Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

Scenes from the Song of Hiawatha op. 30

Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast
(score n. 673)
The Death of Minnehaha
(score n 674)
Hiawatha’s Departure
(score n 675)

On 11 November 1898, a large crowd gathered at the Royal College of Music in London for the first performance of a new work for chorus and orchestra. The occasion had not been publicised widely but rumour had spread that something unusual was to happen, so that the eventual crowd was too large for the hall – a temporary building known as the “tin tabernacle”, for the Royal College was still under construction – and many people were shut out of the performance. Among those who did find a seat, however, was Sir Arthur Sullivan.

The new work was Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, by the 23-year-old Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and within very few years it rivalled Mendelssohn’s Elijah as the second most often performed work among Britain’s many choral societies (Messiah is, and remains to this day, the first)….

Read full preface / Komplettes Vorwort lesen > HERE