Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Nonet, Piano Trio, Piano Quintet Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

• Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875 - 1912): Nonet, Op. 2 "Gradus ad Parnassum":
• 1 Coleridge-Taylor: Nonet, Op. 2 "Gradus ad Parnassum": I. Allegro moderato 09:14
• 2 Coleridge-Taylor: Nonet, Op. 2 "Gradus ad Parnassum": II. Andante con moto 06:03
• 3 Coleridge-Taylor: Nonet, Op. 2 "Gradus ad Parnassum": III. Scherzo 04:42
• 4 Coleridge-Taylor: Nonet, Op. 2 "Gradus ad Parnassum": IV. Finale 06:22
• Trio:
• 5 Coleridge-Taylor: Trio: I. Moderato 04:43
• 6 Coleridge-Taylor: Trio: II. Scherzo 01:40
• 7 Coleridge-Taylor: Trio: III. Finale 02:31
• Quintet, Op. 1:
• 8 Coleridge-Taylor: Quintet, Op. 1: I. Allegro con moto 10:05
• 9 Coleridge-Taylor: Quintet, Op. 1: II. Larghetto 07:37
• 10 Coleridge-Taylor: Quintet, Op. 1: III. Scherzo 04:52
• 11 Coleridge-Taylor: Quintet, Op. 1: IV. Allegro molto 05:46
• Total Runtime 01:03:35

Info for Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Nonet, Piano Trio, Piano Quintet

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor is best known for his cantata Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, which brought him international success as well as propelling his career at home in the UK – success which was remarkable in stuffy late-Victorian England because of his mixed race and humble origins. Born out of wedlock to Daniel Taylor, a medical student from Sierra Leone, and Alice Holmans, Samuel was brought up by his mother and step-father, George Evans, a railway worker, in Croydon, south London.

The three pieces recorded here were all composed during his time as a student at the Royal College of Music. They were destined to remain unpublished during his lifetime, and indeed for some ninety years following his untimely death from pneumonia at the age of only thirty-seven.

The three chamber works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875 – 1912) recorded here all date from 1893 – 94, and were written during his time as a student at the Royal College of Music (RCM), in London. They were destined to remain unpublished during his lifetime, and indeed for some ninety years following his untimely death from pneumonia at the age of only thirty-seven. Thanks to the efforts of Patrick Meadows, the artistic director of Mallorca’s Deià International Music Festival, performing editions were eventually prepared from the surviving manuscripts – which had remained in the RCM’s archive – in the early 2000s, offering modern performers and audiences the chance for the first time to savour exactly how precocious the creative talents of the teenage Coleridge-Taylor had been before the popularity of his cantata Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast (first performed in 1898) propelled his mature music into the limelight on both sides of the Atlantic.

The international success which Coleridge- Taylor achieved was remarkable not solely because of his self-evident compositional prowess, but also because he was of mixed race and from humble origins. His father, Daniel Taylor, was a medical student from Sierra Leone, who studied at London’s King’s College Hospital and embarked on a relationship with a white woman, Alice Holmans, as a consequence of which Samuel was born (out of wedlock), in Holborn, central London. By this time Taylor had returned to his relatively well-off family in Africa, having in all probability never seen his son. Alice nevertheless adopted the surname Taylor, and (according to Samuel’s granddaughter) added Coleridge to her son’s name as a consequence of her admiration for the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Alice soon afterwards moved with her father and son to the South London borough of Croydon, which Samuel would make his base for the remainder of his life. Alice subsequently married a railway worker, George Evans, and with him had three further children. As Samuel grew up and started to show his considerable musical talents, he found both his step-family and the local environment to be warmly supportive in developing his skills, at first in the shape of violin lessons and singing in local church choirs.

Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective
Tom Poster, artistic director

Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective
is a flexible ensemble of wonderful, joyful, kind, passionate musicians who can’t wait to share chamber music with you.

Like many musicians, we spend a lot of time worrying about the world - about inequality, prejudice, violence, bullying, divisive rhetoric. Chamber music has an extraordinary power to bring people together: it unites musicians as equals, and draws listeners in to its intimate, transportive world.

We love to devise creative and innovative programmes, to curate multi-concert series and residencies, and to showcase great music both familiar and lesser-known. Our diverse and brilliant team hopes also to be able to inspire and educate audiences of all generations in the joys of chamber music, and ultimately to bring a bit of happiness and unity to our currently rather fractured-seeming world.

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