[Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)]
Charles Kaufmann, Director, The Longfellow Chorus, writes:
Hello, All,
In
March 2012, The Longfellow Chorus performed Elgar's Longfellow cantata,
"Scenes from The Saga King Olaf," (1896). From the title, one gets the
impression that SCT was
inspired in part from this composition to compose his "Scenes from The
Song of Hiawatha," (1898). For our March 2012 performance of Olaf, we
were able to draw from the contemporary annotated edition of King Olaf
as provided to us by the Elgar Society. I am wondering if anyone is
taking a cue from the Elgar Society and thinking of offering scholarly
editions of SCT's works in the future. Certainly, he deserves this -- as Elgar noted, "he was far and away the cleverest fellow going."
What is lacking, of course, in SCT scholarship is a collected works edition. So much has been lost and neglected. Several of us possess manuscripts salvaged from publishing houses and libraries which seem to care little for what they possess.
In
any case, Olaf was a poem in which Longfellow seemed to try to rival
the more popular, and darker, poetry of Edgar Allan Poe. Elgar was
taking a bold chance when he set Olaf to music. SCT could not risk such a thing.
We have posted a text subtitled version of excerpts from our 2012 performance of Elgar's King Olaf as a You Tube play list. Our current project with SCT's Hiawatha and other SCT music will provide an interesting contrast:
Charles Kaufmann
The Longfellow
Chorus
PO Box 5133
Portland, ME 04101
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