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| Samuel Coleridge-Taylor from the Sunderland Daily Echo immediately before the first public performance of Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, 15 November 1898 |
The public rehearsal and public performance of Coleridge-Taylor's Ballade in A minor at the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival brought his name into prominence. The much-heralded private performance of Hiawatha's Wedding Feast followed by its public performance in Sunderland made him almost a household name. As with any young "celebrity", people wanted to more about him, particularly when they learned he had African ancestry. The usual "coloured" was used to describe his skin, though there is one intriguing description of him as "a very dark gentleman". A gentleman who was "very dark"? Apparently so.
His ancestry caused more problems, with some partially-informed journalists calling him "West African". When his engagement to Jessie Walmisley became known in September 1899, there is at least one hint that a mixed-race marriage may not have been acceptable to some people. Very few would have been aware of her own Anglo-Indian ancestry.
1898
"THE PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY. TO-MORROW'S CONCERT
At a time like the present, when new musical works are eagerly sought for by conductors of choral and societies, it is most difficult to come across a composition of a high order containing ideas that are striking and good and quite away from the beaten track. The Sunderland Philharmonic Society, always to the fore in promoting the best interests of the musical public, has not been slow to take up one of the freshest and most attractive cantatas lately written.
HIAWATHA’S WEDDING FEAST.
for tenor solo, chorus, and orchestra (words by Longfellow), will be given on the 16th inst. in the Victoria Hall under circumstances the most favourable; the composer will himself conduct the performance. Mr S. Coleridge-Taylor has, within a short period, become both prominent and eminent. Born in London on August 15th, 1875, he is quite young, and has evidently a brilliant career before him. Endowed with great musical gifts, and having had the advantage of a first-class musical training at the Royal College of Music, under the guidance of Professor Villiers Stanford, and surrounded by the best musical influences, he has worked unflaggingly and to good account.
His father, a medical man, was born in West Africa, and his mother was English. This
ADMIXTURE OF NATIONALTIES
has, no doubt, had something to do with the distinct and characteristic flavour which gives individuality to his music. The great success of his orchestral ballade at the recent Gloucester Festival has quickly been followed by another in the work under notice, which was performed for the first time only a few days ago in London. That Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast is destined to very considerably enhance the composer’s reputation leaves little room for doubt. Indeed, the pronounced opinions of those who were fortunate enough to hear the Royal College performance the other night is a proof of the fact.
How much Mr Coleridge-Taylor has been influenced by this or that composer is not of so much importance as that he has ideas of his own, and is sufficiently resourceful to be able to make a remarkable use of them. His quaintness of rhythmical effect, vigour of thought, and colouring of a vivid kind, and his exceedingly clever management of both vocal and orchestral material, at once arrest the attention of an audience. " - Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette - Tuesday 15 November 1898
"On Friday night we were all invited to the Royal College of Music to hear a promising though rather crude cantata, Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, by the young West African composer, Mr. Coleridge Taylor. The place was vastly overcrowded, as is, indeed, usually the case with practically a free show. Personally, of course, I do not complain because being compelled to stand in a crush at the back of the so-called "hall," my shoulder was utilised as a convenient rest by an extremely pretty hospital nurse, who was endeavouring to balance herself on a chair. I was, at any rate, in pleasanter circumstances than my colleagues of the Daily Telegraph and the Athenaeum, who, as no chairs were reserved for them, were glad to seat themselves on the floor. Close by Mme. Liza Lehmann was in a similar predicament." - Truth - Thursday 17 November 1898
"Four valses were given for the first time as a concluding item. They were by Coleridge Taylor, who is undoubtedly coming man. His ballade, composed for the Leeds festival, gained him immediate notoriety. He is only 23 years of age, and is a West African. Me. Godfrey is endeavouring to arrange with him to conduct one of his own works later in the season, and we hope he will do so." - Bournemouth Guardian - Saturday 10 December 1898
"The cantata Hiawatha's Wedding Feast formed the concluding part of the programme. It is quite a new composition from the pen of Mr. Coleridge Taylor, a gentleman of colour, and this was but the third or fourth time that it has been performed in public. It is quaintly picturesque and decidedly original, the score being marked by much novelty of treatment. It was capitally rendered by both band and chorus, and the only solo, which partakes of the character of recitative, was sung by Mr. Branscombe. The music, as becomes the celebration of a wedding feast, is at times joyous and hilarious and throughout is quite original and withal very tuneful and entertaining." - Torquay Times, and South Devon Advertiser - Friday 16 December 1898
1899
"Two of Mr. Coleridge Taylor’s works were presented. The first-was the orchestral Ballade in A minor, which was brought out at the last Gloucester Festival, and by which the young coloured composer—who is of London birth—secured a reputation. It is strong, forceful music, fashioned economically, and endowed with an element of the barbaric that is far from unwelcome." - Batley Reporter and Guardian - Friday 17 March 1899
"There are those who ill-naturedly attribute Mr. Coleridge Taylor's success to his personal colour, but few unprejudiced persons can listen to such music as this of Hiawatha's Wedding Feast without being struck by its absolute freshness of idiom, together with a charm of treatment that succeeds in making much out of apparently very little." - Leeds Mercury - Friday 12 May 1899
"Mr. Coleridge-Taylor, a very dark gentleman, the composer of Hiawatha Sketches, accompanied little Maudie on the piano as she gave them. These sketches were most spirited and original—a tale, a song, a dance, and delighted the audience, who would have liked to encore them all." - Wrexham Advertiser - Saturday 8 July 1899
"The second part of the concert opened with the cantata, Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, by S. Coleridge Taylor, a modern rising composer. His nationality invests him with additional interest. This work has been performed only once or twice previous to its performance at Tenbury, but we understand that it is in the programme for the next Leeds Festival." - Tenbury Wells Advertiser - Tuesday 11 July 1899
"MR. COLERIDGE TAYLOR BETROTHED. It was, by the way, mentioned in Queen's Hall during the Worcester rehearsals, in which Mr. Coleridge Taylor took part, that the young West African composer is engaged married to Miss Walmesley [sic], who, the Daily News understands, was a fellow pupil of his the Royal College of Music." - Gloucester Citizen - Friday 08 September 1899
"The opening programme to-day included four works, first and foremost being a novelty in the shape of a Solemn Prelude for orchestra, composed by the young Anglo-African, S. Coleridge Taylor, to whose pen we owe Hiawatha’s Wedding [sic] and other works which are in the enjoyment of popularity. Sympathy seems to be claimed in advance of effort, and especially in the blend of the unmusical Anglo-Saxon with the passionate musical impulses of the African. What may result from such a combination we know in part, and there may be stronger evidence to come, but, though Mr. Coleridge Taylor is an interesting personality, and brings a "new" strain into English blood, he cannot be held exempt from criticism. Indeed, he is one to look after sharply, lest there be manifestations not healthy.
At no previous time in the history of art was the nomenclature of musical compositions so vague as now. When, in past days, a musician composed a work in overture form he called it an overture as a matter of course, and everybody knew what was meant. Forms are now largely out of fashion, above all among writers for the orchestra, who decline to be fettered, and claim the full liberty enjoyed by, as said a Fourth of July orator, "the soaring and screaming eagle of our boundless prairies." The result is that we have a crowd of works which are essentially nondescript. Terms of description do not arise out of them, but are arbitrarily applied to them. Just as Chopin called his effusions preludes, ballades, and what not of ambiguous meaning, so here is Mr. Coleridge Taylor with his Solemn Prelude.
I am not going to quarrel with the name, but an innocent curiosity prompts me to ask what in the consciousness of the composer does this prelude indicate as coming after it? Has Mr. Taylor something to follow "up his sleeve"? I remember that Sir Hubert Parry once produced an overture to an unwritten tragedy. Here is an example for writers of preludes that, as far as they go, precede nothing.
The work which has suggested these remarks is slow throughout (lento), in the key of B minor, and scored for full orchestra. Though in no recognised form, its subjects, of which there are three so dealt with, come up for treatment from time to time, and the whole piece ends with references to the matter, of its opening. It is very carefully orchestrated, and shows the knowledge and skill which are now so common in that branch of a composer's work. Some of the themes, moreover, are distinctly melodious, but their beauty is often disfigured by scrappy treatment or veiled by restless and harmonic progressions.
This simply means that the Prelude suffered from the spirit of modern orchestral writing, an evil spirit which wars against intelligibility and beauty, which obscures the light that radiates from all true art. I honestly doubt if the Prelude left any save the very vaguest impression upon those who heard it to-day. 1t seemed, in my own case, to lack definiteness of idea and clearness of utterance. I could not discover what it was trying to say. Had it simply claimed to be a study of the dissonant the pretension would have been willingly allowed, but the music must have a purpose other that. What is it? The piece itself does not answer Call it prelude to Dante’s ‘Purgatory' and many will accept the idea as appropriate, but then the composer may not approve, and he is the arbiter.
Mr. Taylor conducted in person with gratifying success, the fine orchestra following his indications with zeal and discretion." - Daily Telegraph - Thursday 14 September 1899
"Mr. Coleridge-Taylor, who was a student at the Royal College of Music, is about to marry an English lady was also a student at the College" - Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer - Friday 15 September 1899
"There not any means such crowded congregation as the case on the Elijah day, when Mr. Coleridge-Taylor, the African genius, ascended the dais, but nevertheless, there was a most satisfactory attendance. Mr. Coleridge-Taylor’s contribution was a Solemn Prelude for full orchestra (op. 40), which he had composed specially for the Festival, and of course conducted himself. Unfortunately, the wonderful and most talented musician had only been able to devote limited time to rehearsal, and had not had any opportunity of giving much instruction to the band. It cannot, however, be said that this new work is by any means so good as his Ballad in A Minor, given for the first time at Gloucester last year, the favourable reports which had reached Worcester of the work hardly being borne out" - Gloucestershire Chronicle - Saturday 16 September 1899
"Mr. Coleridge Taylor is also here, the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Lee Williams, who are likewise chaperoning the West-African complexioned composer's affianced bride." - Worcestershire Chronicle - Saturday 16 September 1899
1903
"Mr. Walter Crane is 58, Mr. Keir Hardie is 47, “T. Nesbit’ and Mr. Maarten Maartens are each 45; the Emperor of China is 32 and Mr. Samuel Coleridge Taylor, the Anglo-African musician, is 28." - Labour Leader - Saturday 22 August 1903
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