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Know more about Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

What does Samuel Coleridge-Taylor tell us about Northeast cultural life?

 

When we think of the northeast of England in the 19th Century we think of coal and shipping. The region also had a rich cultural life. Writers, musicians, artists from or visiting the region made it a rich environment amidst the industrial background. All towns had theatres, music halls, and meeting rooms used to entertain and inform. 

 

Composer Samuel Coleridge Taylor is best known for Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, which received its commercial premier at Sunderland on 16th November 1898. He visited the region to conduct a number of times and was friends with a northeast industrialist and music enthusiast Nicolas Alan Kilburn from Bishop Auckland. 

 

Coleridge-Taylor used his medium and celebrity to advocate for Black music. He wrote Twenty-Four Negro Melodies in 1905  and performed at the White House.

 

Coleridge Taylor based his most famous choral work on a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. At times it was more popular than Handel’s Messiah. Coleridge-Taylor even named his son Hiawatha, after his most famous work.

 

The Sunderland Daily Echo, on Tuesday November 15th 1898, heaped praise on Coleridge-Taylor’s work and him as a young composer, with ‘ brilliant career before him.’ It even included a drawn portrait of him, rare for these times. 

 

Two days later a full report on the premier and the composer was published. Glowing with praise for the piece and Coleridge-Taylor, however it is regrettable that the journalist makes reference to Coleridge-Taylor’s African blood as enabling him to compose, ‘the wild bursts of barbaric harmony which occasionally characterised the work. 

 

The day after the premier the Sunderland Daily Echo printed a letter of thanks to Kilburn from the composer who had travelled back to London. 

 

"I can assure you I have never felt as highly gratified as I did at last evening’s performance. 

My train was very punctual and I was actually at home at 7.30am!

Please give my kindest regards to Mrs Kilburn and Paul and all my Sunderland friends. "

S. Coleridge Taylor

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