Tonight, recorded at the Three Choirs Festival Gloucester, Hiawatha complete.

[salymap]

At 7.30 on R3

Coleridge Taylor The Song of Hiawatha. Presented by Catherine Bott.
A setting of words by Longfellow.

For further details look on line or RT - sorry sight not up to it.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

For further details look on line or RT - sorry sight not up to it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039q13l

[Pabmusic]

At 7.30 on R3

Coleridge Taylor The Song of Hiawatha. Presented by Catherine Bott.
A setting of words by Longfellow.

For further details look on line or RT - sorry sight not up to it.

? Hiawatha complete would include all three choral works (Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, The Death of Minehaha and Hiawatha's Departure) plus the Hiawatha Overture and the Hiawatha Ballet Music.

[salymap]

Well, the three parts of the choral work, don't know if they are doing the remainder.


And thanks Ferney for the link.

[Pabmusic]

Well, the three parts of the choral work, don't know if they are doing the remainder.


And thanks Ferney for the link.

They probably won't be.

[salymap]

They probably won't be.

Maybe the braves and squaws dancing round Gloucester Cathedral would be frowned upon.Although I enjoyed it in the RAH years ago, conducted by George Stratton, not Sargent.

What I really meant was not just the 'Wedding Feast' as it appeared on its own a lot, Sargent and the RCS usually.

[OldTechie]

I think it may be all three parts from the 3 Choirs web site. See http://3choirs.org/events/coleridge-...ng-of-hiawatha

[Andrew Slater]

It's the three choral works - I was there.

[salymap]

[QUOTE=Andrew Slater;331284]It's the three choral works - I was there.[/QUOTE

Lucky you, Andrew. I loved the Three Choirs and was at Worcester in 1954 and 1957 [hope that's right] A lot of Elgar etc but can't imagine Hiawatha being done in those days. Is it a first for the Three Choirs, I wonder.?

[edashtav]

What Do We Do With Sam Coleridge-Taylor?

What do we do with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and his Hiawatha,a modest cantata that was so fresh to choirs and audiences that they demanded prequels (overture and cantata) and sequels (cantata and ballet music) in the manner of today's film audiences?

He has to be saluted for he dragged choral societies from cathedral cloisters and he was black with a genuine interest in his roots. But the Hiawatha series was written when he was young and too many commissions followed; that combined with overwork meant that he scarcely advanced from these foundations. Having sung one or two of Max Bruch's cantata-oratorios, I can see that there were continental models for his concepts and, I suppose, Elgar was building a similar set of scores from The Black Knight through Caractacus to King Olaf.

The lilting rhythms of Longfellow's poems which Coleridge-Taylor treated with less freedom that Sibelius did in his works based on the Finnish Kalevala were a severe handicap, as were the generally saccharine-sweet harmonies. Echoes of Dvorak's "New World" symphony were so pervasive that had that composer encountered Hiawatha , he might have taken Samuel to a trade descriptions' court. Feelings of "don't rock the boat" and "more of the same" quickly set in, and the handful of leitmotivs soon became moments to dread. This was music written by a facile mind, a composer who could churn it out by the yard, a latter-day Telemann, or a prototype for Darius Milhaud.

The words are important and they are not known by today's audiences - unlike a Mass in Latin. The over-reverberant acoustic of a Cathedral isn't ideal for this secular music. Most of the Festival Chorus' words were a mush. Much the same might be said of the soprano with the full vibrato, Hye-Youn Lee. Robin Tritschler was the pick of the bunch. Coleridge-Taylor's tenor lines are as high as Bach's but Robin coped with aplomb. Benedict Nelson was quite powerful but his voice tended to merge with the sound of the orchestra.

The Philharmonia were in good fettle and played with conviction and passion - quite an achievement when the score palled and became predictable. Peter Nardone kept his forces under control although the chorus tired during the third cantata, their voices lost resonance and some entries were less than secure.

Some of Coleridge-Taylor's later works ( V.C. & Cl. 5-tet) have been revived and shown that the composer did finally mature. I'd like the choral cantata "A Tale of Old Japan" to be programmed as I've looked at the vocal score and it seems to offer more variety than Hiawatha.

[Vile Consort]

Interesting innocent ear experience: I picked up the last half hour of this concert in the car. I did not know what it was, and had never heard it before.

It seemed to me to be a weak work being given an undistinguished performance. Lacking in variety and entirely predictable from one bar to the next, especially the harmonies. On the strength of this work, edashtav flatters Coleridge-Taylor by comparing him to Telemann: I would put him more in William Herschel's league.

The orchestra was the most successful part of the affair - but even then, am I right in thinking the penultimate chord wasn't entirely together?

The intonation and diction of the chorus left a lot to be desired. Perhaps they had lost the will to live by the time I tuned in.

In the unlikely event of my ever purchasing a ticket for this work, would someone please shoot me.

[Pabmusic]

...I loved the Three Choirs and was at Worcester in 1954 and 1957 [hope that's right] A lot of Elgar etc but can't imagine Hiawatha being done in those days. Is it a first for the Three Choirs, I wonder.?

I don't know, but the first complete performance (all three parts) was at the same Birmingham Festival that saw the premiere of The Dream Of Gerontius.

[mercia]

just as well Sam didn't set the whole poem, it is huge - as it is he did well to keep it down to 2+ hours of music, I guess by not repeating any lines. I followed with an online score, to my untutored ear it sounded sort of Gilbert & Sullivan with moments of interesting harmony, many key changes as was mentioned by a guest. For me, in the performance the male contributors, soloists and choral were the most successful. Interesting background info. from the contributors. I think I would find it difficult to sing without sniggering at the wacky words. e.g.

First they ate the sturgeon, Nahma,
And the pike, the Maskenozha,
Caught and cooked by old Nokomis;
Then on pemican they feasted,
Pemican and buffalo marrow,
Haunch of deer and hump of bison,
Yellow cakes of the Mondamin,
And the wild rice of the river.
--------------------------------------
He was dressed in shirt of doeskin,
White and soft, and fringed with ermine,
All inwrought with beads of wampum;
He was dressed in deer-skin leggings,
Fringed with hedgehog quills and ermine,
And in moccasins of buck-skin,
Thick with quills and beads embroidered.
On his head were plumes of swan's down,
On his heels were tails of foxes,
In one hand a fan of feathers,
And a pipe was in the other.
---------------------------------------
"Onaway! my heart sings to thee,
Sings with joy when thou art near me,
As the sighing, singing branches
In the pleasant Moon of Strawberries!

[Pabmusic]

...I think I would find it difficult to sing without sniggering at the wacky words...

That's nothing. I recall speaking to a conductor who did S C T's A Tale of Old Japan with a university music society. The first words (the first words) sung fortissimo by the chorus are "Peonies! Peonies!". "You try getting a group of university students to sing that with straight faces", he said to me. And I agree.

[Nick Armstrong]

It seemed to me to be a weak work ... Lacking in variety and entirely predictable from one bar to the next, especially the harmonies.

I'd have to agree with that. It sounded like Sullivan writing a parody of a sentimental oratorio. The opening chorus is so lame (presumably those repetitive jumps of a fifth were intended to express the primitivism of the 'Red Indian' people of something).

The performance didn't sound too bad to me, until Part 2 when the two remaining soloists come on (The trouble with unearthing forgotten pieces is that they tend not to get the ... top rank ). As so often, the soprano got the off-switch a-clickin' here