. • www.naxos.com