BBC Radio 3
Sumptuous Was the Feast
- Availability:
- over a year left to listen
- Duration:
- 45 minutes
- First broadcast:
- Saturday 27 October 2012
'Hiawatha'
in the Royal Albert Hall was one of the entertainment phenomena of the
1920s and 30s in London. For two weeks each summer the hall was brimful
for the dramatisation of black British composer Samuel
Coleridge-Taylor's cantata trilogy: 'Hiawatha's Wedding Feast', 'The
Death of Minnehaha' and 'Hiawatha's Departure' - collectively known as
'The Song of Hiawatha'. Hundreds of members of the giant Royal Choral
Society swamped the arena (aka the tribal encampment) dressed in
home-made native American costumes. A vast backcloth, depicting
mountains and forests, obscured the Albert Hall's giant organ. Wigwams
invaded the stage, where the principal singers (many of the best known
British stars of the day) did their stuff. And the bulk of the
performances was directed by Dr Malcolm Sargent, matinee idol in the
making.
At the hundredth anniversary of Coleridge-Taylor's death,
Andrew Green's Sumptuous Was The Feast' seeks out memories from those
who appeared in the Albert Hall productions and those who attended them.
Kath Marshall recalls the tribal chants of an authentic Mohawk chief.
Rosemary Woodhouse crept onto the stage to solve the mystery of just how
Hiawatha's canoe drifted off-stage as it departed for the Hereafter.
But
this is no mere trip down memory lane. Andrew Green investigates the
popularity of Longfellow's poem 'The Song of Hiawatha' on both sides of
the Atlantic. He examines how Coleridge-Taylor was idolised by the black
community in the USA as a role model. And has Hiawatha obscured the
composer's wider output?
'Sumptuous Was The Feast' details other
performances of 'Hiawatha' from Scarborough to Melbourne,
Australia...before the craze died after the Second World War. But could
hordes of braves and squaws again fill the arena of the Albert Hall?
[Samuel
Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) is profiled at AfriClassical.com,
which features a comprehensive Works List and a Bibliography by Prof.
Dominique-René de Lerma, www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com.
We
are collaborating with the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Foundation of the
U.K., www.SCTF.org.uk]
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