Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Clarinet Quintet and Works for Piano and Violin
Alto Records
Thirty years after its initial appearance on Koch Classics, this varied collection of works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor has been made available once more by Alto Records, the label understandably capitalizing on the resurgence of interest in Black composers such as Florence Price, William Grant Still, and, of course, Coleridge-Taylor. Interestingly, while the British composer-conductor's Clarinet Quintet is the release's major drawing card, it appears not first but after the three other pieces. The sequencing works well, however, as the material preceding the quintet—Petite Suite de Concert, Ballad in D minor, and Spirituals for Piano—is wonderful too and sets a rewarding stage for the main event.
London-born in 1875 to an English woman and a father who married her after coming from Sierra Leone to study medicine in England, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor died of pneumonia only thirty-seven years later in Croydon. Though his life was short, the work he produced is remarkable in quantity, quality, and range. More than eighty works were created, including operatic and choral settings, orchestral pieces, chamber music, piano pieces, and a huge catalogue of songs.
Perhaps his best-known work is the cantata Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, which was premiered at The Royal College of Music in 1898, but as this nearly eighty-minute reissue shows other works reward too. Of course key to the music's impact are the musicians performing it, and the composer benefits from the participation of American performers pianist Virginia Eskin, violinist Michael Ludwig, clarinetist Harold Wright, and the Hawthorne String Quartet. Sadly, Wright passed away three years after the Clarinet Quintet was recorded in 1990 and is thus not able to enjoy seeing the original release receive a second go-round. Eskin appears on all three of the other works, solo but for the Ballad where she partners with Ludwig.
Coleridge-Taylor's material impresses for its sophistication and refinement, but its melodic dimension is also central to its appeal. That quality is present throughout the release, beginning with the four-part Petite Suite de Concert (1910) in a beautiful rendering by Eskin. Things get off to a rousing start with “La Caprice de Nannette,” especially when it alternates between grandiose pronouncements and endearing waltz expressions, before progressing to the swooning “Demande et Réponse,” lyrical “Un Sonnet d'Amour,” and impish “La Tarantelle Fretillante.” Up next is the thirteen-minute Ballad in D minor (1895), written when the composer was twenty and a student at the Royal College of Music and essayed splendidly by Ludwig and Eskin, the violinist suitably rapturous and pianist sympathetically supportive. The latter again excels in her handling of Spirituals for Piano, which presents six pieces from a set of twenty-four that appeared in 1905 as his op. 59 and were inspired by three visits to the United States. The songs appeal immediately for their strong folk melodies and salon-like charm, none more so than “Deep River” for its gentle yearning, “Run, Mary, Run” for its dramatic embroidery, and “Sometimes I feel like a Motherless Child” for its solemn dignity.
When the Royal College of Music's Sir Charles Villiers Stanford challenged his students to write a chamber work that did not reflect a Brahms influence, the twenty-year-old Coleridge-Taylor, who had studied with the teacher as a composition student for five years, created the Clarinet Quintet in A, which received Stanford's hearty approbation. The longest movement at twelve minutes, the opening “Allegro energico” lunges from the gate with a thrusting figure and blossoms from there. In spite of the work's billing as a clarinet showcase, the movement presents Wright and the Hawthorne String Quartet as equally integral, the latter as pivotal to the music's development as the woodwind. It's the “Larghetto affetuoso” movement, however, that impresses most, in this case for the plaintive beauty of its folk song-like character and the feeling of tenderness conveyed so resonantly by the musicians. The singing “Scherzo” is exuberant, naturally, while the “Finale,” exuding allure and tinged surprisingly with a hint of Scottish flavour, is a tad slower and keenly romantic. At thirty-six minutes, the quintet almost qualifies as a full album, making the Alto release a more than generous proposition when its primary work is coupled with three others.January 2023