Stream of Creation: The World of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

Erika Rollins

What is inspiration? And what exactly sparks it? According to Oxford Language via Lexico, inspiration is “the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative” (“Inspiration | Definition of Inspiration by Lexico” 2019). As individuals, we are all brought up on various schools of thought. As we ripen in age, we acquire a vast amount of information, art forms, and techniques. After we consume this knowledge we slowly but surely expand our minds by applying our education to our own creations and form our ideas or interpretations of the information. Inspiration is an inventive tool to which we can attribute all our pioneering ideas. Where there is a novel idea, there is a spark of inspiration.

Socioeconomic factors play a big role in our art, our intentions, and our legacy. Things like social class, racial background, and levels of education can determine your future. This claim stems from the fact that art is a personal career that is heavily influenced by your unique experiences and how well the world receives you. In this blog, I will delineate the lifework of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and how his innovative works came to be. I chose this Black composer in homage to starting this blog project in Black History Month. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor had a checkered experience as a musician due to his economic status and also due to his mixed descent. Coleridge-Taylor’s journey was one of maneuvering within the confines of society, learning about himself, and being an advocate for himself as well as others.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (named after the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge) was an Anglo-Black English composer. Coleridge-Taylor was born on August 15, 1875, in Holborn, England to Sierra Leonean Dr. Daniel Hughes Taylor and presumed mother English woman Alice Martin. Dr. Taylor was believed to have left Coleridge-Taylor with his mother sometime around his birth to continue his doctoral career in West Africa. Coleridge-Taylor was raised by the maternal European side of his family, which happened to be very musical. His mother’s relatives included several music instructors who were believed to have influenced his musical pursuits (Goodall & Stock 2005).

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, circa 1905. Prints and Photographs Reading Room, Library of Congress.

Coleridge-Taylor as a boy, circa 1888.

Royal College of Music.

At the age of 5, Coleridge-Taylor began to play the violin and joined the local choir of the St. George’s Presbyterian Church in Croydon. He was seen playing the violin by a neighbor who remarked that it was time to give the young boy formal lessons (Goodall & Stock 2005). Colonel Herbert Walters supervised him. Walters believed in his talents and acted as his sponsor. Later on, Walters aided in his admittance into the Royal College of Music when Coleridge-Taylor faced adversity about his race. In 1890, at the age of 15, Coleridge-Taylor entered the college as a performing violinist. After a time he showed a great affinity for composition and switched his sights to composing full time. He studied under knighted Sir Charles Villers Stanford, and it was stated that Coleridge-Taylor was one of his favorite pupils (Goodall & Stock 2005). During Coleridge-Taylor’s five-year stint as a student at the Royal College of Music, he published several anthems and he built up a grand reputation for his works as a student. While his work had a high reputation, some found fault in his character due to the fact that Coleridge-Taylor was especially shy. It was noted once that Coleridge-Taylor was too shy to accept a curtain call at the Public Hall in Croydon. Yet some still sung his praises in 1893. When he won a composition award he was described as “A plucky, persevering, and painstaking young Croydon musician” (The Croydon Advertiser, 1893, quoted in Goodall & Stock 2005). By 1896 Coleridge-Taylor was vending his short parlor or salon music (Goodall & Stock 2005). It has been suggested that Coleridge-Taylor was a huge admirer of the Czech composer Dvorak’s works. In Coleridge-Taylor’s early days some speculated that his violin concertos sounded like they could’ve been written by Dvorak. For example, compare Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto in G minor, Op. 80 with Antonin Dvorak’s Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 53. (BBC/classical.net).

It became evident that Coleridge-Taylor began to worry about representing his African heritage in his life and works after he made acquaintance with the poet Paul Dunbar in 1896 in England during Dunbar’s reading tour (“Great Lives - Series 8 - Samuel Coleridge-Taylor - BBC Sounds,” n.d. 9:48 & Jaji 2013). The two would often collaborate on pieces, which allowed Coleridge-Taylor to broaden his horizons in the realm of his African heritage. The pair held several joint recitals that showcased works like their Dream Lovers operetta and the African Romances song cycle. Also around this time, Coleridge-Taylor received an introduction to Black American culture through the Fisk University Jubilee Singers and their manager Fredrick Loudin on one of their concert touring trips through London. Coleridge-Taylor himself stated upon his friend’s passing that it was “The deeply lamented Fredrick J. Loudin, manager of the famous Jubilee singers, through who I first learned to appreciate the beautiful foot music of my race and who did so much to make it known the world over” (12:06 BBC).

By 1897 Coleridge-Taylor had acquired some accomplished admirers. He regularly visited German composer August Johannes Jaeger, and on at least one of these visitations, he brought a fellow Royal College piano student, Jessie Fleetwood Walmisley, who would later be his wife. During that year, Jaeger wrote to Sir Edward William Elgar about Coleridge-Taylor:

“The young n**** he is only 21. That boy will do great things. I have before me a morning and evening church service which I consider splendidly fresh and original. He is a genius. I feel sure if ever an English composer was. His mother is English and his father a full-blooded n****. Have you seen his seven African romances? They are strange and yet beautiful when one gets used to his peculiarities or originality. Do get them. A word of appreciation from you would give him courage” (Goodall 2005, 7:33 to 8:10).

This letter is quite a shocking read for the modern reader. Even the BBC music scholar Francine Stock stated, “...quite hard to listen to that today isn’t it? That sort of casual racism” (Goodall & Stock, 2005). This equivocal letter, while tainted with imprecation and casual racial bigotry, may have afforded Coleridge-Taylor one of his big breaks. In the same year, Sir Edward William Elgar was too busy to write a piece for the three choirs festival in Gloucester and he suggested Coleridge-Taylor instead. This public platform launched Coleridge-Taylor’s piece Ballade in A minor for orchestra. Elgar had a lot of prominence in the Victorian era, so the fact that he believed in Coleridge-Taylor and his talent enough to recommend him spoke volumes to the music community. It is quite hard to place the content of the letter from Jaeger and the recommendation from Elgar as praise for Coleridge-Taylor due to the entendre-laced verbiage. Goodall claims, "I think one of the things that keeps coming up with this story of his life is that there are many things that were an obstacle to him because he was black in a white world but one of the odd things about his story is that in musical terms, actually there weren't as many obstacles as you might imagine there might be and in fact, most of the musical lumineers around that time we were supportive to him and helpful to him” (Goodall & Stock, 2005).

This is a perplexing situation that deserves more conversation. In Coleridge-Taylor’s heyday, the budding composer gained enough recognition to turn the heads of famed colleagues Jaeger and Elgar. While these decorated composers became proponents of Coleridge-Taylor, it seems that they were passively applauding Coleridge-Taylor for creating such marvelous music despite his African descent. While this passive prejudice is expected of the era, it shows how deep racial bias affected his career. Coleridge-Taylor was met with occupational microaggressions that implicitly and backhandedly praised him for overcoming his believed inferiorities that came from being a person of African descent.

The quoted letter that Jaeger sent to Elgar about Coleridge-Taylor was quite insightful to the social climate of the time. It is disheartening to note that the BBC podcast discussing the letter over 100 years later seemed to forgive the racist content in light of the supposed good deeds done by Jaeger and Elgar. The good deeds could fall into the category of selfish altruism, which is described as helping others in order to make oneself feel good (Carey 2020 & Exton 2018). The sheer lack of respect Jaeger and Elgar had for Coleridge-Taylor and his lineage eclipses any of their supposed good deeds after. The acclaim Jaeger and Elgar had formerly esteemed Coleridge-Taylor was short-lived. After Coleridge-Taylor concluded the sequels to Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast Elgar wrote to Jaeger in 1900: “I think you are right about C. Taylor- I was cruelly disillusioned by the overture to Hiawatha which I think really only ‘rot’.” (Green, 2011)

In 1898, Coleridge-Taylor wrote Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, the first choral cantata of the trilogy The Song of Hiawatha. The words came from the poem The Song Of Hiawatha written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1855. This work was first performed in England at the Royal Albert Hall in 1900. This piece showed the newfound spirit of activism and advocacy. The words of the poem brought awareness of the struggles of the Native North Americans. This piece thrust Coleridge-Taylor into the public eye and launched his career as a composer internationally, and it was immediately considered a favorite amongst choruses. The first American performance of this work was in March of 1900 by the Cecilia Society. William Tortolano, author of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Anglo-Black Composer states, “Coleridge-Taylor was innately shy about, and even contemptuous of publicity and attention. When the finished work was first performed to a wildly enthusiastic audience at the Royal College...it was necessary for Stanford...to leave the stage and seek out the composer...Every London paper devoted considerable space to this unusual work, and without exception acclaimed it as an artistic masterpiece" (Thomas n.d). Coleridge-Taylor sold the rights for the piece for only 15 guineas, and "although hundreds of thousands of copies were sold in subsequent years, the 15 guineas remained the composer's total income for his masterpiece, as he sold the copyright for the first printing and performance” (Thomas n.d. & Goodall & Stock 2005). It is truly a shame that such a revered lionized piece only afforded its creator 15 guineas, which is the equivalent of $78.75 for the piece’s full cycle. This piece was described as a cross between Puccini and Arthur Sullivan stylistically. It is claimed that if Coleridge-Taylor had made the piece in Italian then the piece would have stayed in the mainstream classical realm a lot longer than it did (Goodall & Stock 2005). Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast is still considered Coleridge-Taylor’s most renowned piece.

Linked Video: Sir Malcolm Sargent conducting the Royal Choral Society, Richard Lewis (tenor), and the Philharmonia Orchestra

0:00 I. You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis

6:57 II. Then the handsome Pau-Puk-Keewis

8:57 III. He was dress’d in shirt of doe-skin

11:19 IV. First he danc’d a solemn measure

14:42 V. Then said they to Chibiabos

17:36 VI. Onaway! Awake, beloved!

23:15 VII. Thus the gentle Chibiabos

24:29 VIII. Very boastful was Iagoo

30:05 IX. Such was Hiawatha’s Wedding

In 1899, during the heights of his fame, Coleridge-Taylor married Jessie Sarah Fleetwood Walmisley. Walmisley was the niece of the famed musician and composer Thomas Attwood Walmisley. Jessie and Samuel had known each other since 1893, often meeting at one of the many musical soirees hosted by her parents. Their shared love of music and educational common ground brought the two together. The union initially brought up some tensions between Coleridge-Taylor and Walmisley’s family because Jessie was a white woman of European descent and the Walmisleys didn’t want their daughter affiliated with the ‘Blackie’ who was raised in a single-parent house of a lower class. Jessie’s family only yielded when the fruits of Coleridge-Taylor’s musical labor proved to be advantageous (Perdota, 2005).

Left: Coleridge-Taylor with Walmisley and their children, Hiawatha and Avril. Royal College of Music.

Near Left: Avril Coleridge-Taylor in "The Death of Minnehana," photograph by Claude Harr. Royal College of Music.

Far Left: Hiawatha Coleridge-Taylor, photograph by Eichri Handford. Royal College of Music.

In 1900 Coleridge-Taylor took part in orchestrating the first Pan-African Conference in London. This conference was a hub for black intellectuals and creatives that poured in from all over the world. This was where another collaborative piece by Coleridge-Taylor and Dunbar called "A Corn Song" was performed and well received (Jaji 2013). Coleridge-Taylor still resided in Croydon when he and his wife bore their children, Hiawatha (in 1900) and Gwendolyn (in 1903), who later renamed herself Avril after her middle name.

Coleridge-Taylor would have financially benefited greatly from modern-day copyright laws and royalties, as he and his family were not able to live off of his royalty payments. Coleridge-Taylor, being a highly versed individual in many regards, kept himself quite busy to support his family. He taught private lessons, adjudicated at festivals, directed various choirs, freelance composed, and was a professor of composition at the Trinity College of Music, director of Rochester choral society, and the conductor of the Handel Society, all before the age of 30 (Goodall & Stock 2005 & Simkin 1997). One of his pupils of note was Clarence Cameron White. Both he and Coleridge-Taylor were mentioned in the Washington Herald, affirming Coleridge-Taylor's connection to him and the prominence that his name held in the United States at that time. (The Washington Herald, 1919, 4).

Coleridge-Taylor was considered the pioneer of African-American folk music, and he gained such a following that he had several honor societies dedicated to him, including some in the United States (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica et al. 1999). He composed a collection of negro spirituals for piano: Twenty-Four Negro Melodies. Coleridge-Taylor himself stated, "What Brahms has done for the Hungarian folk music, Dvorak for the Bohemian, and Grieg for the Norwegian, I have tried to do for these Negro Melodies" (Simkin 1997). In 1904, Coleridge-Taylor traveled to the United States to give the first of three tours with the Washington D.C. branch of his honor society’s all-black choir (Kentake 2015). During that tour, he was invited to the White House by then-President Theodore Roosevelt. This successful tour to the U.S. begot two additional tours in 1906 and 1910 (Carr, 2005).

While Coleridge-Taylor was allowed to experience a little bit of the advantages of being a notable composer, he still experienced racial slights in his daily life. An article by the British Library imparts some knowledge of Coleridge-Taylor's plights, even including accounts by Coleridge-Taylor’s daughter:

But Coleridge-Taylor's success and fame did not exempt him from racial harassment. Most painful was the fact that his wife Jessie was also a target of abuse. His daughter records his response to the groups of local youths who would repeatedly shower him with insulting comments about the colour of his skin: “When he saw them approaching along the street he held my hand more tightly, gripping it until it almost hurt” (British Library 2005).

While Samuel Coleridge-Taylor thrived in some circles, he wasn’t given the same treatment as his full European descendant counterparts. The international accolades Coleridge-Taylor received did not keep him from the prejudice and fear that society had prepared for him on the streets of Croydon since he was young. Coleridge-Taylor made the best of his off-putting circumstances and was able to use them as fuel towards his creations. He made a new musical identity for himself, which promoted the uplift of Afrocentric music. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor met his end on September 1, 1912, in his hometown of Croydon. He died of pneumonia, at a time before antibiotics were regularly available. His children upheld his legacy by both becoming musicians in their own right (Simkin 1997). Coleridge-Taylor was a powerful progressive presence of the time. His music legacy still lives on in the hearts and minds of those who knew him.

Works Cited

Carey, Timothy. 2020. “The Selfishness of Altruism.” Psychology Today. January 3, 2020. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-control/202001/the-selfishness-altruism#:~:text=Understanding%20the%20selfishness%20of%20everything.

Carr, Catherine. 2005. “The Music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912): A Critical and Analytical Study.” Doctoral Thesis, Durham University.

Exton, Jessica. 2018. “Selfish Altruism: A Win-Win?” The Decision Lab. March 8, 2018. https://thedecisionlab.com/insights/finance/selfish-altruism-win-win/#:~:text=Studies%20suggest%20that%20pure%20altruism.

Green, Jeffrey P. 2011. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a Musical Life. 1st ed. : Pickering & Chatto.

‌Goodall, Howard, and Francine Stock. 2005. “Great Lives: Series 8: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.” Podcast. British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). http://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b0076v8f.

“Inspiration | Definition of Inspiration by Lexico.” 2019. Lexico Dictionaries | English. Oxford University Press. 2019. https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/inspiration.

Jaeger, August. Letter to Sir Edward Willam Elgar, 1897. In “Great Lives - Series 8 - Samuel Coleridge-Taylor - BBC Sounds,” edited by Howard Goodall. BBC News: BBC, 2005 (accessed February 20, 2021) (7:33 to 8:10) http://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b0076v8f.

Jaji, Tsitsi. 2013. “Art Song Poetics: Performing Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Setting of Paul L. Dunbar’s ‘a Corn Song.’” J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists 1 (1): 201–6.

Kentake, Meserette. 2015. Review of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Black British Composer and Political Activist. Kentake Page. Meserette Kentake. August 15, 2015. https://kentakepage.com/samuel-coleridge-taylor-black-british-composer-and-political-activist/.

“Origin of Musical Blues.”The Washington Herald. December 3, 1919. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83045433/1919-12-03/ed-1/?sp=4&q=samuel+coleridge+taylor&r=0.299.

Phillips, Mike. 2005. “Coleridge-Taylor in Private.” www.bl.uk. The British Library Board. October 19, 2005. https://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/blackeuro/coleridgeprivate.html.

Predota, Georg. 2020. “Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Jessie Sarah Fleetwood Walmisley: A Musical Marriage.” Interlude. August 15, 2020. https://interlude.hk/samuel-coleridge-taylor-and-jessie-sarah-fleetwood-walmisley-nobody-knows-the-trouble-ive-seen/.

Simkin, John. 1997. “Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.” Spartacus Educational. September 1997. https://spartacus-educational.com/SLAcoleridge.htm.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Yamini Chauhan, Emily Rodriguez, and Grace Young. 1999. Review of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Edited by Amy Tikkanen. May 27, 1999. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samuel-Coleridge-Taylor.

Thomas, William Ethaniel. n.d. “Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.” www.cambridgechorus.org. Accessed March 29, 2021. http://www.cambridgechorus.org/works/HWF.html.

Tuttle, Raymond. 2004. “Classical Net Review - Coleridge-Taylor/Dvořák - Violin Concertos.” Classical Net. 2004. http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/a/avi00044a.php.

Erika Rollins

Erika Rollins (class of ‘22) is a native Marylander and graduated from the Jim Henson Visual and Performing Arts program at Northwestern High School. At UMBC, Rollins was a Linehan Scholar studying Vocal Performance. As an active member of the UMBC artistic community, she served as the Treasurer for UMBC’s Retriever Poets and Administrative Assistant for the Association of Black Artist. She completed a vocal pedagogy research project to further her vocal techniques, teaching mastery, as well as vocal preservation tactics.

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