[Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) is profiled at
AfriClassical.com, which features a
comprehensive Works List and a
Bibliography by Dr. Dominique-René de Lerma,
The Maine Public Broadcasting Network (MPBN) has
a program every Wednesday night called Maine
Stage, which
features broadcasts of programs by
Maine's many fine Classical
soloists, ensembles and
orchestras. Wednesday after next, August 13,
8
PM, Maine Stage will present highlights from the
2013 Longfellow Choral Festival in Merrill Auditorium,
works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Keep me from
sinkin' down for orchestra and violin (Lydia Forbes,
soloist); the Bamboula Rhapsodic Dance for
orchestra; the Violin Concerto in G-Minor (Tai Murray,
soloist); and Hiawatha's Wedding Feast
(Rodrick
Dixon, tenor soloist). You'll hear me as announcer --
not
since my Classical announcing days at WPKM
(Portland) and WEVO (Concord, New Hampshire) have
I had a chance to get before the mic. Mark your
calendars: you can listen to this broadcast anywhere
Hiawatha's Wedding Feast libretto -- handy for
Those of you who missed these performances, and
those who have never heard Hiawatha's Wedding
Feast -- or anything by Coleridge-Taylor -- will be
pleasantly surprised.
But especially, broadcasting
music with Longfellow text from
Longfellow's city of
birth is a great connection to history -- exactly
the
mission of The Longfellow Chorus.
Recreates the Norfolk (Connecticut)
Music Festivals of 1910 and 1912
[Musical
America, June 11, 1910, featured an article
about the Norfolk Music
Festival, where "Scenes
from The Song of Hiawatha" and the "Bamboula
Rhapsodic Dance" had been performed by musicians
from New York City
under the baton of Samuel
Coleridge-Taylor. From left: Samuel
Coleridge-
Taylor; George Hamlin (Hiawatha tenor soloist);
Maud Powell;
Mrs. Arthur Mees; Gertrude May Stein
(contralto); Mr. Bassatt and Dr.
Arthur Mees
(conductor). Photo by H. Godfrey Turner, Maud
Powell's
husband and manager. Courtesy Musical
America and the Norfolk Historical
Society.]
It's not just about Maine history. The Wednesday,
August 13th, 8 PM Maine Stage broadcast
of music by
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor from the 2013 Longfellow
Choral
Festival will present music associated with the
Norfolk Music Festival,
now the Norfolk Chamber
Music Festival - Yale School of Music.
Carl and Ellen
Stoeckel, patrons and originators of the festival,
yearly
supplied $30,000 or more for the events, according to
Maud
Powell. Tickets were free, but by invitation only
from the Stoeckels.
The audience sat at many small tea
tables arranged at orchestra level,
where, indeed, tea
was served. In that sense these concerts were
afternoon
teas in the Music Shed, which still exists today as it did
one
hundred and two years ago. In 1910, the chorus was
made up of 450
singers from various community choruses
in Litchfield County,
Connecticut -- the Litchfield County
Choral Union -- supported by an
orchestra of 75
professional players from New York City.
The Litchfield County Choral Union first performed
Hiawatha's Wedding Feast
on June 5, 1901. The Union
performed it again on June 2, 1910, with
Coleridge-Taylor
conducting, on a program that also presented the
premier
of the Bamboula Rhapsodic Dance. The Violin Concerto in
G-Minor was premiered at the festival on June 4, 1912,
after which Maud Powell performed Keep me from sinkin'
down,
with cuts, as an encore. Paul Hawkshaw, director
of the Norfolk Chamber
Music Festival, theorizes that
Maud Powell introduced the cuts in order
to shorten Keep
me from sinkin' down for eventual recording for
the Victor
Talking Machine Company, something that, perhaps
because of
Coleridge-Taylor's sudden death on September
1, 1912, she never did. A
Victor phonograph record could
only hold four minutes of music. Without
Maud Powell's cuts
-- as The Orchestra of The Longfellow Chorus performed it
in 2013 -- Keep me from sinkin' lasts about six minutes.
Our historical connection with Maud Powell is also timely:
Maud Powell
received a Lifetime Achievement Award -- a long-
overdue GRAMMY -- from
The Recording Academy this past
January. Karen Shaffer, founder of the
Maud Powell Society,
and violinist Rachel Barton Pine have advocated
tirelessly for
years to achieve this. (You can hear a lengthy interview
with
Karen Shaffer, by the way, and see and hear Rachel Barton
Pine
perform works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor in our film,
Chorus attended the
Norfolk Chamber Music Festival as
students a number of years ago. Among
them are Peggy
Friedland, flutist, Ben Noyes, cellist, and Karen
Beacham,
clarinetist. It is Karen's wonderfully musical clarinet solo
that
you will hear in the slow segment of the Bamboula Rhapsodic
Dance during the Wednesday, August 13th, 8 PM Maine Stage
PO Box 5133 Portland, Maine 04101 |
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