SCO Coleridge-Taylor Violin Concerto Queen's Hall Edinburgh 24th October 2024 Review
SCO Coleridge-Taylor Violin Concerto at the Queen’s Hall Edinburgh this afternoon was a chance to both enjoy one of the concerts in this season’s 2pm time-slots and also, today, to hear some music that for many reasons has been overlooked a little by many people. Why this happens to music is often no more than the fickle passing fashions of the day but what is of merit always survives as a new generation of musicians and audiences re-discover works.
The opening work in this afternoon’s programme, DVOŘÁK “Romance”(1877) has perhaps been overlooked a little for two reasons; it is a re-working (well an expansion of musical themes and ideas to be more accurate) of an earlier work, admittedly written before the composer became better known to the public, and also it has a relatively short performance time of around 12 minutes.
In music though, 12 minutes can be a very long time and today Anthony Marwood, Director/Violin and the SCO obviously found much to explore in the changing melodic structures and moods which DVOŘÁK imbued this work with. “Romance”, despite its short performance time, is clearly the work of a composer who was at a point of musical maturity in his composing.
By contrast, the final work this afternoon, SCHUBERT “Symphony No 2” (1814/15) was written when the composer was only 17/18 years old. Over the years, some have seen this work almost as a student work, and in some aspects they are perhaps correct. Yes, here is the young composer working with the musical language of Beethoven and Haydn, but there is also something extra here, a taste if you will of what was to come in later years from this remarkable composer. With its slow introduction and changing pace across four movements, Schubert is clearly testing himself here and at times this has aspects more of a tone poem than a full symphony.
In between both of these works was this afternoon’s title work, COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Violin Concerto. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (named after the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge) was born in London in 1875 to an English mother and a Sierra Leonean father. His musical gifts were obvious at an early age and many people considered him to be a genius of his time. In his all too short a life time (he died in 1912 aged 37 years old), many people, including the composer Elgar, were champions of his work. Logically there should be no reason for such a bright and well known musical star in his lifetime to have fallen into almost scholarly obscurity only for his work to be revived in the past few decades. The fact that Samuel Coleridge-Taylor achieved much of his fame in America makes his obscurity for so long even more difficult to reason why.
This work was written for the famous American violinist Maud Powell and is his only violin concerto. Coleridge-Taylor was never afraid of championing his African heritage and there are themes here that hint at African-American spirituals. Clearly though, this is a work over three movements that matches in musical construction and creativity that energy that the early years of the 20th century (it was written in 1912) seemed to possess, a time where composers where often paying their respects to the greats that had gone before them whilst also creating new musical sounds and ideas.
The interesting thing for me about this work is that it still sounds new and fresh. The passing of over 100 years may have obscured for too long the name of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, but his work is timeless, and with Anthony Marwood and other people championing his work in recent years, it is past time for this composer’s work to be restored to its rightful place in performance schedules across the world.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
The opening work in this afternoon’s programme, DVOŘÁK “Romance”(1877) has perhaps been overlooked a little for two reasons; it is a re-working (well an expansion of musical themes and ideas to be more accurate) of an earlier work, admittedly written before the composer became better known to the public, and also it has a relatively short performance time of around 12 minutes.
In music though, 12 minutes can be a very long time and today Anthony Marwood, Director/Violin and the SCO obviously found much to explore in the changing melodic structures and moods which DVOŘÁK imbued this work with. “Romance”, despite its short performance time, is clearly the work of a composer who was at a point of musical maturity in his composing.
By contrast, the final work this afternoon, SCHUBERT “Symphony No 2” (1814/15) was written when the composer was only 17/18 years old. Over the years, some have seen this work almost as a student work, and in some aspects they are perhaps correct. Yes, here is the young composer working with the musical language of Beethoven and Haydn, but there is also something extra here, a taste if you will of what was to come in later years from this remarkable composer. With its slow introduction and changing pace across four movements, Schubert is clearly testing himself here and at times this has aspects more of a tone poem than a full symphony.
In between both of these works was this afternoon’s title work, COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Violin Concerto. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (named after the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge) was born in London in 1875 to an English mother and a Sierra Leonean father. His musical gifts were obvious at an early age and many people considered him to be a genius of his time. In his all too short a life time (he died in 1912 aged 37 years old), many people, including the composer Elgar, were champions of his work. Logically there should be no reason for such a bright and well known musical star in his lifetime to have fallen into almost scholarly obscurity only for his work to be revived in the past few decades. The fact that Samuel Coleridge-Taylor achieved much of his fame in America makes his obscurity for so long even more difficult to reason why.
This work was written for the famous American violinist Maud Powell and is his only violin concerto. Coleridge-Taylor was never afraid of championing his African heritage and there are themes here that hint at African-American spirituals. Clearly though, this is a work over three movements that matches in musical construction and creativity that energy that the early years of the 20th century (it was written in 1912) seemed to possess, a time where composers where often paying their respects to the greats that had gone before them whilst also creating new musical sounds and ideas.
The interesting thing for me about this work is that it still sounds new and fresh. The passing of over 100 years may have obscured for too long the name of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, but his work is timeless, and with Anthony Marwood and other people championing his work in recent years, it is past time for this composer’s work to be restored to its rightful place in performance schedules across the world.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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