Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was born on 15th August 1875 in London. His father was a Negro physician from Sierra...
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was born on 15th August 1875 in London. His father was a Negro physician from Sierra Leone, West Africa, and his
mother was an English woman. When the medical practice failed, his father
returned to Africa, deserting young Samuel and his mother. The boy's
disadvantaged upbringing did not stifle his love of music. His violin studies
progressed to the point where he was able to give his first public recital when
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 sixteen, Novello
published one of his anthems, In Thee O Lord, followed by four more in
1892. In 1892 he also began studying composition under Sir Charles Stanford,
and won a composition scholarship in March 1893. At a chamber music concert in Croydon
on 9th October 1893, the programme included 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, Five Fantasiestücke for String Orchestra, 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 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 11th 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 30th December 1899 at the Church of Holy Trinity in Selhurst.
It was hardly surprising that they named their son, born on 15th October 1900,
Hiawatha. A daughter, Gwendolen, who later adopted the name Avril was born on
8th March 1903, and both children possessed considerable musical talents.
By now Coleridge-Taylor was moving into the field of
incidental music as another of his main areas of composition. Herbert Beerbohm
Tree commissioned his work 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, who 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 dignify the Negro, 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 included: