Coleridge-Taylor: Orchestral Works

Featuring

Charles Peebles
Rebecca Murphy
Ioana Petcu-Colan
Ulster Orchestra
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

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Composer's Artistic Vision

Coleridge-Taylor's march Ethiopia Saluting the Colours, inspired by Walt Whitman's poem, depicts General Sherman's troops liberating the Carolinas and was dedicated to the 'Treble Clef Club, Washington, USA,' a society of black women.

Composer Biography

Coleridge-Taylor initially entered the Royal College of Music (RCM) in 1890 to study violin, but his interest waned as his compulsion to compose grew, leading him to switch to composition under Charles Villiers Stanford.

Composition History

Coleridge-Taylor's Clarinet Quintet, Op.10, was inspired by Brahms's Clarinet Quintet, which he heard performed at the Royal College of Music in 1895.

Composer Biography

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, born in 1875, was named after the poet Samuel Taylor-Coleridge and was brought up by his mother's family in Croydon, south of London.

Performer Biography

Ioana Petcu-Colan, a versatile musician from Ireland, is the Leader of the Ulster Orchestra and a member of the String Faculty at the Royal Irish Academy of Music.

Performer Biography

Rebecca Murphy, a Northern Irish soprano, was a member of the Internationales Opernstudio at Oper Köln from 2020-22 and is a regular guest with the Ulster Orchestra and the Belfast Ensemble.

Compositional Technique

The Solemn Prelude, Op.40, written for the Worcester Three Choirs Festival of 1899, adopts a 'nobilmente' spirit characteristic of big symphonic slow movements by his older contemporaries like Parry, Stanford, and Elgar.