Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Hiawatha Overture; Petite Suite
Naxos Classics

This endearing collection of music by English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912) has been issued as part of Naxos's British Light Music series, but don't be misled: if the music doesn't exude Wagnerian angst, it more than makes up for it in charm. And though the collection was recorded in January 1993 (and previously released on Marco Polo), the superb performances by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra under conductor Adrian Leaper's direction sound as fresh as if they were recorded yesterday.

Born to an English mother and a father originally from Sierra Leone, Coleridge-Taylor progressed from early violin playing to studies at the Royal College of Music, which he joined when he was a mere fifteen years old. After his Hiawatha's Wedding Feast was performed at the Royal College of Music in 1898, the writing of many works followed, including incidental music for plays, as did conducting and teaching appointments. Though he lived with his family in the London suburb of Croydon, he traveled overseas to direct performances of his music during the 1910s (he was apparently dubbed the ‘Black Mahler' by musicians in New York) and even flirted with the idea of emigrating to the United States.

The collection begins with the overture from The Song of Hiawatha, Op. 30 (1899), the composer's setting of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem. Arriving one year after the performance of Hiawatha's Wedding Feast and thirteen before his final work, Hiawatha Ballet Music, Op. 82, the overture is by turns mysterious, dignified, and dramatic but most of all rich in haunting themes. The writing engages immediately for its variety, graceful transitions, and pastoral flavour. One of his best-known works, the four-part Petite Suite de Concert, Op. 77 (1910) more warrants the ‘light music' label than the overture. Whereas “Le Caprice de Nannette” follows its robust opening with delightful waltz episodes, “Demande et réponse,” “Un sonnet d'amour,” and “La Tarantelle frétillante” captivate with outpourings of tenderness, elegance, and exuberance, respectively.

Jumping back to the same year as Hiawatha's Wedding Feast is the 4 Characteristic Waltzes, Op. 22 of 1898. Written at a time when Coleridge-Taylor was wooing his wife-to-be, the material is naturally infused with romantic warmth, the “Valse rustique” a particularly affecting expression and “Valse de la Reine” rendered irresistible by a swoon-inducing theme. Written for a London stage production of Shakespeare's play, the Othello Suite, Op. 79 (1909) presents four theatrical movements (a funeral march fifth excluded from this recording) ranging from the robust “Dance” and “Military March” to the delicate “Children's Intermezzo” and haunting “The Willow Song.”

Two works were arranged after the composer's death, the four-part Gipsy Suite by Leo Artok in 1927 and single-movement Romance of the Prairie Lilies by P. E. Fletcher four years later. The former progresses from the maracas-enhanced “Chorus of Gitanos” and lively “Song of the Gipsy Girl” on through the horn-led stateliness of “Ballade” and spirited “Gipsy Dance.” Romance of the Prairie Lilies offers by comparison a compact tone painting that lives up to its titular billing as a quietly rapturous evocation.

As a varied overview of Coleridge-Taylor's music, the collection by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and Adrian Leaper presents a superb primer, regardless of whether one thinks of it as ‘light' or not. Coleridge-Taylor is, of course, but one of many composers currently enjoying a resurgence at a time when greater attention is being paid to artists of colour whose works have received less recognition than deserved. Releases devoted to Florence Price and William Grant Still are similarly appearing in greater frequency, and no one has benefited more than listeners newly able to experience the composers' incredible body of work.

March 2022