Jeffrey Green: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor And The Handel Society

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[SamuelColeridge-Taylor Violin Concerto;Lorraine McAslan, violin; London Philharmonic Orchestra; NicholasBraithwaite, conductor; Lyrita SRCD.317 (2007)]
TheEnglish historian Jeffrey Green is author of SamuelColeridge-Taylor, a Musical Life,published by Pickering & Chatto Publishers (2011). He is also aGuest Blogger at AfriClassical. This is his fifth contribution.

SamuelColeridge-Taylor And The Handel SocietybyJeffrey GreenAlove of music has brought together many individuals whose paths wouldother wise have never crossed. So it was in 1904 when London’sHandel Society appointed Samuel Coleridge-Taylor to be theirconductor. He was the illegitimate son of an African doctor; themembers of the Handel Society were from London’s upper crust.
Amajor influence in the Handel Society from the moment it was foundedin 1882 was Arthur Balfour – nephew of Lord Salisbury, he becamePrime Minister in 1902. Balfour’s entry in the Dictionaryof National Biographynotes his love of Handel’s oratorios, and his comment that Handelhad possessed ‘a more copious, fluent and delightful gift ofmelody’ than any other composer.
Coleridge-Taylor,born in London in 1875, had studied the violin and then compositionat the Royal College of Music 1890-1897, and had writtenHiawatha’s Wedding Feast in1898. This cantata for tenor, chorus, and orchestra included ‘Onaway!Awake Beloved!’— a melodic masterpiece. By 1900 the nowthree-part Songof Hiawathabegan its decades-long position as a firm favourite of choirs allover the English-speaking world.
Membersof the Handel Society were wealthy, amateur, and enthusiastic.Balfour had hosted early rehearsals, but the long-serving secretaryPhilip Webb (a player of the violin and the viola, not the famedarchitect) managed the society. The social status of theinstrumentalists and singers caused difficulties for conductors.August Manns, whose Crystal Palace orchestra had long been a fixturein London’s concert world, conducted the Handel Society from 1892,is recorded as commenting
‘IfI hear your first clarinet playing a wrong note, am I to call out,‘Lieutenant-General Lord Chelmsford, G.C.B., you are playing Asharp instead of A natural’?’
Afterthree years Manns was replaced by J. Samuel Liddle, who was replacedin 1904 by Coleridge-Taylor, who held the position until his death in1912.
Ascan of the musical press of Edwardian England reveals that the musicof Handel was far from rare. There was a Handel Festival at theCrystal Palace every three years, where there were occasions when thechoir for Messiahnumbered four thousand – and the audience twenty thousand. TheHandel Society’s programmes were quite different, and had been fromthe beginning.
InApril 1888 the society presented Samsonto eight hundred residents of the Homes for Working Girls. InFebruary 1889 they performed in Bow, a concert witnessed by GeorgeBernard Shaw who had made ‘a hazardous voyage to the east end [ofLondon]’. He noted that all of the second violins were ‘beautifulyoung ladies’ and that the choir seemed to believe ‘that choralsinging is merely a habit caught in church’. His review notedWebb’s request for tenors, horns, and a second bassoon.
Ayear later the society’s two hundred singers and one hundredinstrumentalists presented Handel’s IncidentalMusic to Alceste,Mozart’s Haffner,and the Bach magnificat. At Liddle’s last concert in May 1904 theyperformed Jeptha.Coleridge-Taylor conducted Max Bruch’s Scenesfrom the Odysseyat the Queen’s Hall in May 1905. The MusicalTimesnoted that it ‘lacked intensity of expression, the common fault ofLondon choirs’. Shaw’s verdict was still valid.
Thesociety’s Queen’s Hall concert on 23 May 1906 was underColeridge-Taylor’s baton, and he conducted Dvorak’s Spectre’sBrideand the premier of his own KublaKhan.
TheHandel Society performed for fashionable London at the Queen’s Halland St. James’s Hall, and in the semi-slum land of Bow (at thePeople’s Palace). Coleridge-Taylor continued the policy of revivingHandel’s works and presenting music by others. Mozart’s Requiemand Handel’s Triumphof Time and Truthwere presented in early 1907 ‘with much testimony of goodintention’ (MusicalTimes).In May the concert was ‘before a large and fashionable audience’who listened to works by Schumann, Saint-Saens, and Dvorak. InFebruary 1908 Handel’s Herculeswas performed at the People’s Palace; in May Coleridge-Taylorconducted Dvorak’s StabatMaterand Elgar’s Fromthe Bavarian Highlands atthe Queen’s Hall. The MusicalTimescritic observed
Thechoir of the society seems to be suffering from the usual choraldifficulty in London, that of obtaining a sufficient number of malevoices to secure perfect balance of parts, but under Mr.Coleridge-Taylor’s direction an effective interpretation wassecured.
TheFebruary 1909 People’s Palace concert was Acisand Galatea with‘full band and chorus’. Tickets cost three pence. The annualQueen’s Hall concert, however, had nothing Handelian: ‘indeed,nothing nearer his period was heard than Brahms’ noted the MusicalNews.Conducting ‘with strength and alertness’ Coleridge-Taylordirected an enlarged choir, for the New Philharmonic Society ofRichmond had joined with the Handel Society to present works byParry, Stanford, Bizet, Glinka: and Sibelius’s Finlandia.
Coleridge-Taylorconducted the Finnish masterpiece at a performance by the CroydonString-Players’ Club, augmented by seventy professionalinstrumentalists, in Croydon in May 1909. His conducting skills hadbeen honed with his friends in the String-Players’ Club. He hadknown many of them a long time, for he had been raised by his motherand blacksmith grandfather in Croydon, within feet of a railwayline, downwind of a slaughterhouse. His features proclaimed hisAfrican father’s legacy, but Dr Daniel Taylor had returned toSierra Leone before his birth, and had died in the colonial backwaterof the Gambia in 1904, having never seen his composer son.Coleridge-Taylor’s world was quite different to that of typicalHandel Society members. He told his first biographer that many of themembers spent their holidays in the south of France and his weretaken at Westcliff-on-Sea (Southend). He mentioned that once andthereafter ‘I always avoided mention of my holidays’.
Suchsocial distinctions, so powerful in Edwardian England, were castaside when Coleridge-Taylor rehearsed and conducted the society.
TheFebruary 1911 concert at the Queen’s Hall included the conductor’sBon-BonSuiteandHandel’s SpringandSummer.Fourteen months later the society’s ‘reputation for independenceof choice’ was noted by the MusicalTimeswhen reviewing the May 1912 Queen’s Hall concert. Works byBeethoven, Bizet, and Schumann were included. The audience ‘as isusual at these concerts, was very numerous’. The singers showed‘the benefits of their training at the hands of Mr.Coleridge-Taylor’. His hard work and professional skills weredeeply respected.
PhilipWebb, when he heard that Coleridge-Taylor had died (agedthirty-seven) in September 1912, wrote to his widow
Icannot tell you how much grieved I am at this sad and unexpectednews, and how deeply I sympathise with you in your irreparable loss.It is a great loss to our Society, for your husband was an almostideal Conductor for us, containing as he did with his great musicaltalent so much personal sympathy and tact. His simple and [2 wordsillegible] sweet disposition made him a delightful colleague to workwith. I have already received several letters from members of theSociety, expressing their great sorrow, and I know that relationsbetween him and the Society generally were of a quite unusualcordiality, and that one and all will be mourning for his loss. I amsending a wreath on behalf of the Society. Believe me, yourssincerely, Philip Webb
TheHandel Society continued. Its April 1913 concert had Handel’s Odeon St. Cecilia’s Day,Coleridge-Taylor’s SolemnPrelude,and the new conductor Georg (sic) Henschel’sRequiem:the choice reflecting the impact of Coleridge-Taylor’s death.
VaughanWilliams conducted from 1919 to 1921, then Eugene Goossens until1925. Venues included the Royal College of Music, and in 1928 theLondon Palladium where Douglas Hopkins conducted Herculesin aid of the National Sunday League. In June 1931 the society gave aconcert at University College when the MusicalTimesnoted it existed to maintain ‘the healthy practice of performingmusic by amateurs’ and praised its choice of non-familiar works.Its last conductor was Reginald Goodall, whose biographer John Lucasnoted disliked Handel’s music: but it paid well. One of the membersremarked ‘We are gentry, not working class. It is a choir for ourfriends and relations’. Lucas added – ‘A large number of themlived in Eaton Square’[Belgravia].
Thewealthy, high-born Britons who played and sung in the Handel Society,from those initial rehearsals at Balfour’s London home in 1882 toperformances under Goodall – in Handel’s Semelein December 1938, the ChandosTe Deumand Beethoven’s seventh symphony in March 1939, and finally the May1939 performance of Handel’s Joshua– were all having fun. They gave pleasure to London audiences.Their largesse was appreciated by Goodall and other conductors; theirwillingness to perform from a wide range of concert music, and torevive rare Handel, was all very praiseworthy.
Considerthe changes in British society since this era: when a cabinetminister could slip out of parliament to go to a concert of Handel’smusic – and a black man could direct the sons and daughters of highsociety in music-making of a high order.

Thisarticle is based on materials gathered for a talk, presented to theLondon Handel Society, St. George’s church, Hanover Square, London,on 6 May 2003. Philip Webb’s letter is in the archives of the RoyalCollege of Music. My thanks to Oliver Davies.
[SamuelColeridge-Taylor (1875-1912) is profiled at AfriClassical.com,which features a comprehensive Works List and a Bibliography by Prof.Dominique-René de Lerma, www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com. Weare collaborating with the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Foundation of theU.K., www.SCTF.org.uk]