In 1906, composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor saw the world premiere of a composition he wrote inspired by his namesake, poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, at the Queen’s Hall in London. Coleridge-Taylor’s “Kubla Khan,” based on Taylor Coleridge’s poem of the same name, evokes a dream world loosely inspired by the poet’s fantasy version of what China might be like. It’s an opium-laced vision of castles, sacred rivers, maidens and beautiful music.
It’s ripe imagery for Coleridge-Taylor’s luscious musical adaptation. Last weekend, the University of Minnesota School of Music and the Oratorio Society presented a concert of the work, along with two other pieces by the composer, in “The Artistry of Genius: The music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.” In 1906, the young Black British composer was something of a rising star.
He’d written the tremendously popular “Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast,” based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha,” at the turn of the century, and made three tours to the United States between 1904 and 1910, even meeting with President Theodore Roosevelt. And yet, like much of Coleridge-Taylor’s compositions, “Kubla Khan” all but vanished in the years after the composer’s early death in 1912 at the age of 37. In recent years, orchestras, music publishers and institutions have worked to correct the mistake.
Here in Minnesota, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and other local groups have put Coleridge-Taylor’s music in their recent seasons. The English Heritage Music Series, a project launched by University of Minnesota’s School of Music professor Matthew Mehaffey and music archeologist Dave Fielding, aims to preserve and publish non-engraved and out-of-print British music compositions. They scour musical archives and work to digitize full musical scores, making them widely accessible for orchestras, choral groups and scholars on the internet.
Coleridge-Taylor is one of the composers they have helped revive, ensuring his legacy is preserved and his place in the Western musical canon solidified. Mehaffey, who is also the Oratorio Society’s artistic director, conducted the Summer Chorus and Orchestra in “Kubla Khan.” The performance began with a lengthy prelude section, played by the orchestras without the singers.
The composition paints a picturesque scene, with strings and harp leading the way into a glistening, glittery landscape of a song, with wind and percussion adding to the swelling sound a bit later. When the chorus and mezzo-soprano soloist Victoria Vargas, bringing her full-bodied sound, joined the music, the score revealed shifts in its texture, with subtle points of tension and swirly flourishes. Brandon Berger conducted the second piece of the evening, the epilogue from “Meg Blaine,” which like “Kubla Khan” was restored by EHMS.
A tale of pirates, sea storms and danger, the short piece was performed with riveting vitality by the singers and musicians, along with guest mezzo-soprano Mikalia Bradberry. Berger brought out the piece’s dramatic dynamics, with its fiery percussion and enthusiastic triangle. The piece’s elements of call and response were notable as well.
The evening concluded with part V. “Calvary” from “The Atonement,” Op. 53, a weighty, ambitious work performed with orchestra and choir along with four soloists.
Among them was Grammy-winning bass-baritone Dashon Burton, whose resonant voice brought gravitas to the heightened music. Especially powerful was a section Burton sang without accompaniment. His voice seemed to ache as the character faced his fate.
The “Calvary” section of “The Atonement” focuses on Jesus crucifixion. Bradberry, Vargas and Lin Kauffman sang the three Marys of the story and were a stunning trio when they sang together. Mehaffey conducted the work, performed for the first time in 100 years in 2023 at Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan, in a project led by then-doctoral student Bryan Ijames.
“The Atonement” came off as the most impressive of the evening, weaving the cinematic fullness of the first two pieces with a robust complexity and grandeur fitting of the subject matter. Related Articles Music and Concerts | Aerosmith cancels farewell tour, including January stop at Xcel Energy Center Music and Concerts | Concert review: Barry Manilow offers an evocative farewell to 11,000 fans at Xcel Energy Center Music and Concerts | Weekend blues festival in St. Paul is free and open to the public Music and Concerts | St.
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