I recently had the pleasure of visiting the British Library’s Beyond the Bassline exhibition. Admiring the autograph manuscript of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast led me to wonder: might not more of Coleridge-Taylor’s wonderful music be heard today if some of the obstacles to performance were removed?
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's autograph score of Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, British Library Add MS 62519
Be it through libraries, publishers, or online services like IMSLP, we are used to being able to access high-quality ‘performance-ready’ sheet music editions. It comes as something of a surprise, therefore, to learn that a significant amount of Coleridge-Taylor’s output is unavailable via these means. To understand why, a brief history of performance sets may be useful.
Performance sets in the early 20th century
In 1898, when Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast was composed, any large-scale work such as this was expensive to publish. In the days before computers and photocopiers, any sheet music part requiring multiple copies for performance would need to be hand-engraved onto copper plates, which could then be used for printing as many copies as were required. Vocal scores, containing all vocal parts and a piano reduction of the orchestral score, were printed in their thousands using this method, ensuring each choir member could have their own copy. String parts, too, with multiple desks to a part, were also often (but not always) engraved and printed in this way. For material requiring only one copy for performance, however – usually all wind, brass and percussion parts, as well as the conductor’s full score – it was uneconomical to engrave and print in this manner, and these were normally copied by hand by a professional copyist from the publishing house. Depending on the popularity of the work, only one or two copies of each of these parts would ever be produced.[1] Any choral society wishing to perform the work would purchase the printed vocal scores from which to rehearse, and hire the manuscript orchestral material from the publisher when ready to perform.
A typical performance set: professionally copied wind parts for the Prelude to Coleridge-Taylor’s opera Thelma. From RCM MS 4909. Reproduced with permission of the Royal College of Music, London.
Composers’ autograph scores used in performances
For those of us accustomed to revering a manuscript as an almost sacred object, it is amazing to learn that the composer’s autograph was often included in these performance sets for the conductor to use. The RCM’s manuscript of Coleridge-Taylor’s Kubla Khan, op. 61, for example, includes a label from the publishers reminding borrowers not to mark, or even cut out sections(!) from this unique object. This was rarely enough to entirely discourage conductors from annotating the scores, and many such scores contain obvious markings from prior performances.
Page from Coleridge-Taylor’s autograph manuscript for Kubla Khan, marked by a conductor. From RCM MS 4869. Reproduced with permission of the Royal College of Music, London.
This system of producing performance sets worked well enough, and met the needs of publishers and performers. Long term, however, this approach could lead to lost parts (which could be re-copied) or, much worse, lost scores (which could not!). Famously, Coleridge-Taylor’s only opera, Thelma, op. 72, was believed to be lost until it was rediscovered in 2003.
Eventually, as technology changed to make the printing of scores and parts easier and cheaper (along with the emergence of a more conservation-minded approach to composers’ autograph manuscripts), these performance sets left the ownership of publishers and made their way into libraries.[2] While this represented an important step for the long-term preservation of these works, their reference-only status in their new homes effectively put an end to their availability for performance – a symbolic change in status from ‘music for performance’ to ‘music for study’. In many cases, only the scores survived, the parts being deemed a ‘duplication’ of the scores’ contents, unworthy of study from a historical standpoint (not being in the composer’s hand), and therefore an unnecessary use of precious space.
Performing Coleridge-Taylor’s music today
Today, therefore, it is remarkably difficult for an orchestra or choral society to lay their hands on performance material for some of Coleridge-Taylor’s most popular works – and this despite much of his music being out of copyright and, in theory, freely available for all to enjoy. Works such as Choral Ballads, op. 54, or Ulysses, op. 49, may perhaps never be performed again as originally conceived, the scores and parts having completely vanished.[3] Yet for most of his works, the survival of an autograph or copyist score offers hope that they can be revived. The absence of orchestral parts is problematic, but not insurmountable.
The upsurge in interest in Coleridge-Taylor's music in recent years has given rise to some heroic efforts at revival and some inspiring stories of success. Following the discovery of Thelma, this opera was performed for the first time in 2012; a published score is also available to purchase. More recently, Legend, op. 14, for violin and orchestra, was given a new lease of life in 2022 by Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. The following year, working from autograph and copyist scores of The Atonement, op. 53, Bryan Ijames staged a production of this monumental work for Easter 2023.
Advertisement for the revival of Coleridge-Taylor’s The Atonement, March 2023
It would be remiss to fail to mention the English Heritage Music Series, whose formidable efforts in the production of performance material from library manuscripts have rescued many works by Coleridge-Taylor and his contemporaries from obscurity. All their performance editions are freely published, royalty-free, for download on their website; and their all-Coleridge-Taylor programme of rescued works will be live-streamed on 3 August 2024.
Each of these projects represents a phenomenal effort on the part of their respective leaders. The editing of performance material from a manuscript orchestral score – especially when the handwriting is as difficult to decipher as Coleridge-Taylor’s! – is a large and daunting task. Yet each is a valuable contribution to the continuing effort to promote the music of this fascinating composer and serve as an encouragement to those inspired to do the same. Many more of Coleridge-Taylor’s works are yet to be revived, and those with the drive to do so will be richly rewarded by bringing to life these treasures from the past.
Jonathan Frank, Assistant Librarian, Royal College of Music
[1] Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast is a rare exception, being so popular that it was deemed worthwhile to engrave the wind and brass parts.
[2] See Jeremy Dibble, ‘The RCM Novello Library’, The Musical Times 124 (1983), 99-101.
[3] In many cases, excerpts from these works survive in arrangements for smaller ensembles, such as voice and piano.