Clinton Symphony Orchestra Performs 'Petite Suite, Op. 77' of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor in Morrison, Illinois 7:30 PM, Feb. 23, 2013

[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]

Maestro Brian Dollinger will conduct the Clinton Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Petite Suite, Op. 77 of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor at Morrison High School Auditorium, Morrison, Illinois on February 23, 2013 at 7:30 PM:

Clinton Symphony Orchestra

WINTER CONCERT 2013

February 23, 2013    7:30 PM
Morrison HS Auditorium
Morrison, Illinois

Ludwig van Beethoven
Fidelio Overture, Op 72c

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Petite Suite, Op 77
La Caprice de Nanette
Demande et Reponse
Un Sonnet d'Amour
La Tarantelle Fretillante

Georges Bizet
Symphony in C major
Allegre vivo
Adagio
Allegro vivace; Trio
Allegro vivace

       

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912), the son of a doctor and native of Sierra Leone and an Englishwoman, grew up in his mother's care after his father returned to Africa. Samuel's musical precocity was noted early, and, at a tender age, he took up the violin with virtuoso Joseph Beckwith and, at age ten, he began singing in the local church choir. His talents were such that at fifteen, he was accepted in the Royal College of Music as a violin student. That same year, 1890, he wrote his first significant composition, Te Deum; in the next two years he had five of his songs published by the Novello organization. In 1892, he began composition studies with the noted English composer Sir Charles Villiers Stanford.

With the encouragement of Stanford, Coleridge-Taylor began immediately to offer his works for public approval with frequent performances of his music. From 1893 through 1897, he issued a formidable list of works covering chamber and orchestral pieces: Piano Quintet, Clarinet Sonata, Three Songs, Nonet, Clarinet Quintet, Five Fantasiestücke for string quartet, Symphony in A minor (three movements), and the String Quartet in D minor.

Coleridge-Taylor was fortunate to have been studying at the Royal College of Music with a number of composers-to-be who would do much to steer English serious music away from the influences of the German school as exemplified in the music of Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner. Among his classmates were Ralph Vaughan Williams, Walford Davies, Frank Bridge, Gustav Holst, John Ireland, and, the classmate with whom he had the closest relationship, William Hurlstone. Hurlstone, from whom great things were expected, however, was felled at an earlier age than Samuel, in 1906 from severe bronchial asthma.

Following his departure from the Royal College of Music, Coleridge-Taylor got his first commission through the good graces of the pre-eminent English composer of the day, Edward Elgar. Elgar was impressed with the young man and recommended him to the sponsors of the Three Choirs Festival, for whom Coleridge-Taylor subsequently produced the Ballade in A minor for orchestra. That same year 1898 saw Coleridge-Taylor premiere his most popular and successful work Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, based largely on the poem of American Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose literary image of the North American 'savage' was quite popular in England at the time. So popular was the cantata that Coleridge-Taylor sought to capitalize on its success and eventually completed two additonal sections to form a trilogy - The Death of Minnehaha and Hiawatha's Departure. An Overture to The Song of Hiawatha was later composed as an introduction to the complete series. While the first of the choral trilogy is stll performed regularly today, the latter two pieces have not been received with equal enthusiasm.

Besides his choral works, Coleridge-Taylor wrote incidental music for theatrical productions for contemporary dramas such as Stephen Phillips' Herod and Faust and for classic plays such as William Shakespeare's Othello. And, as many struggling composers do, he sought to increase his income and expand his field of expertise by teaching and conducting. In 1903, he was appointed a professor of composition at Trinity College in London and a permanent conductor for the Handel Society in 1904, a position he maintained until his death in 1912. As a conductor, he often appeared at concerts and festivals in England, and was a favorite at the Westmorland Festival for a number of years. In his capacities as composer and conductor, he made three trips to the United States, one in 1904 and one in 1906 at the request of a choral society in Washington, D.C., named in his honor. His last appearance in America was at the Litchfield Festival in Connecticut in 1910. On each of his trips, he guest conducted at various venues, including with the New York Philharmonic, the players of which dubbed him the 'black Mahler.'

Coleridge-Taylor sought to enhance the dignity and honor of the black man in America as well as in England. To that end, he became an avid follower of black Americans such as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Dubois and others. Of particular interest to him was black poet Paul L. Dunbar whom he had met in London in 1897. He set some of Dunbar's poems to music, in addition to composing several works reflecting the black heritage in England - African Romances , Dream Lovers, the African Suite and Toussaint l'ouverture. Perhaps he most accomplished composition in this group of pieces related to his heritage is his Symphonic Variations on an African Air.

The Petite Suite, Op 77 is a light work from Coleridge-Taylor's last years, and, though it does not plumb the depths of the Romantic soul, it, nevertheless, showcases the composer's affinity for structure and melody, no small feats in themselves.