Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Recordings

Born in England in 1875 to a Sierra Leonean doctor father and English mother, his father left England around the time of Samuel’s birth due to the fact that he could not practice medicine in England, and most likely unaware of the pregnancy. Coleridge-Taylor began studying at the Royal College of Music in 1890, first on violin, before switching to composition under the tutelage of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford.

When Edward Elgar rejected a commission from the Three Choirs Festival in 1898, he suggested that they approach Coleridge-Taylor, saying ‘I am sorry I am too busy to do so. I wish, wish, wish you would ask Coleridge-Taylor to do it. He still wants recognition, and he is far and away the cleverest fellow going amongst the young men’. The Ballade in A minor, Op.33 was created in 1898 for the festival, and was an important stepping stone for Coleridge-Taylor to recognition as a composer. It was around this time that Coleridge-Taylor commence the first of what was to become the ‘Hiawatha trilogy’, Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast. This work would result in international recognition for the composer and great admiration from African Americans in particular. A choral group founded in Washington D.C. in 1901 was named the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Society.

Coleridge-Taylor eventually made the first of three tours of the United States in 1904, where he was received by President Theodore Roosevelt. By 1910 Coleridge-Taylor had been nicknamed the ‘African Mahler’ by the white orchestral musicians in New York. Despite this, his early demise at the age of 37, brought about through a bout of pneumonia, was thought to be partially due to the financial difficulties he faced. It is often mentioned that as Coleridge-Taylor had sold the rights to his Song of Hiawatha he had not received any royalties from this, his most successful work. Fellow musicians’ concern for his and his family’s plight is said to have contributed to the formation of the Performing Rights Society.