Melody

Description

Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola, Cello, Contrabass — The story of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor is of a rising star composer, one with a significant gift for melody and a simple lyricism, who embraced the previously unexplored song and dance forms from his father’s native west Africa and incorporated them into his own very European art music. Coleridge-Taylor began playing the violin at age five and by age fifteen wasadmitted to London’s Royal College of Music, where he studied both violin and composition and composed his first works. The simply titled Melody is taken from "Three Short Pieces for Organ," a set of pieces originally published in Novello’s Album for the Organ, No. 3 (1898). While certainly typical of the late nineteenth century, many of Coleridge-Taylor's creations display inspiration by African musical elements much like spirituals inspired Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony. Violinist and composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was known for embracing the previously unexplored song and dance forms from his father’s native west Africa and incorporating them into his own very European art music. The simply-titled Melody is taken from "Three Short Pieces for Organ," a set of lyrical pieces with tuneful, song-like qualities.

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