Rediscovering Composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

In Tuesday’s (10/28) New York Times, Eleanor Stanford writes, “A smile flickered across the violinist Braimah Kanneh-Mason’s face as he played the fast, folk-like rhythms of the third movement of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto in G minor, and a beautiful, lyrical melody suddenly re-emerged…. ‘Compared to other British violin concertos,’ Kanneh-Mason said in an interview, ‘it’s certainly unique.’ That could also apply to its composer, who was born 150 years ago and whose legacy the concert, given at Fairfield Halls by the London Mozart Players, aimed to celebrate—and revive. Coleridge-Taylor was a Black British composer, conductor and virtuoso violinist who became a hugely respected figure during his short life by integrating European Romantic style with musical traditions associated with his West African heritage.… But while [other contemporaneous] composers, have continued to take central positions in the Western classical canon, Coleridge-Taylor’s star has dimmed. ‘It’s a story that we see very, very often,’ Kanneh-Mason said, adding, ‘There are biases that people have, and you see that especially in classical music,’ whose most-performed composers are overwhelmingly white.” The article reports on work by composer and conductor Michael Repper and others to recover, perform, and record Coleridge-Taylor’s music. “Repper said he believed the composer deserved to be a household name once again.”