Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)
Ethiopia Saluting the Colours (March), Op.51 (1902)
Solemn Prelude, Op.40 (1899)
Zara’s Earrings Op.7 (1894)
Idyll, Op.44 (1901)
Ballade for Violin and Orchestra in D minor, Op.4 (1894)
Entr’acte 1 from the incidental music to Nero, Op.62 (1906)
Romance in B for string orchestra after the Clarinet Quintet, Op.10: II Larghetto affettuoso (1895)
Rebecca Murphy (soprano), Ioana Petcu-Colan (violin)
Ulster Orchestra/Charles Peebles
rec. 2025, Foyle Foundation Hall, Belfast, UK
Text included
SOMM Recordings CD0713 [68]

My introduction to Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was one of the Dream Dances, which I found in a now forgotten (and lost) album of salon music. Then there was the sheet music of his Demande et Réponse, a piano transcription of a movement from the Petite Suite de Concert. The first disc I bought was the S.C.T. volume published by Marco Polo in their British Light Music series (8.223516, 1995). And herein lay a problem. Was he to be condemned as simply a composer of so-called light music? The repertoire included the Petite Suite, the Othello Suite, the Gipsy Suite, the Four Characteristic Waltzes and the Overture to his undoubted magnum opus, Hiawatha. But there was nothing on the disc to confirm Charles Villiers Stanford’s opinion that Coleridge‑Taylor was one of his most gifted pupils, whom he championed with genuine admiration.

It was not until I heard the Violin Concerto on Lyrita (SRCD.317) and the Symphony in A minor on Classico (CLASSCD 684) that I saw a different side to the composer. Here was a man who could be compared to Brahms, Dvořák and even Mahler, and that placed him fairly and squarely in the symphonic/serious tradition. I read that his works were performed in major concert halls on both sides of the Atlantic, and Theodore Roosevelt invited him to the White House – hardly the lot of a light-music specialist.

It is a matter of taste whether Ethiopia Saluting the Colours (March) is on a par with Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance Marches. Perhaps it is as good as Elgar’s less well-known No.3 and No.5. Geoffrey Self (The Hiawatha Man: The Life and Work of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Scolar Press 1995, p.130ff) writes that Coleridge-Taylor dedicated the work to The Treble Clef Club, a musical society specifically for Black women. The score is headed by a quotation from Walt Whitman referencing Hiawatha,his poem about an enslaved woman during the American Civil War. Geoffrey Self (op  cit.) remarks: “Competent though it is, the tunes simply do not have Elgar’s panache and exuberance.”

The Solemn Prelude for orchestra was produced for the 1899 Worcester Festival, and dedicated to a certain N. Kilburn esq. who also had the fortune of being the dedicatee of Elgar’s The Music Makers. The liner notes say that The Solemn Prelude unfolds in a broad, imposing sonata design, carrying the same “nobilmente” character found in the expansive slow movements from the pens of Parry, Stanford and Elgar. Its themes are strong and elegiac, and the whole work is assured. It should be given more than an occasional airing in the concert hall.

Zara’s Earrings, A Moorish Ballad for soprano and orchestra sets a text by the Scottish author and editor John Gibson Lockhart who wrote the multi-volume Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. The poem follows a young woman in Granada who drops the pearl earrings that her Moorish lover gave her as a pledge of fidelity. She is consumed by the fear that he will see their loss as evidence of flirtation or betrayal. Imagining every doubt he might harbour, she despairs of justifying herself, yet resolves to tell him the truth. She was thinking of him so deeply, her mind wandering to him across the sea, that the earrings slipped from her hand; his love lies in her heart as surely as the pearls lie in the well. This enjoyable scena displays the young composer’s “ease of technique, flow of ideas and richness of harmonic palette” (Self, 1995, p.37).

The Idyll is an expansion and rescoring of the second-movement Lament from Coleridge-Taylor’s impressive Symphony in A minor. He has added trombones, tuba and harp to the orchestral forces. He wrote it for the 1901 Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester. The Times reviewer (12 September 1901, p.10) summed it up thus: “A single, very beautiful movement […] giving ample room for the composer’s love of original rhythm and rich and individual orchestral colouring […] the little work is sure of popularity and is a worthy example of the clever young author’s work.”

The musical title “Ballade” always makes me wonder about the tale or narrative in the ballade. The definition suggests lyrical, dramatic qualities, as if telling a story without words. Often the piece unfolds like a tale, with contrasting episodes and a sense of emotional progress. So, it is often the opposite of a Sonata or Rondo form.

The liner notes do not suggest any programme behind the Ballade for Violin and Orchestra. Indeed, they propose that the work is written in an “abridged sonata structure in which the soloist and orchestra continually interact”. That said, after the “exposition” there are three “distinctive thematic departures” that certainly suggests a narrative or at the very least a conversation. The Ballade is overall gloomy, with only an occasional flash of light. The listener will be captivated by the deep introspection of the violin part. Ioana Petcu-Colan plays wonderfully.

Jonathan Woolf (review) has noted that the competing version on Avie (AV2763) played by Curtis Stewart is two minutes quicker. I have not heard that, but for me the pace of the present account seems perfect.

Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus has never been my favourite character from the Classical era; he has been depicted as capricious, theatrical, tyrannical and self-indulgent. While popular legend suggests he “fiddled while Rome burned”, that is unlikely. According to Tacitus, he was thirty-five miles away in Antium when the fire began, and he returned to the capital specifically to supervise relief efforts. Nevertheless, rumours persisted that he engineered the disaster to clear land for his Golden House. That suspicion led him to make the Christians a convenient scapegoat for the fire.

Stephen Phillips’s 1906 episodic verse drama, Nero, softened some of this historical wickedness. Coleridge-Taylor’s Entr’acte 1, part of the incidental music for the play, is a full-blooded romance. Perhaps it portrays Nero’s formidable mother Agrippina or his stoic wife Octavia. It begins with a glowing violin solo before shifting into a more dramatic tone. Throughout these pages, there is little sense of the ruthlessness or cruelty one may associate with Nero’s reign.

The final track is the profoundly moving Romance in B major for string orchestra. The liner notes tell us that this is a reworking of the “introspective second movement, a Largo affettuoso” from the Clarinet Quintet in F sharp minor, op.10 from 1895.The listener must echo the words of an unnamed critic in the Musical Times (August 1895, p.528), who rates the original (Largo affettuoso) “as poetic and suggestive a movement as is to be found in English music”. It demands its place in the string orchestra repertoire.

Musicologist Jeremy Dibble’s most helpful liner notes give a good introduction to the six pieces. (Putting the works’ titles in boldface would have made it easier to locate and refer to whilst listening.) There are resumes of the two soloists and the conductor Charles Peebles. The excellent recording complements the splendid playing of the Ulster Orchestra.

While not every rarity here matches Elgar’s distinctive élan, this collection successfully reinforces Coleridge-Taylor’s image as a serious composer. The Ulster Orchestra provides a capable survey of this music, offering a useful perspective on an artist who has long outgrown the salon.

John France

Previous reviews: John Quinn ~  Jonathan Woolf ~ Nick Barnard

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