Twenty-Four Negro Melodies

David Shaffer-Gottschalk (piano)

Catalog #: TROY0930-31
Release Date: May 1, 2007
Format: Digital
Instrumental

British composer and conductor Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was the son of an English mother, Alice Hare, and a Sierra Leonean father, David Hughes Taylor. Early in his life, Coleridge-Taylor's music education was directed by Colonel Herbert A. Walters, a fellow parishoner and choir member. After passing an audition for the Royal Academy of Music in London in 1890, Coleridge-Taylor studied composition with and became a protTgT of Charles Villiers Stanford. Coleridge-Taylor possessed extraordinary musical sensibilities, and his rise to credibility as a composer of note was at least partly the result of his Royal Academy pedigree. Arguably his greatest work was Hiawatha's Wedding Feast of 1898. What set him apart, of course, was his mixed heritage and his promotion of pan-Africanism, which sought to unify and uplift native Africans as well as those of the African Diaspora. Coleridge-Taylor would incorporate the indigenous music of Africans and African-Americans and sought the preservation of such music. This major piano cycle can best be summed up in the composer's own Forward to the published score: "What Brahms has done for the Hungarian folk-music, Dvorak for the Bohemian, and Grieg for the Norwegian, I have tried to do for these Negro Melodies. The plan adopted has been almost without exception that of the Tema con Variazioni. The actual melody has in every case been inserted at the head of each piece as a motto. The music which follows is nothing more nor less than a series of variations built on said motto. Therefore my share in the matter can be clearly traced, and must not be confounded with any idea of "improving" the original material any more than Brahms' Variations on the Haydn Theme "improved" that."

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Track Listing

Title Composer Performer
Twenty-Four Negro Melodies, Op. 59 Samuel Coleridge-Taylor David Shaffer-Gottschalk, piano

Reviews

  • "David Shaffer-Gottschalk...is a technically well-equipped and sympathetic interpreter of Coleridge-Taylor's music, sensitive to the innovative thinking that was poking out from under the blanket of Edwardian-era technique. A fine release..."

    – All Music Guide

  • "Pianist David Shaffer-Gottschalk delivers loving performances of this unusual, but engaging repertoire. ...a release that piano enthusiasts will certainly want to investigate."

    – Classical Lost and Found

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