Samuel COLERIDGE-TAYLOR (1879-1912)
Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, Op.30/1 [31.36]
Symphony in A minor, Op.8 [36.23]
Richard Lewis (tenor)
Royal Choral Society, Philharmonia Orchestra/Sir Malcolm Sargent (Hiawatha)
Aarhus Symphony Orchestra/Douglas Bostock (symphony)
rec. No. 1 Studio, Abbey Road, London, 1961 (Hiawatha); Frichsparken, Aarhus, 20-23 September 2005 (symphony)
ALTO ALC1462 [68.10]
This CD combines two recordings from more or less opposite ends of the Coleridge-Taylor spectrum. The 1962 Sargent LP of Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, celebrating a tradition of performance dating back to the 1920s, was the last substantial recording of any of the composer’s music to be issued for many years; the 2006 Bostock CD of the composer’s early symphony formed part of the belated revival of interest in his work, a revival which happily continues to burgeon although many of his major pieces remain unrepresented in the catalogues. We still for example need commercial recordings of his cantatas Meg Blaine and A Tale of Old Japan (despite its unpromising title a most interesting work, as is revealed by a semi-professional online performance which completely contradicts the rather anodyne impression conveyed by the vocal score), let alone several other substantial choral works which remain totally shrouded in mystery.
Be that as it may, Sargent’s reading of Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast remains a mainstay of the Coleridge-Taylor catalogue and has hardly been out of circulation since its original appearance sixty years ago (although earlier recordings of both Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast and its sequel The death of Minnehaha, made on 78s in 1929-30, have only recently resurfaced on YouTube). The stereo remake benefits from the superb singing of the Royal Choral Society in a work that anticipates a large choral body, the excellent and responsive playing of the Philharmonia Orchestra in their prime, and a conductor whose association with the work stretched back to the celebrated balletically staged presentations of the complete Hiawatha trilogy at the Royal Albert Hall in the inter-war years. Add to this EMI stereo of the richest quality, together with the impassioned singing of the brief solo Onaway, awake, beloved! by Richard Lewis, and we have a recording that should always maintain its place in the catalogue. Its only rival comes from the Argo set of the complete trilogy from Welsh National Opera forces under Kenneth Alwyn, with a smaller body of singers who nevertheless enter into the drama with engagement, point and force, and a superlative collection of soloists featuring not only Arthur Davies and Helen Field but also the young Bryn Terfel in the title role. The recording made in Swansea’s Brangwyn Hall is cleaner and clearer than EMI’s stereo of thirty years earlier, and it makes a great deal of difference having the trilogy complete – the cross-fertilisation of themes between the sections, while falling short of Wagnerian techniques, make a real point of passages in the later scores that might otherwise seem unremarkable. The later recording seems to be available in two different reissues: one of them, issued in 1998 and featuring Terfel as the star on the cover, contains only the trilogy, but a second slightly more expensive release from 2002 adds the Symphonic Variations on an African air (it was reviewed enthusiastically for this site by Rob Barnett).
But that is not to deny the real virtues of the Sargent recording, even while we shed a tear for the fact that EMI did not see fit to engage the same forces for a complete Hiawatha. Earlier EMI reissues of the Sargent in 1996 and 2005 have tended to give rather short measure – there was clearly a shortage of suitable material in the company’s vaults to provide couplings – although a reissue on the Heritage label in 2013 added some other vintage recordings. But this Bostock premiére recording of the composer’s student symphony makes a very substantial makeweight, and even though again we have now had the opportunity to encounter the score in later performances a rival recording most surprisingly does not yet appear to emerged on CD. Many of those who first encountered the work at the BBC Proms in 2021 in an excellent performance by the Chineke Orchestra will welcome the opportunity to renew their acquaintance with a score that had lain unperformed for far too long, indeed for over a century.
Much is made of the fact that both Holst and Vaughan Williams, at that
time fellow-students of the composer, played in the performance of the
first three movements given in London in 1896. But both of these were
at the time hardly-known composers taking their first steps in the musical
world, while Coleridge-Taylor was already on the brink of his big breakthrough
a mere two years later. The symphony clearly owes a debt to the composer’s
predecessors and models, Brahms and Dvořák, whose influence in
Britain at that time was at its height; but already there are signs
of his own individual voice beginning to be heard (notably with the
rising phrases at the very beginning, almost anticipating the opening
of Hiawatha). Then, also, the slightly sinister insinuations
in the finale show perhaps why Stanford was suspicious of this tendency
in his pupil’s music, insisting twice on his writing a new movement
before performance. The score of the earlier versions of the finale
has now been published; and if we are to have another recording of the
symphony (may it be soon), it would be interesting to be provided with
the alternatives to choose from. In the meantime, the technically superb
recording currently under review and licensed from Classico –
whose original issue (coupled with Cowen’s Sixth Symphony,
and reviewed
as a “triumph of programming and imagination” for this site
by Jonathan Woolf) is no longer available – gives an excellent
performance which brings out all the joy and ultimate triumph in Coleridge-Taylor’s
writing. For those who wish to explore the music of the composer, a
growing body of enthusiasts, this disc is a most valuable release and
the remastered sound (presumably from an LP original in the case of
the Sargent) is first-class.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
