British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor is famous for rich orchestral works and brilliant instrumental writing. Here’s where to start with his music.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was an English composer and conductor, known for his Violin Concerto in G minor, The Song of Hiawatha and his arrangement of African-American spiritual, ‘Deep River’.
A contemporary of British composers Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Gustav Holst, he studied with Charles Villiers Stanford at the Royal College of Music in London. He first gained recognition for his ‘Ballade in A Minor’, after Edward Elgar recommended him to The Three Choirs Festival, prompting publisher August Jaeger to describe the music as “genius”.
Despite a tragically early death in 1912, aged just 37, Coleridge-Taylor composed plenty of brilliant music that remains with us today.
Here’s where to start with discovering Coleridge-Taylor’s rich orchestral music and sensational instrumental works.
One of Coleridge-Taylor’s most famous works, The Song of Hiawatha is a three-section choral work of epic proportions.
Of the three sections, the first, ‘Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast’, became especially famous, and put Coleridge-Taylor on the map after its premiere at the Royal College of Music, under the baton of his teacher, Charles Villiers Stanford.
Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto in G minor is packed with gorgeous rich melodies and sumptuous orchestral writing.
Violinist Elena Urioste, who has performed the piece with Chineke! Orchestra among others, has described it here as “music that cuts straight to the heart” and “that happens to be incredibly well-written for the violin — the idioms fall quite naturally in the hands — and to me the language needs very little in the way of gilding.”
Coleridge-Taylor composed his Symphonic Variations on an African Air in 1906. It’s based on an African-American song, ‘I'm troubled in mind’ and follows a theme and variations structure.
It’s written for a large orchestra and is rich with timpani rumbles, wonderful brass writing, string flourishes and magical tuneful melodies.
‘Deep River’ is an anonymous African-American spiritual, and Coleridge-Taylor took the song, and transcribed it in a Brahmsian style for the piano, as part of his 24 Negro Melodies series of works.
“What Brahms has done for the Hungarian folk music, Dvořák for the Bohemian, and Grieg for the Norwegian, I have tried to do for these Negro Melodies,” Coleridge-Taylor powerful music.
One of Coleridge-Taylor’s early works, the Ballade in A Minor was premiered at The Three Choirs Festival and led his publisher at Novello Music, August Jaeger, to describe him as a “genius”.
The one-movement orchestral piece echoes the symphonic styles of Tchaikovsky and Dvořák, and it’s full of ravishing melodies and lush string moments.
As well as orchestral works, Coleridge-Taylor composed chamber works – and his Clarinet Quintet is , but with the the former’s distinctive modern voice.
The masterful piece, the story goes, was the result of Coleridge-Taylor’s teacher, Stanford, saying that no composer was up to tackling the clarinet quintet since Brahms, without copying Brahms’ style. Well, Coleridge-Taylor was, because he went “challenge accepted” and Stanford was forced to say, “you’ve done it, me boy!”
Another chamber work, the Nonet in F minor joins the voices of a string quartet with a selection of brass-winds – that is the oboe, the clarinet, the horn, the bassoon and the piano.
It’s only the second of Coleridge-Taylor’s officially chronologically catalogued works, or works with an ‘opus number’, and it’s built around modern, syncopated rhythms that accompany soaring, tuneful melodies.
Coleridge-Taylor takes traditional Christmas carols and wraps them up in orchestral greatness for this Christmas Overture.
Spot favourite festive tunes from the traditional ‘Good King Wenceslas’, ‘God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen’ and ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’, among others.
Sea Drift is an a cappella choir piece from 1908 in which Coleridge-Taylor sets an evocative poem by American writer and poet Thomas Bailey Aldrich.
“See where she stands, on the wet sea-sands / Looking across the water: Wild is the night, but wilder still / The face of the fisher’s daughter…”
Composed a year later, in 1909, Coleridge-Taylor’s Othello Suite was commissioned by Herbert Beerbohm Tree for his production of the Shakespeare play of the same name at His Majesty’s Theatre in London’s West End.
The incidental music is rich with haunting melodies, racing dances and a lilting ‘Children’s Intermezzo’ that evokes calm and innocence.
7 December 2022, 09:44 | Updated: 7 December 2022, 12:27
Christmas is upon us, which means it’s time to rediscover all those favourite festive pieces of music.
Find out how classical music does Christmas, from traditional carols to obscure gems you may not yet have heard...
The Nutcracker is something of a Christmas tradition. The festive tale of a toy soldier that comes to life has endured over the years and been subject to some radical retellings. But it’s ’s music at the centre that makes the beloved ballet that little bit more special.
Read more:
Taken from his Lieutenant Kijé, ’s festive sleigh-ride of a piece is not only a mainstay in Christmas concerts around the world, but on hit radio stations too. English musician, Greg Lake, samples the Russian composer’s melody in his 1975 Christmas song, ‘I Believe in Father Christmas’.
Read more:
Written in 1927, Victor Hely-Hutchinson’s festive shindig of a piece takes the listener on a tour of some of the best-loved Christmas carols including ‘’, ‘’ and ‘The First Noël’.
Berlioz wrote the oratorio L’Enfance du Christ from 1854. It’s a huge work, which took four years to compose, and depicts not just the childhood of Christ but also Herod’s mass murder of infants in Judea, which led to the fleeing of Mary, Joseph and Jesus. The best-known section, ‘The Shepherds’ Farewell’, is a glorious blend of warm woodwind sounds, sublime choral harmonies and sensitive orchestral accompaniment.
While not one of Elgar’s best-known works, this delicate little Christmas song showcases his pastoral roots. Descriptions of the English countryside and calls of ‘Noël!’ make this an underrated festive gem.
Coleridge-Taylor brings together a conglomeration of Christmas melodies and carols in his Christmas Overture. But this work is so much more than just an arrangement of well-known classics for orchestra, as the composer’s cleverly placed integrations show.
It is thought the piece was composed by Coleridge-Taylor for the children’s play, The Forest of Wild Thyme. The work was published posthumously in 1925, 13 years after the composer’s death, age just 37.
Czech composer, Vítězslava Kaprálová, wrote the orchestral miniature, Christmas Prelude for Chamber Orchestra, in 1939 for a Christmas program on the Paris PTT Radio. The unusual timbre of the work sets this short orchestral excursion apart from other festive favourites in this list, with the role of the harp beside the chamber orchestra and piano bringing a new colour to the work.
Written in 1930, this beautiful work by Florence Price for chorus and piano opens with the evocative lyric, ‘The earth is lighter than the sky’. The song’s text comes from a poem of the same name by American author, Elizabeth Coatsworth.
Price’s vocal lines emulate falling snowflakes with an overarching descending melody, and a delicate piano accompaniment. Soft staccato homophony later evokes an icy landscape, before returning to the sweet, laid-back melody.
Leopold Mozart’s Sleigh Ride takes the listener on a quaint though brief trot through a snowy forest on the back of a horse-drawn sleigh. Complete with an almost continuous drone of sleigh bells, ‘Schlittenfahrt’ was written by Leopold shortly before the birth of his son, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Alongside the festive percussion instrument, the score also calls for a rattle, a whip, and triangle among the orchestra.
The younger Mozart would quote from his father’s festive work in his own ‘3 German Dances’ a few decades later.
This Christmas choral staple is one of Britten’s best-known works. Scored for three-part treble chorus, solo voices and harp, the piece is based on medieval carols.
The work was originally scored for and first performed by the women of the Fleet Street Choir, but Britten quickly decided that the sound of boys’ treble voices were better at reflecting the child-like innocence he wanted to achieve through his setting.
The second Sleigh Ride on our list was written two centuries after Leopold Mozart’s work, but contains just as many sleigh bell passages. Leroy Anderson’s Sleigh Ride, written in 1948, is a light orchestral standard, and was famously written during a heatwave in July.
Like the Mozart work, Anderson employs another unusual instrument in his orchestration – this time, the use of woodblocks to create a horse-like ‘clip-clop’. Towards the end of the piece, a trumpeter is also instructed to make the sound of a horse whinnying using the brass instrument.
Read more:
The pastoral strains of ’s Christmas Concerto have been a festive mainstay since the work’s publication in 1714. Published as Concerto grosso in G minor, Op. 6, No. 8, the work was published posthumously and gained its Christmas name due to an inscription on the title page reading, ‘Fatto per la notte di Natale (made for the night of Christmas)’.
Corelli uses folk-like tunes, and sounds evoking bagpipes to conjure images of the biblical shepherds attending the manger at the birth of Jesus.
Written in 1734, J.S. Bach’s popular Christmas work is one of the choral masterpieces of the Baroque era. The Christmas Oratorio was written in six parts, for performance on one of the major feast days during the period between Christmas Day and Epiphany.
Despite this, Bach clearly envisaged the work being heard as one united whole, and the full oratorio can be heard in churches across the world over the festive season.
This English-language oratorio by Handel may have been composed for and first performed during Eastertide, but the choral work is a mainstay in Christmas concerts around the world.
Handel confidently announces the birth of Christ with a radiant section of his Messiah that quotes St Luke’s gospel, ‘For Unto Us A Child Is Born’, and the famed ‘Hallelujah’ Chorus, despite being written to proclaim Christ’s Resurrection, is often associated with the Christmas season.
Saint-Saëns wrote this oratorio in just one fortnight, submitting the work just 10 days before its premiere performance in 1858. Scored for soloists, chorus, organ, strings and harp, the composer was highly influenced by music from traditional Christmas church liturgies.
The cantata-like work is divided into 10 movements; first a prelude, followed by nine vocal pieces.
This sweeping orchestral suite was inspired by Rimsky-Korsakov’s four-act opera, Christmas Eve, written between 1894-95. In turn, his Christmas opera is based on an 1832 story by Russian Novelist, Nikolai Gogol, of the same name.
The magical story takes place in the snowy setting of Dikanka, Ukraine, and characters include the devil, witches, wizards, and spirits of both good and evil nature.
Written in 2009, Welsh composer Sir Karl Jenkins’ 12-movement work explores the various themes of Christmastide. Stella Natalis, which translates to ‘star of birth’ or ‘star of origin’, draws inspiration from Bible Psalms, but also Zulu texts, and Hindu gods.
While not strictly a Christmas work, Vivaldi’s fourth season, Winter, is a masterclass in depicting scenery through music. The Italian composer’s writing for violin and orchestra evokes visions of icy surroundings and bitter winds, particularly in the fast and frenzied high-pitched plucking from the strings.
Like Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky also wrote a work dedicated to the Earth’s seasons. However, unlike Vivaldi’s four, Tchaikovsky wrote twelve movements, one for each of the months of the year. His twelfth movement was his Christmas Waltz, which is often performed on its own.
This dainty work for solo piano has metamorphosed into various orchestral arrangements since its publication, like the one below, and can be heard in concert halls around the world at Christmas time.
Liszt’s Christmas Tree Suite (Weihnachtsbaum) is made up of 12 pieces for solo piano and is dedicated to his first grandchild, Daniela von Bülow. The suite includes pieces called ‘O Holy Night’, ‘Adeste Fideles’, and ‘Evening Bells’ (Abendglocken).
The work received its premiere on Christmas Day 1881 in Daniela’s hotel room in Rome, where she was staying with her grandfather. Perhaps a Christmas gift, it is regardless an appropriate date for a first performance of this ‘Weihnachts’ work.
