Welcome to our micro-exhibition exploring Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s connection to the Brighton Dome.

Promotional graphic featuring the words 'A Tremendous Ovation' Samuel Coleridge-Taylor at the Brighton Dome. On the left is a charcoal sketch of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Along the bottom are the words 'part of the Heritage Takes Centre Stage project' along with the logos of the Brighton Dome, National Heritage Lottery Fund and The Mixed Museum/

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, the son of a Sierra Leonean father and English mother, was one of the most popular British composers of the early twentieth century. 

He caused a sensation when he conducted pieces from his celebrated Hiawatha cantatas at the Brighton Dome in 1908.

In this exhibition and accompanying short film – featuring original artwork by our Artist in Residence Kinga Markus – we tell the little-known story of his visit. We share new research findings on the importance of his work at the venue throughout the first half of the twentieth century and beyond.

This project is funded as part of the Reveal project, which aims to shine new light on the historical links of people of colour to the Brighton Dome.

We hope you enjoy the findings of our exploration into the connection between the Brighton Dome and Coleridge-Taylor’s life and work. A reading and listening list for those who would like to learn more about this incredible man is included at the end of the exhibition.

We also believe there is still much more to be found about Coleridge-Taylor’s Brighton connections and would love to hear any stories or see any images you might have that relate to this. Do you remember a family member attending one of the pre-war performances of Hiawatha? Are there any old Dome programmes featuring Coleridge-Taylor’s performances in your family archive?

Get in touch if you have any information or material to share (info@mixedmuseum.org.uk). And do let us know what you think of the exhibition, including any ideas about how we, or the Dome, might build on our look at the ‘tremendous ovation’ Coleridge-Taylor received in Brighton in 1908.

Watch our short video about Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's connection to the Brighton Dome, featuring original artwork and animation by our Artist in Residence, Kinga Markus.

Have you heard? Coleridge-Taylor is coming to Brighton!

In August 1908, the seaside town of Brighton was abuzz with the news that Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was coming to town. Why the excitement?

Born in Holborn in 1875, by 1908 this son of a Black father from Sierra Leone and a white mother from England was at the height of his fame. His trio of cantatas, collectively known as The Song of Hiawatha, were wildly popular with audiences around the world, not least among Black Americans who enthused over his merging of African musical elements into European classical traditions, and took pride in his prominence on the musical world stage.

Photograph of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor posting at his piano with the Hiawatha Wedding Feast score clearly visible. Image licensed from Alamy.
Coleridge-Taylor in front of his piano with the Hiawatha Wedding Feast score on display. Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

What are the Hiawatha cantatas?

Based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous poem of American Romanticism The Song of Hiawatha, the cantatas tell the story of Hiawatha and his lover Minnehaha, and their eventual deaths. Each cantata corresponds to a different part of the epic poem and explores different episodes in the life of the Native American hero, Hiawatha.

Hiawatha's Wedding Feast (1898): The first cantata focuses on the wedding of Hiawatha and Minnehaha, particularly the joyous celebration and festivities surrounding their union. The music reflects the happiness and communal spirit of the occasion.

 

The Death of Minnehaha (1899): The second cantata continues the narrative by depicting the tragic death of Minnehaha. It explores the sorrow and grief that befalls Hiawatha after losing his beloved. The music reflects the emotional intensity of Hiawatha's mourning.

Hiawatha's Departure (1900): The third cantata concludes the trilogy by portraying Hiawatha's journey and departure from his people, emphasizing themes of farewell and transcendence. The music reflects the sense of farewell and the hero's passing from earthly existence.

Hiawatha score cover 1919 featuring a drawing of Minnehaha looking out over a scenic view. Reproduced by permission of the Museum of Music History.
Hiawatha score cover 1919. Reproduced by permission of the Museum of Music History.
Photograph of Samuel Coleridge Taylor as a young boy with a violin.
Coleridge-Taylor as a boy. Courtesy Royal College of Music.

Coleridge-Taylor: family background

Thanks primarily to the work of Jeffery Green, we know that Coleridge-Taylor was the son of Alice Hare Martin, whose father was an English blacksmith, and a Sierra Leonean father, Daniel Taylor. The pair met during Taylor’s time in London, where he studied medicine at King’s College London. It is likely that, when he returned to Sierra Leone in 1885, Daniel did not know that Alice was pregnant.

Raised initially in Croydon by Alice and her father, who encouraged his grandson’s musical talent, Coleridge-Taylor later resided in the Croydon house of his white stepfather, George Evans, with whom his mother would go on to have three children: Alice, Victor and Marjorie.

It was clear from early on that music was his passion. At the age of 15, Coleridge-Taylor’s prodigious talent won him a violin scholarship to the Royal College of Music where his contemporaries included Gustave Holst and Ralph Vaughn Williams. A brilliant student, Coleridge-Taylor excelled at his studies, winning a college composition prize two years in a row and being described by one tutor as 'one of my cleverest pupils'. During his time at the Royal College of Music, he also met the Black American writer Paul Laurence Dunbar, with whom he began a series of collaborations; a recital of their work was held at the Salle Erard, Great Marlborough Street. By the time Coleridge-Taylor left the Royal College of Music in 1897, he was, as Jeffrey Green notes, ‘a rising star in the world of music’.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's previous Brighton performance

Prior to his triumph at the Dome in 1908, Coleridge-Taylor had performed in Brighton town before. He made his first appearance on 20 April 1901, when he conducted the London Symphony Orchestra on the New Palace Pier, which had opened two years previously. At this afternoon concert, Coleridge-Taylor conducted two of his own compositions – The Characteristic Waltzes and Danse Negre, as well as pieces by Beethoven, Delibes and Mendelssohn. The day before the concert, the Brighton Gazette remarked that:

...special interest in Mr Coleridge-Taylor’s career is evoked by the circumstances of his African descent on the paternal side; thus, his mother being English, he may be accepted as the first typical representative of the music of that vast and important Empire of Great Britain.

Photograph of the New Palace Pier in Brighton, circa 1900. Credit: Victorian Web.

Image: The New Palace Pier, c. 1900-1906. Source: Jerrold via The Victorian Web

Coleridge-Taylor arriving at Brighton station as imagined by Kinga Marcus.  © Kinga Markus.
Coleridge-Taylor arriving at Brighton station as imagined by Kinga Marcus. © Kinga Markus.

Coleridge-Taylor’s performance in 1908, however, would be his first time at the Brighton Dome, potentially making him the first man of Black heritage to step foot on the Dome’s stage.

For many of the Dome’s concert goers, he may also have been the first man of Black heritage they had ever seen.

This marked a huge contrast to what had come before.

Hiawatha at the Dome

Even before Coleridge-Taylor took to the Dome’s stage, music from the Hiawatha cantata could be heard at the venue. In 1902, leading British tenor Ben Davies sung ‘Onaway! awake, beloved’ at an evening concert, while in 1904, the famous Canadian soprano, Madame Albini, approaching the end of her public singing career, made a rare appearance at the Dome where she performed ‘Spring Had Come’ from Hiawatha as part of her encore.

The Moore and Burgess Minstrels at the Brighton Dome

In the decade prior to Coleridge-Taylor’s performance, the Moore and Burgess minstrels had marked their ninth successive annual show at the Dome. First developed in nineteenth century America, minstrel shows like Moore and Burgess’s were a highly popular form of entertainment, in which white actors painted their faces black with cork or shoe polish, donned woolly wigs, used make-up to exaggerate their lips and eyes, and sang, danced or performed grotesque racial caricatures of African Americans to delighted white audiences.

Founded as Christy’s Minstrels, the troupe would later become known as Moore and Burgess and spend most of its time playing to crowds around Great Britain and Ireland. From 1876 – not long after Coleridge-Taylor was born – the troupe had become an annual fixture at the Brighton Dome, their ‘brilliant reputation’ attracting ‘record crowds’ and plaudits.

Advert in the Mid Sussex Times for the Moore and Burgess Minstrels at the Dome, 18 February 1885. Text states this will be the troupe's ninth annual visit to Brighton.
Advert in the Mid Sussex Times for the Moore and Burgess Minstrels at the Dome, February 1885. Newspaper image © The British Library Board. All rights reserved.
Illustrated coloured advertisment for the Moore and Burgess minstrels. In the middle is a drawing of three rows of men in blackface and wearing suits, with singers at the front and then musicians on the tiers above. In the corner are close up illustrations of men in grotesque blackface makeup.
Moore and Burgess advertisment, c.1900. © Retro AdArchives / Alamy Stock Photo

The Moore and Burgess minstrels were not the only minstrel troupe to perform at the Dome.

‘The Brighton Snowdrops’, described by the Brighton Gazette as ‘an amateur minstrel troupe’, also appeared at the Dome several times in the late 1870s, raising money for the Sussex County Hospital and the Brighton Hospital for Sick Children. Items on the programmes included sketches entitled ‘The N***** Gen’dames’ and ‘Sambo’s Ghost’.

The Brighton Guardian noted that the audience – ‘a large and fashionable company’ – demanded ‘frequent encores’ and that the ‘praiseworthy efforts of these amateur darkies’ meant that a worthy cause in Brighton was greatly benefited.

In March 1894, alongside their minstrel shows, the Moore and Burgess troupe gave a series of Easter performances at the Dome without their burnt cork makeup. The Gazette remarked that these performances, given in front of ‘several distressing rows of empty chairs’, ‘did not present as fascinating an appearance with their ebony war paint off as with it on’. Their usual minstrel shows went on to be received with delight.

In 1905, Coleridge-Taylor published his Twenty Four Negro Melodies, a collection of African and American songs. Coleridge-Taylor saw these melodies as a counter to the degrading presentation of Black music as portrayed by the types of minstrel shows performed at the Dome. In the introduction to the work, he noted:

What Brahms has done for the Hungarian folk-music, Dvořák for the Bohemian, and Grieg for the Norwegian, I have tried to do for Negro melodies.

Cutting from a newspaper article that reads: Forthcoming Amusements. Moore and Burgess Minstrels. This far-famed troup of minstrels from St James's Hall will as we have already announced, furnish extra attractions in Brighton tomorrow and Saturday. Tomorrow being Good Friday they will give two sacred concerts at the Dome, afternoon and evening, when the entire company of vocalists and juvenile choir will appear withouth that characteristic colour attributed to burnt cork. On Saturday they will twice go through their orthodox popular minstrel programme of fun and harmony. From all we hear, these concerts, without exception, will draw "record" attendances. Tickets at Messrs Lyon and Hall's Music Saloon.
Brighton Gazette, 22 March 1894. Newspaper image © The British Library Board. All rights reserved.

Coleridge-Taylor at the Dome in 1908

The August of 1908 was so sunny and had created such a pleasant atmosphere for Brighton’s residents and throngs of visitors that it was commented on in the press. In the lead up to Coleridge-Taylor’s performance at the Dome during this balmy weather, the interest surrounding his appearance was immense.

‘The occasion will be one of rare interest to inhabitants and visitors, who are sure to fill the Dome to overflowing’, remarked the Brighton Gazette. This was partly to do with Coleridge-Taylor's unquestionable reputation and international standing, but also likely due to what the Brighton Gazette referred to as his ‘Anglo-African’ background.

Black and white photograph of the Brighton Dome in the early 1900s with a handful of people sititng on benches in the Pavilion Gardens.
The Dome, Brighton, early 1900s. Courtesy Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton and Hove

Finally, on 12 August 1908 – three days before his 33rd birthday – Coleridge-Taylor took to the stage of the Brighton Dome to play pieces from his own works, including the Hiawatha cantata.

The Dome was filled, The Referee noted, with ‘a most attentive audience’. The Brighton Gazette reported excitedly on the crowd’s anticipation (Jeffrey Green notes that it is hard to imagine Coleridge-Taylor’s peer, Elgar, being reported on in the Gazette's tones):

Who is Coleridge-Taylor? What is he like? And as if in reply, an almost boyish figure, crowned with a typical African head, is seen threading his way through the orchestra.

Coleridge-Taylor on the Brighton Dome's stage, 1908, as imagined by Kinga Markus. © Kinga Markus.
Coleridge-Taylor on the Brighton Dome's stage, 1908, as imagined by Kinga Markus. © Kinga Markus.

The performance was a triumph. The Morning Leader reported that Coleridge Taylor ‘received a tremendous ovation’, having to return to the stage three times ‘to acknowledge the plaudits of the delighted throng'. 

The Gazette noted that:

The clamour was only stayed by the leading violinist calling up the band to close the concert with the National Anthem.

 

Advert reading The Municipal Orchestra. Mr Coleridge-Taylor at the Dome. Brilliant Reception.
Headline from a Brighton Gazette article reporting on the concert, 15 August 1908. Newspaper image © The British Library Board. All rights reserved.

Coleridge-Taylor and the Brighton Dome: a special connection

During this period, a strong working friendship seems to have developed between Coleridge-Taylor and leading figures in Brighton’s music scene, namely Joseph Sainton, appointed in June 1908 as the Musical Director of Brighton’s new Municipal Orchestra (created in June 1907), and Robert Taylor, the conductor of the Brighton Sacred Harmonic Society.

The Brighton Sacred Harmonic Society, under Robert Taylor, had first performed Hiawatha in 1900, also the first time any of the cantatas had been performed in Brighton. The orchestra's later performances included a November 1909 performance of Hiawatha at the Dome featuring Evelyn Vernham, Samuel Masters and Julien Henry. Coleridge-Taylor thought very highly of the Society’s abilities.

Hiawatha and the Municipal Orchestra's success

In June 1909, The Musical Times reported that the success of the new publicly funded Municipal Orchestra under Sainton – particularly its performances at the Dome Symphony and Classical Concerts – was so great that the council reversed its decision to reduce its size.

The orchestra was not only kept it on at its original strength but had its funding increased to £150 a week (around £15,000 in today’s money). It is very likely that the success of Coleridge-Taylor’s Hiawatha concert at the Dome played a part in this decision.

Studio photograph of Joseph Sainton. He is wearing a suit and overcoat and has his hair parted in the middle. The accompanying text reads Mr Joseph Sainton. Conductor of the Brighton Municipal Orchestra and The Brighton Musical Festival. Photograph by Spink, Brighton.
Joseph Sainton as he appeared in the Musical Times, June 1909. Public domain.
Studio photograph of Mr Robert Taylor. He is a middle aged man wearing glasses and dressed in a suit and overcoat. He is sporting a moustache, with his hair parted in the middle. The text underneath reads Mr Robert Taylor conductor of the Brighton Sacred Harmonic Society. Photograph by Mr A.H. Fry, Brighton.
Robert Taylor as he appeared in the Musical Times, February 1909. Public domain.
Novello cover of Bon-Bon Suite score, Priced at two shillings.
Novello cover of Bon-Bon Suite score, 1908. Public domain.

In January 1909, Coleridge-Taylor debuted his new work, the Bon Bon Suite, at the Dome, composed specifically for the Brighton Musical Festival. The London Evening Standard commented that its appearance in the programme was ‘greeted with great enthusiasm’ by the ‘fashionable audience’ and that Coleridge-Taylor, who conducted the Brighton Sacred Harmonic Society, was ‘met with a flattering reception’. Coleridge-Taylor wrote a congratulatory letter to Robert Taylor shortly afterwards, which Taylor read to the Society:

I thought the choir sang splendidly, specially considering that the music was somewhat out of the ordinary choral style, and, apart from that, not by any means easy. I wish you would convey to the choir my very best thanks for the tremendous enthusiasm and interest they took in the music, thus helping make the performance such a success. Please don’t forget to take some of the thanks to yourself. With kind regards, yours very sincerely, S. Coleridge-Taylor.

Coleridge-Taylor returned to the Dome the following year to debut his work Endymion’s Dream, again commissioned for the Brighton Festival. He had hoped that, if it were successful at Brighton, the work would be taken up and staged at His Majesty’s Theatre, London. Coleridge-Taylor received ‘a very enthusiastic reception’ at the Dome and the piece was unanimously praised by critics (the London Evening Standard declared that ‘it contains some of the best music which the composer has given us since “Hiawatha.”). Sadly, however, no staged production transpired.

Coleridge-Taylor: marriage and family

On 30 December 1899, Coleridge-Taylor married Jessie Walmisley, a white woman from a middle-class family who had also been a student at the Royal College of Music. From the outset, Coleridge-Taylor was received with hostility. Jessie's parents and three of her sisters vehemently opposed the relationship, as did her brother-in-law, who had worked in India and held the deeply entrenched racist views common to Victorian colonialists (however, her sister and other brother-in-law in America supported the pair). In her reminiscences, Jessie recalls how her family, appalled at the idea of her marrying a Black man, made ‘vile suggestions’ and ‘horrid threats’ and took ‘measures’ to separate them. Coleridge-Taylor himself was not ‘figuratively’ but ‘kicked out of the house…literally’ by her brother-in-law when he went to ask her father for her hand in marriage.

Undaunted, Jessie continued with the relationship. It appears that her parents eventually softened, at least to the extent of accepting the engagement. While three of her sisters remained opposed (with the exception of her US-based sister), Jessie reports that the day before the ceremony, her mother invited Coleridge-Taylor to the family home. There, she and Jessie’s father shook his hand in acceptance, and both ended up attending the wedding, with Jessie’s father acting as a witness.

Gallery images of Samuel and Jessie Coleridge-Taylor and their children Hiawatha and Avril courtesy of Royal College of Music and public domain.

In 1900, the couple had a son, who they named Hiawatha, followed, in 1903, by a daughter, Gwendolyn, who later preferred to be known by her middle name, Avril. Photographs from the family’s personal collection include several with both Hiawatha and Avril dressed in Native American clothing. Hiawatha is pictured wearing the suit, moccasins and tomahawk brought over from America especially for him by the wife of American music patron Carl Stoeckel in 1909.

The family resided in South Norwood, Croydon, and Coleridge-Taylor was devoted to his wife and children. Both the children went on to become professional musicians, with Avril becoming a successful conductor-composer, like her father.

Legacy of Coleridge-Taylor at the Dome

While his other works appear to have been played only a handful of times at the Dome, The Song of Hiawatha would go on to delight the crowds at the venue for decades after Coleridge-Taylor conducted it in 1908. The Scottish soprano Flora Woodman appeared in a large choral production in 1930. The Museum of Music History has provided us with Flora’s diary entry for her performance: she was paid £15.15 (around £800 in today’s money) with additional travel expenses, and she wore a ‘white velvet diamante, long’ dress.

Photograph of Flora Woodman with short waved hair subtly smiling at the camera. She is wearing a v-necked sleeveless dress with a lavish brocade embroidery decoration along one side of the bodice. Around her neck is a peral necklace and a dimante pin claps the neck of the dress together.
Flora Woodman. Reproduced by permission of the Museum of Music History.
Public notice advertising a performance of Hiawatha at the Dome Brighton on November 15 featuring Miss Flora Woodman , other named singers and over 250 performers. The Conductor is noted as Percy Taylor.
Advert for a Hiawatha concert at the Dome featuring Flora Woodman. Mid Sussex Times, 11 November 1930. Newspaper image © The British Library Board. All rights reserved.
Photograph of two pages of a large rectangular open diary. Among the handwritten enties is a note showing that Flora Woodman appeared at the Dome Brighton in 1930 in Hiawatha, and that she wore a white velvet diamante long dress.
Entry in Flora Woodman's performance diary noting her 1930 Hiawatha performance at the Dome. Reproduced by permission of the Museum of Music History.

By the 1930s, the Hiawatha cantatas had become a staple of London’s musical calendar, with the Worthing Gazette declaring that '…the season would be unthinkable without the annual production at the Albert Hall'.

These large-scale productions ran from 1924 to 1939, sometimes with a cast of 1000 singers and dancers, and were phenomenally popular. There was a steady stream of high-profile attendees from the aristocracy, including George V and Queen Mary in 1928, while socialites appeared in the production itself as part of the ‘Society Girls Ballet’. A ballet section of the production was conducted by Hiawatha, Coleridge-Taylor’s son.

A vast collection of images from these productions – many from Hiawatha Coleridge-Taylor's scrapbook – is held at the Museum of Music History.

Cutting from the Daily Mirror showing a photo of George V and Queen Mary at a Hiawatha performance at the Royal Albert Hall, 12 June 1928.
Cutting from the Daily Mirror showing George V and Queen Mary at a Hiawatha performance at the Royal Albert Hall, 12 June 1928. Reproduced by permission of the Museum of Music History.
Photograph of a production of Hiawatha at the Royal Albert Hall. The huge stage has a scenic North American backdrop and several teepees can be see. Chief Oskenonton s standing in the middle of the stage wearing traditional Native American clothing. He is surrounded by hundreds of performers - also in Native American dress - with their arms outstretched.
Chief Os-Ke-Non-Ton singing at the Wedding Feast (Act I). Reproduced by permission of the Museum of Music History.
Newspaper cutting with a photo of several adults in a room surrounded by young girls in dance poses. Caption reads Madame Lydia Kyasht, who has arranged the dances, is shown rehearsing the Little Bird ballet. Some of the dances have been adapted by Mr Hiawatha Coleridge-Taylor, the composer's son, who is seen in the picture.
From Hiawatha Coleridge-Taylor's scrapbook, a cutting from the Daily Graphic, 13 May 1924. Reproduced by permission of the Museum of Music History.
Newspaper cutting. Under the heading Society Girls in Hiawatha Ballet are nine women dressed as stereotypical Native American squaws with long plaits and wearing tunic and feather headbands. The caption underneath says Society girls who are to appear in the Hiawatha ballet at the Albert Hall. Among them are Mrs Campbell, Miss Elizabeth Ponsonby, Miss Myrtle Farquharson, the Hon. Grace Bethel, the Hon. Dorothy Bethel, the Misses Kathleen and Muriel Noads and Miss Joan Gairdner.
Cutting from Hiawatha Coleridge-Taylor's scrapbook. Reproduced by permission of the Museum of Music History.

From 1934, several of these productions – with a huge cast of 500-600 – were faithfully reproduced by the Brighton and Hove Harmonic Society under the steer of T. C. Fairbairn, who had created the original Royal Albert Hall production. They were received with wild enthusiasm by audiences at the newly remodelled Dome. Thanks to the Worthing Herald, we know that the ‘the action of the chorus and all the beautiful ballets take place on the new false floor which is level with the platform'.

Reproducing the Royal Albert Hall’s production was no mean feat, creatively, practically or financially. The cost of staging Hiawatha at the Dome in 1939 was £800 (around £54,000 in today’s money). Yet, the West Sussex Gazette remarked, the ‘venture showed a balance on the right side – and that, in Brighton, is a real achievement’. Among the performers at the Dome were Chief Os-ke-non-ton of the Mohawk tribe, who also appeared in the Royal Albert Hall productions.

Chief Oskenonton on the stage of the Royal Albert Hall in Native American costume and with his arm outstretched upwards.
Chief Os-Ke-Non-Ton in a Royal Albert Hall production. Reproduced by permission of the Museum of Music History.
1938 Hiawatha impressive spectacle at the Dome
1942 Advert for Hiawatha at the Dome
Newspapaer article. Under the heading cast of 500, the text reads: Five hundred performers
Newspaper article with the headline "Hiawatha" at Brighton Dome Next Week. Then a poem that reads Have you heard that Hiawatha is to be performed in Brighton - ij the great new Dome of Brighton, Wonderful in paint and gilding. Rising from the old Royal Stables like a Phoenix from its ashes!' The article then reads the following. T.C. Fairbairn's dramatic version of Hiawatha is to be presented in the Dome at Brighton next week, from Tuesday up to and including Saturday, by the Brighton and Hove Harmonic Society. Mr Fairbairn himself is producing it, Bessie Woods is the chorus trainer, and Jan Hurst will conduct the familiar music of Coleridge-Taylor, which will be sung by a cast of 500, including the choir of the Harmonic. There is also to be a ballet of 100 dancers, arranged by Euphan MacLaren and produced by Mavis Ward. The principals include such well known singers as Joseph Farringdon (Hiawatha) Dora Grase (Minnehaha) Stiles Allen (Nokomis) Henry Wendon (Chibiabos) Clifford Kemshall (Iagoo) Donald Jenkinson (Pau Puk Keewis) R. Norman Lloyd (Famine) nd Marguerite Anderson (Fever). Chief Oskenonton of the Mohawk tribe who has lectured several times in Worthing Pier Pavilion will appear as the Medicine Man. There will be performances each evening at 8 and a matinee on Saturday at 2.30.

Selection of articles and advertisements from local newspapers in the South East of England about the various 1930s productions of Hiawatha at the Brighton Dome, as well as a 1942 choral concert. Newspaper images © The British Library Board. All rights reserved. With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk). 

Hermione Darnborough as Flora with Errol Addison in the Spring Ballet at the Royal Albert Hall, possibly 1934. Reproduced by permission of the Museum of Music History.
Hermione Darnborough as Flora with Errol Addison in the Spring Ballet at the Royal Albert Hall, possibly 1934. Reproduced by permission of the Museum of Music History.
Flora Woodman in Hiawatha at the Royal Albert Hall. Reproduced by permission of the Museum of Music History.
Flora Woodman in Hiawatha at the Royal Albert Hall. Reproduced by permission of the Museum of Music History.
Phyllis Bedells as the Spirit of the Indian Maiden with Leighton Lucas as the Young Chief at the Royal Albert Hall. Reproduced by permission of the Museum of Music History.
Phyllis Bedells as the Spirit of the Indian Maiden with Leighton Lucas as the Young Chief at the Royal Albert Hall. Reproduced by permission of the Museum of Music History.
Performer at the Royal Albert Hall. Reproduced by permission of the Museum of Music History.
Performer at the Royal Albert Hall. Reproduced by permission of the Museum of Music History.

Hiawatha: homage, solidarity or cultural appropriation?

Today, it is difficult not to draw comparisons between the blackface portrayals of the minstrels that preceded Coleridge-Taylor’s appearances at the Dome and the ‘redface’ portrayals of Native Americans in both the Dome and Albert Hall’s Hiawatha productions. To a modern audience, both are highly offensive; it is impossible to imagine any venue staging a production with a majority white cast donning makeup and tribal costumes today.

And what of the cantatas themselves, which so heavily draw on the mythology and imagery of Native Americans? Not of Native American heritage himself, might accusations of cultural appropriation also be levelled at Coleridge-Taylor here? What drew him to write the work?

The story of Hiawatha and Minnehaha's lives and community – in the end, missionaries convert the tribe to Christianity – resonated deeply with Coleridge-Taylor. So much so that he named his son Hiawatha. He was an active participant in the Black civil rights movement. In addition to his role in the Pan-African conference of 1900, he hosted and connected many leading Black intellectuals from the UK and USA. In the story of Hiawatha, he saw parallels between Native American and Black American histories. As Roberts notes:

Coleridge-Taylor's choice of words, in fact, wove together a set of themes of considerable sociological significance. The marriage feast binds groups together in alliance; famine and sickness then destroy an entire community (as personified in Minnehaha's death); contact with Europeans threatens cultural annihilation; and finally, the death of Hiawatha, portrayed as the climactic event, serves to produce memory, ancestors, and prospects of societal continuity.

Black American audiences adored the work, also seeing their struggle against oppression it in, as well as taking pride in the achievements of Coleridge-Taylor on a world stage. His tour of the US in 1904 – where he became the first man of Black heritage to conduct a white orchestra in America - saw him treated as a celebrity, with an invitation to the White House to meet President Roosevelt.

It has also been argued that Hiawatha is a remarkable anti-imperialist work for its time. Richards further notes that, unlike Coleridge-Taylor’s contemporary Elgar, ‘Coleridge-Taylor's concerns, as expressed in the Hiawatha trilogy and later works, lay not with the glorious deeds and self-doubts of the conquerors but with the dignity of the oppressed races'.

Yet, for all this, Coleridge-Taylor’s Hiawatha is a representation of Native American culture through the eyes of a British man building on the work of a white American. What did Native Americans feel about this work?

We have not been able to uncover any records of Native American responses to Coleridge-Taylor’s Hiawatha cantatas or productions, though we do know that Chief Os-ke-non-ton of the Mohawk tribe was an advisor to the stage performances. Raised in the Six Nations Reserve in Canada, Os-ke-non-ton became an internationally celebrated opera singer, spiritual leader and spokesperson. He heavily supported the interwar productions of Hiawatha, acting as a costume advisor alongside his role as the Medicine Man at both the Royal Albert Hall and the Dome.

Interestingly, Mullin (2001) notes some contemporary Native American criticism of Os-ke-non-ton when he appeared alongside other Native Americans who had become known as public performers in Edgar Lee Hewlett’s Indian Fairs in the 1926. She comments that literary critic Ivor Winter wrote that the ‘Pueblo Indians in attendance appeared to find Hewett’s performers – including Oskenonton – hysterically amusing in their pseudo-Indianness' (p195).

Coleridge-Taylor never conducted or saw Hiawatha performed in costume during his lifetime, though he had seemed to approve when Fairburn initially raised the prospect to him. As Coleridge-Taylor’s work is increasingly revived, it is interesting to reflect on where Hiawatha fits into our worldviews now.

What do you think?

Avril Coleridge-Taylor at the Dome

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s daughter, Avril – herself a celebrated composer and musician – twice performed her father’s work at the Dome.

Her first appearance was in May 1926 under conductor Percy Taylor, when a chorus of 300 performed the full Hiawatha cantatas in Brighton for the first time. Avril sang the role of Minnehaha (‘her voice has quality, but limited range and power’ commented the West Sussex Gazette).

West Sussex Gazette, 13 June 1926. Newspaper image © The British Library Board. All rights reserved.
West Sussex Gazette, 13 June 1926. Newspaper image © The British Library Board. All rights reserved.
Avril Coleridge-Taylor in Minnehaha costume.
Avril Coleridge-Taylor in Minnehaha costume. Courtesy of the Royal College of Music.

Two decades later, in 1946, she returned to the Dome’s stage in a Coleridge-Taylor/Dvorak programme. Leading her own orchestra – The Coleridge-Taylor Symphony Orchestra – she conducted her father's work The Bamboula alongside works by Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, and her own composition Concerto in F Minor for Piano and Orchestra.

Portrait of Avril Coleridge -Taylor, c.1950s.
Avril Coleridge-Taylor, 1950. Reproduced by permission of the Museum of Music History.
Advert in the Sussex Agricultural Express, 1 November 1946. Newspaper image © The British Library Board. All rights reserved.
Advert in the Sussex Agricultural Express, 1 November 1946. Newspaper image © The British Library Board. All rights reserved.

Coleridge-Taylor: race and racism

Though widely feted, Coleridge-Taylor also faced negative attitudes related to his racial background during his career. The head of the Royal College of Music appears to have been initially hesitant to let him enter the college for fear of what other students might think. In the professional world, both his Black heritage and its influence within his music was exoticised or denigrated by some. Green mentions a Musical Progress article that stated 'the composer's urbanity sprang chiefly from a happy, optimistic, and lovable nature that combined the childlike contentedness with the present moment, common to the negro, with the energetic spirit of the west'.

Yet, with class prejudice as deeply entrenched in Victorian society as race prejudice, race alone was not always a barrier to social inclusion or mobility. Coleridge-Taylor, seen from a young age by those around him as a ‘respectable’ middle class Black man of mixed descent, was clearly able to make his way in the white world of classical music. The majority of Coleridge-Taylor’s supporters and patrons in the classical music world were white, including Herbert Walters, the local silk merchant who had sponsored Coleridge-Taylor at the Royal College of Music.

 

While mixed race Black Britons could be found across the country in the late Victorian era, there were fewer of them outside the working class dockside neighbourhoods of cities like London, Liverpool and Cardiff. Growing up in the white suburbs of Croydon, Coleridge-Taylor clearly stood out. At the age of seven, his mother was approached for permission to have Coleridge-Taylor pose for artists from the Croydon Art Club; his sister Marjorie recalled in her conversation with Jeffrey Green that ‘they put a basin on his head and a shawl round his shoulders so he looks a bit African'. Elsewhere, his colour attracted overtly negative rather than exoticised attention: street urchins would shout ‘Blackie’ at him as he passed by them in the street.

Oil on canvas portrait of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor aged 7 by Walter Wallis. Coleridge-Taylor is wearing a yellow shirt and a white cap that resembles a taqiyah.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor by Walter Wallis oil on canvas, 1881. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Later, his fame did not exempt him or his family from racial prejudice and harassment – both he and his wife were subject to racist abuse while out in public. Avril recalls her father’s response to the insults he would receive from local youths: 'When he saw them approaching along the street he held my hand more tightly, gripping it until it almost hurt.'

A tragic ending

Sadly, after his appearance at the Brighton Dome in 1908, Coleridge-Taylor would never again conduct Hiawatha at the venue. At the end of August 1912 – the coldest and wettest of that summer month then on record – an overworked and exhausted Coleridge-Taylor collapsed suddenly at West Croydon train station. Four days later, he died at home of acute pneumonia. He was 37 years old. 

Coleridge-Taylor on West Croydon platform in August 1912, as imagined by Kinga Markus. © Kinga Markus.
Coleridge-Taylor on West Croydon platform in August 1912, as imagined by Kinga Markus. © Kinga Markus.
Coverage of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's death in The Bystander, 11 September 1912. Above a picture of the composer, the headline reads an irreplaceable loss to British music.
Coverage of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's death in The Bystander, 11 September 1912. © Illustrated London News/Mary Evans Picture Library
A page from the Brighton Music Festival programme, November 1912 with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's name crossed out where it appears.
A heartbreaking copy of the Brighton Music Festival programme, November 1912 with Coleridge-Taylor's name crossed out. He had been scheduled to conduct his work A Tale of Old Japan in November 1912 but died a few months previously. Courtesy Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton and Hove

Coleridge-Taylor and the Performing Rights Society

On Coleridge-Taylor’s death, a furore ensued following the revelation of his precarious financial situation. Despite its popular and critical success, Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast had put little money the family’s way, the entire rights having been sold for a paltry sum. The establishment of the Performing Rights Society (PRS) in 1914 can be attributed, in part, to the discussions surrounding Coleridge-Taylor's financial struggles. The Society represents musicians, songwriters and music publishers' rights and collects royalties on their behalf.

In 1913, the government awarded his widow Jessie a Civil List annual pension of £100 (roughly equivalent to £10,000 today) in recognition of Coleridge-Taylor's work and the bereaved family's situation.

Revival

Coleridge-Taylor's music, which thrilled audiences around the world in the first half of the twentieth century, slowly faded from the public consciousness in the post-war period. Thankfully, the life and music of this trailblazing composer is slowly being rediscovered by a new generation. 

In 2013, The Song of Hiawatha was performed at Gloucester Cathedral as part of the Three Choirs Festival. Schott Music, which published many of his original piano pieces, is beginning to restore these scores to its catalogue, while musicians and orchestras are increasingly reviving Coleridge-Taylor's works. 

In addition to the album of the Welsh National Opera's 1991 performance featuring Bryn Terfel, recent outputs include Alexis Paterson’s unearthing of Solemn Prelude, Chineke’s numerous live performances and album release, Elizabeth Llwellyn and Simon Lepper's 2021 album Heart & Hereafter featuring 25 of Coleridge-Taylor's works, and The Choir of King’s College London’s Partsongs album, released at the end of 2023.

Meanwhile, we are thrilled to discover that Coleridge-Taylor’s music is featuring at the Dome on 18 February 2024, when the Kaleidescope Chamber Collective will play his Piano Trio in E Minor

Creative representations are also emerging, such as Amanda Wilkin’s audio play Recognition, and drawings and animations by our own Artist in Residence, Kinga Markus, which feature in our short video about Coleridge-Taylor's connection to Brighton.

A charcoal skethc of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor against a white background
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor by Kinga Markus, 2023. © Kinga Markus.

Learn more

We are delighted to play a small part in helping Samuel Coleridge-Taylor reclaim his rightful place in the public eye, just as he did at the Brighton Dome in 1908. Here are some recommendations for reading and listening which we have personally enjoyed during our time putting this project together.

Read

Green, J. (2011) Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: A Musical Life. Oxon and NY: Routledge.

Green, J. (n.d) Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Composer. Jeffrey Green, Historian. Last accessed: 8 January 2024.

Hiawatha at the Royal Albert Hall (1924-1939) Museum of Music History. Last accessed: 8 January 2024.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and the Musical Fight for Civil Rights. Google Arts and Culture. Last accessed: 8 January 2024.

Visit

The Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Foundation. Last accessed: 8 January 2024.

Listen

Music

Hiawatha: the death of Minnehaha Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (featuring Bryn Terfel) (1991)

Three Choirs Festival (2013)

Coleridge-Taylor Chineke Orchestra (2022)

Heart & Hereafter: Collected Songs of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Elizabeth Llewellyn and Simon Lepper (2021)

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Partsongs The Choir of King's College London (2023)

Drama

Amanda Wilken's audio play, Recognition 

Watch/Listen

Acknowledgements

Exhibition

Research: Dr Chamion Caballero

Text: Dr Chamion Caballero and Laura Smith

Original artwork: Kinga Markus

Video

Research: Dr Chamion Caballero

Script: Dr Chamion Caballero and Laura Smith

Editing: Warren Reilly

Original artwork and animation: Kinga Markus

Voiceover: Andre James

Sound editing: Nas Parkash

Producer: Laura Smith

"A Tremendous Ovation" – Samuel Coleridge-Taylor at the Brighton Dome is a REVEAL commission funded by the Brighton Dome as part of their National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF) project 'Heritage Takes Centre Stage'. Our thanks go to Writing Our Legacy, the Brighton Dome, NLHF and those who play the National Lottery, who made this project possible. 

Logo of the Brighton Dome
National Heritage Lottery Fund Logo
The Mixed Museum logo

Thanks also to Liz Porter and Alex Epps at the Brighton Dome, the Royal College of Music, and the Mary Evans Picture Library.

A special thanks to:

Nick Roberts at the Museum of Music History for his invaluable support accessing images related to Hiawatha productions at the Royal Albert Hall

Christopher Goddard for generously allowing us to use his remastered version of Hiawatha's Wedding Feast

Rob Manning for assistance with the video production process.

 

Image licences

Museum of Music History images may not be further reproduced. For reproduction, application must be made to the curators of the Museum of Music History at hello@momh.org.uk

All attempts have been made to ensure images are reproduced under permission or licence. However, please contact us if you believe you are a copyright holder of any image in this exhibition that has been displayed without proper permissions.

References

Primary sources consulted:

Brighton Gazette, Norwood News, West Sussex Gazette, Morning Leader, London Evening Standard, Sussex Agricultural Express, The Referee, Worthing Herald. Accessed via the British Newspaper Archive.

Musical Times.

Websites:

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and the Musical Fight for Civil Rights, Google Arts and Culture. Last accessed: 8 January 2024.

Hiawatha at the Royal Albert Hall (1924-1939), Museum of Music History. Last accessed: 8 January 2024.

Books and articles:

Coleridge-Taylor, A. (1979) The heritage of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. London: Dobson.

Coleridge-Taylor, J. (1943) A memory sketch or personal reminiscences of my husband, genius and musician, S. Coleridge-Taylor. Bognor Regis, England.

Green, J. (2011) Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: A Musical Life. Oxon and NY: Routledge.

Kay, C. (2001) The marriage of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Jessie Walmisley, Black Music Research Journal: 159-176.

Mullin, M. (2001) Culture in the Marketplace: Gender, Art, and Value in the American Southwest. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.