Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- List of Figures
- Introduction
- 1 The Early Years
- 2 The Royal College of Music
- 3 The Promising Young Composer
- 4 The Wedding Feast
- 5 ‘A Sentiment Prevalent Here’
- 6 Intensifying the Effect
- 7 The International Star
- 8 A Stalwart Member of the Profession
- 9 A ‘Definite Place for the Negro in the World's History’
- 10 A Tale of Old Japan
- 11 Requiem
- 12 The Legacy
- Postscript
- Appendix 1 The Song of Hiawatha
- Appendix 2 Further Reading
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
7 - The International Star
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- List of Figures
- Introduction
- 1 The Early Years
- 2 The Royal College of Music
- 3 The Promising Young Composer
- 4 The Wedding Feast
- 5 ‘A Sentiment Prevalent Here’
- 6 Intensifying the Effect
- 7 The International Star
- 8 A Stalwart Member of the Profession
- 9 A ‘Definite Place for the Negro in the World's History’
- 10 A Tale of Old Japan
- 11 Requiem
- 12 The Legacy
- Postscript
- Appendix 1 The Song of Hiawatha
- Appendix 2 Further Reading
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
Arthur James Balfour's uncle was Lord Salisbury, Britain's prime minister whose third term ended when Balfour replaced him in 1902. Musical Times reported: ‘The Prime Minister as a musician … the first musical Premier of Great Britain’ who had a ‘loving devotion’ to Handel. The Handel Society's rehearsals had been at Balfour's home and he was a committee member for ten years. Manns conducted it from 1892, then J. Samuel Liddle who passed the baton to Coleridge-Taylor. Manns asked: ‘If I hear your first clarinet playing a wrong note, am I to call out, “Lieutenant-General Lord Chelmsford, G. C. B., you are playing A sharp instead of A natural”?’ The instrumentalists and singers had been raised in grand houses with relatives of importance (Chelmsford's son was to be viceroy of India for example).
High society families rented a London house during the ‘season’ and returned to their country estates each summer. Some attended festivals, and some employed musicians during the London season. The wife of the Bishop of Gloucester (their daughter Rosalind Ellicott had her Henry of Navarre performed at the Shire Hall in 1898) was a founder of the Handel Society and the Gloucestershire Philharmonic Society. Coleridge-Taylor's contacts with such women were important as were his links with the black men and women who welcomed Coleridge-Taylor into their homes and provided encouragement and ideas. From them the composer must have heard that his father had died.
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- Information
- Samuel Coleridge-TaylorA Musical Life, pp. 127 - 152Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014