#Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

[lesser-known-composers]

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)

[opera-ghosts]

OTD in Music History: Composer and conductor Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875 - 1912) is born in London. The child of unwed parents in a mixed-race union (his mother was a white British woman and his father was a black immigrant from Sierra Leone), Coleridge-Taylor was named after famed poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 - 1834) and rose up to achieve tremendous artistic success in his short life despite the prejudices that were then attached to his lineage. As a boy, Coleridge-Taylor’s matriculated at the Royal College of Music, where he studied both violin and composition under noted English composer Charles Villiers Stanford (1852 - 1924). After completing his degree, he became a professional musician, and by 1896 he was already making a name for himself as a composer; he enjoyed the early support of Edward Elgar (1857 - 1934) and the influential music editor and critic August Jaeger (1860 - 1909), who confided to Elgar that he considered Coleridge-Taylor to be "a genius.” In his own time, Coleridge-Taylor was best known for composing three cantatas on the epic poem “The Song of Hiawatha” (1898) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882). Unfortunately, this budding fame didn't bring with it financial security. Coleridge-Taylor came to deeply regret selling the copyright of “Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast” (1898) to his publisher outright for a mere £15 after the score went on to sell nearly 150,000 copies. This proved to be by far the biggest commercial success of his compositional career -- and because he failed to secure any royalties from sales of the work, Coleridge-Taylor had to vigorously pursue a conducting career in order to support himself and his family. Constant touring weakened his constitution (which was never particularly strong), and in 1912 he collapsed at a railway station and died soon afterwards. PICTURED: A photo postcard showing the young Coleridge-Taylor, which he signed and inscribed in 1902.

[hellocanticle]

The Thrall in the Hall: Randall Goosby and Zhu Wang Violin and Piano Duo at Hahn Hall

Violinist Randall Goosby Though this was ostensibly Randall Goosby ’s show, the music making was a wonderfully integrated duo with pianist Zhu Wang, These two fine young musicians shared the virtuosic duties that the music in this concert demands. Both are clearly hard working and dedicated artists. Both have technical and interpretive prowess. And they clearly embody a mutual respect for each…

[jedimaesteryoda]

Jaime’s story losing his hand in A Storm of Swords is effectively Samuel Coleridge’s long narrative poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” The poem follows an old sailor telling a tale to a random stranger about his trials after impulsively killing a friendly albatross his ship had come upon when trapped in ice. Jaime’s journey follows after killing Aerys, his noted sin among Westerosi society. However, at the start of the series, Jaime had impulsively pushed a child out the window at Winterfell, a sin akin to killing the innocent seabird. Both their acts change the course of their lives.

'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, That bring the fog and mist.

- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

"He swore a vow to protect his king's life with his own. Then he opened that king's throat with a sword." "Seven hells, someone had to kill Aerys!" Robert said, reining his mount to a sudden halt beside an ancient barrow. "If Jaime hadn't done it, it would have been left for you or me."

-AGOT, Eddard II

The fellow crew of the ship though initially condemning of the Mariner’s act of killing the albatross, later condone his actions. His actions mark him as a cursed man while his crew’s condoning of that action end up cursing them as well. Robert and House Lannister condone Jaime’s action of killing Aerys and the murder of Rhaegar’s children by Tywin. 

The Mariner’s sin results in him and his crew being cursed, and Jaime’s actions result in himself, the kings he raised up and his family being cursed.  The crew dies condemned as a result while Robert is gored by a boar, Tywin is killed on the privy by his son, Cersei and Jaime’s kids are fated to die and House Lannister’s regime is doomed to fall.

Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung.

. . .

Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony.

. . .

But oh! more horrible than that Is the curse in a dead man's eye! Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, And yet I could not die.

-The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

His hand burned.

Still, still, long after they had snuffed out the torch they'd used to sear his bloody stump, days after, he could still feel the fire lancing up his arm, and his fingers twisting in the flames, the fingers he no longer had.

. . .

His hand was always between them. Urswyck had hung it about his neck on a cord, so it dangled down against his chest

-ASOS, Jaime IV

Like the Mariner, Jaime carries the hand he used to kill Aerys and push Bran out a window as an albatross around his neck. The people he remembers from when he was inducted into the Kingsguard are all dead while he lives in agony both literal in the pain from losing his hand and figurative with the turmoil and marginalization from being labeled “Kingslayer.” 

The Mariner found himself in “life in death.” He is stranded on a cursed ship alone, having lost God’s grace to the point he cannot pray and seemingly hopeless. Jaime himself felt truly alone after killing Aerys. He couldn’t confide in anyone, not his fellow brothers of the Kingsguard nor even his sister-lover Cersei or his brother Tyrion. His act of kingslaying isolated him.

'O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!' The Hermit crossed his brow. 'Say quick,' quoth he, 'I bid thee say— What manner of man art thou?' Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched With a woful agony, Which forced me to begin my tale; And then it left me free.

-The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The Mariner confesses to a Hermit on his journey home, and in doing so relieves him of his guilt. Jaime ultimately feels compelled to tell his story to another like the Mariner does, and tells his story behind killing Aerys to Brienne. 

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea.

. . .

O happy living things! no tongue Their beauty might declare: A spring of love gushed from my heart, And I blessed them unaware: Sure my kind saint took pity on me, And I blessed them unaware.

-The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

"Blue is a good color on you, my lady," Jaime observed. "It goes well with your eyes." She does have astonishing eyes.

-ASOS, Jaime IX

What allows the Mariner to gain salvation is by “blessing unaware” the creatures he originally derided as “slimy,” recognizing the beauty in them. Jaime sees the beauty and worth in the woman he originally derided as “ugly” and “stupid,” thinking she has beautiful eyes, gives her his Valyrian sword and goes in to rescue her at risk to his own life like a knight rescuing a fair maiden in a song.

[insidecroydon]

Stanley Halls to stage revival of Coleridge-Taylor's Dream Lovers

The first professional staging of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s opera Dream Lovers since its premiere in 1898 will be performed on February 14 and 15 at Stanley Halls in South Norwood. Long lost manuscript: Dream Lovers has not been performed for more than a century It will be performed by a cast of singers from the English National Opera and the Royal Opera House’s young artists programmes. The cast…

[onenakedfarmer]

Playing

BRITISH CLARINET QUINTETS Stephan Siegenthaler Leipziger Streichquartett

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Sir Arthur Somervell - Clarinet Quintet in G Major

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor - Clarinet Quintet in F-sharp minor

Richard Walthew - A Short Quintet in E-flat Major

[sunset-supergirl]

Happy birthday Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

[aqua-regia009]

Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Illustrated by Gustave Doré (French, 1832-1883)

[ourstaturestouchtheskies]

Illustration for "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" – Gustave Doré // The Albatross – Taylor Swift

[tylered-up-in-blue]

The Terror (2018) // The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere (1798)

[the-evil-clergyman]

Illustration from Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Joseph Noel Paton (1863)

[lesser-known-composers]

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) - Concerto for Violin in G Minor, op. 80, Movement I: Allegro Maestoso

Njioma Chinyere Grevious, Violin 2023 Sphinx Competition, 1st Place

Sphinx Symphony Orchestra Maestro Kalena Bovell

[lionofchaeronea]

"I had done a hellish thing" (illustration for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner), Gustave Doré, 1876

[hellocanticle]

Rachel Barton, Uncovering Valuable Legacy

Cedille Records CDR 90000 214 This album, largely a re-release of Barton’s groundbreaking recording of 1987 without the Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Major by CHEVALIER J.J.O. DE MEUDE-MONPAS (FL. C. 1786) but with the wonderful addition of Florence Price’s Second Violin Concerto of 1952. That alone is worth the price of this disc. Rachel Barton Rachel Barton Pine who made her debut at age 10…

[trochaic-mutant-ninja-tetrameter]

[insidecroydon]

Addiscombe artist who brought vivid colour to children's books

Bygone age: when she was 12 or 13, Rosa Petherick captured this scene of Addiscombe Station SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: The thriving arts scene in Croydon in the first decades of the 20th Century included five sisters with connections to Cicely Mary Barker and Samuel Coleridge Taylor, as DAVID MORGAN explains Violin practice: Rosa Petherick captured her sister, and the cat The exhibition of illustrations…