A Forgotten # 2 Hit Composition

From the premiere in 1898 until the 1950s, it consistently vied with Mendelssohn's Elijah as the second-most popular choral work in England, the land of large amateur choral societies and festivals.  (Messiah, of course, reigned unchallenged in first place!).  Since then, it has dropped so far out of sight that most music lovers today have never heard of it, let alone actually heard the music.  For that matter, how many people today have even heard of the composer, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor?

No, that is not the poet, and no, I did not get the name backwards.  Coleridge-Taylor's father came from a mixed African-European parentage in Sierra Leone, and was living in London when he met Alice Hare Martin.  However, they were not married and Daniel Taylor returned to West Africa without finding out that she had borne him a son.  One of the most remarkable aspects of the story of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor is the way that a man of African descent rose to such high prominence in both Britain and the United States at a time long before the modern Civil Rights movement.  Indeed, he was personally invited to the White House by Theodore Roosevelt, an almost unheard-of honour for an African at that time!

However, during his upbringing in England he studied with major musical figures of the day, particularly Charles Stanford, and was given an early boost by Edward Elgar.  Given his English upbringing, it's hardly surprising that he set out to compose a work for choir and orchestra at the relatively early age of 23.  His choice of text was fashionable, but still unusual for a choral work:  Hiawatha's Wedding Feast from the poem of Henry Longfellow.  Great interest was aroused when copies of the score were on sale even before the premiere on Nov. 11, 1898, and the hall was so packed that hundreds of people had to be turned away.  The success of the work was immediate, and Coleridge-Taylor swiftly followed with two more cantatas, The Death of Minnehaha and Hiawatha's Departure.  All three were frequently performed, but the first one far more than the other two.  Until its popularity declined after World War Two, Hiawatha's Wedding Feast was performed literally thousands of times throughout the English-speaking world, and sales of the vocal score soared into the hundreds of thousands.  

Listening to the work now, I get the distinct impression that it certainly was a breath of fresh air blowing through the cobwebs of the English choral tradition.  Sanctimonious harmonies, stodgy accompaniments and learned academic fugues are swept away.  In their place we hear a profusion of pleasing melody, and orchestral parts of independent distinction (the woodwind lines in many sections are especially lovely).  There's nothing at all revolutionary about the choral writing -- indeed, it seems simple almost to a fault because the very sophistication is itself neatly concealed.  The lightness of texture throughout the work is notable.

The first notes heard from the orchestra outline a motto theme which works throughout the score.  A simple set of four notes -- A up to D, down to the D below, and back to the original A -- just the tonic and dominant formula, played quietly by flutes and trumpets, somewhat like a fanfare to call us to attention.  This same motto reappears in many guises, changing keys and rhythms with the changing course of the work.  It's interesting that Coleridge-Taylor avoids the obvious course of using the same music every time the chorus sings the repeated refrain:

That the feast may be more joyous

And the time may pass more gaily

And the guests be more contented.

Thus, each time we hear these words, the melody, harmony, and orchestration are different!

Most of the work is for the chorus, and the constant varying of vocal and orchestral textures is one of the delights of the score.  But the centrepiece is the soaring, lyrical aria for tenor, Onaway!  Awake, beloved!, which became such a staple of the tenor recital repertoire for half a century.  Here the motto theme is slightly varied.  It now starts on the dominant rather than the tonic:  D-flat up to G-flat, down to the G-flat below, and back to the original D-flat.  How many listeners, I wonder, have clued in to the slight variation?  Even with my musical background and experience, I only caught on today, when I have known the piece for over 40 years!  (Okay, so I'm kind of slow in the uptake sometimes!)  But it's such little subtleties that give the work its true distinction and quality.

In today's harsher, more politically correct world, a work treating of the First Nations culture could never be written in this way!  But then, Coleridge-Taylor never pretended that his work was "authentic" in any sense.  In fact, he was drawn to Longfellow's poem by the euphony of the names.  What you get here is a romantic musician's interpretation of a poem that is itself a highly-romanticized version of First Nations legends.  The very lack of pretension in the music is what makes Hiawatha's Wedding Feast so delightful.

For many years, it was closely identified with the name of British conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent, and he in fact led the EMI recording I have here.  It was recorded in 1961, using the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Choral Society, and tenor soloist Richard Lewis.  I could hardly think of a better voice for that rapturous solo, and the choral singing and orchestral playing are of equal distinction.  The 35-minute cantata is joined on the CD re-release (Classics for Pleasure) by the Petite Suite de Concert and The Bamboula: Rhapsodic Dance.  These were both later works, written not long before the composer died of pneumonia in 1912 -- at the tragically early age of 37.  Both are lively works displaying more of the same melodic sense and virtuoso handling of the orchestra that distinguishes the earlier cantata.