[Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) is profiled at AfriClassical.com, which features a comprehensive Works List and a Bibliography by Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma, www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com. We are collaborating with the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Foundation of the U.K., www.SCTF.org.uk]Dominique-René de Lerma:
As devotés of this web site immediately know. we are heavily indebted to those whose profession is not music, who have used their skills and passions to provide us with critically important information and resources. We think of Paul Oliver, the international figure on the blues, former head of the School of Architecture at Oxford University. Another of these good souls is D. Richard Greene, professionally affiliated with Temple University's School of Social Administration for the past 20 years. As a sample of his work, see his Classical music recordings of Black composers; a comprehensive guide to recorded works available on compact disc, 1990 to the present ($9.75, Black Composer Discography, c/o Richard Greene, P.O. Box 623, Ardmore, PA 19003).
In his "Overview of Black composers and U. S. symphony orchestra repertoire , 1899-1970 and 2001-2005," Dr Greene has manipulated a large amount of data to uncover lesser known facts, reinforcing some fears we have intuitively shared, but signaling healthy steps toward a good future. (This study was already cited, of course, by William Zick on September 18, 2007).
The survey begins with the 1899 performance by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra of Hiawatha's song (might this be the wedding feast?) by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Nothing more happened until 1902 when his Ballad, op. 33 was played by the same orchestra. Then nothing until 1912, the year after his death, when the Bamboula, op. 75 was heard at concerts in New Orleans, San Francisco, and Seattle, in 1914 by Chicago, and in 1917 by Cincinnati. The second composer to be performed becomes William Dawson, whose Negro folk symphony was in Philadelphia's season in 1934 and Handy's St. Louis blues (1936). Although Rochester is one of the 52 American orchestras included in the survey, somehow William Grant Still's Afro-American symphony (1931) was missed, and is cited only seven times.
What composer has been most often heard during the years surveyed? Now it is Still with 40 performances, with Coleridge-Taylor second (26), followed by Adolphus Hailstork (22), Duke Ellington (16), George Walker (16), Hannibal Lokumbe and Ulysses Kay (13), and Michael Abels (12). If an orchestra is to be honored for the largest number of performances, it would be Detroit, with 28 and the young Chicago Sinfonietta second with 17 -- many of these due to the repertoire selected by Paul Freeman, in both cases.
There would doubtless be new names and many repeats where this survey conducted on data since 2005. It is somewhat of a surprise not to see Saint-Georges even mentioned, and I wonder if that music introduced on Columbia's 9-LP set. The Black composers series, offered the impetus we had hoped back in the 1970s -- forty years ago!
Not Dr. Greene's fault, but there is that miserable practice of ignoring any person when attributing spiritual settings to "traditional." He does include these, although only titles were available.
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Dominique-René de Lerma
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