Elegy

Description

Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola, Cello, Double Bass — 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 was admitted to London’s Royal College of Music, where he studied both violin and composition and composed his first works.First appearing in Novello’s Album for the Organ, No. 3, this plaintive Elegy dates from 1898, the same year as Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Opus 33 Ballade for Orchestra and his Opus 30 cantata Song of Hiawatha. The expressive dignity of the somber melody in G minor is both heartfelt and melancholy. First appearing in Novello’s Album for the Organ, No. 3, this plaintive Elegy dates from 1898, the same year as Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Opus 33 Ballade for Orchestra and his Opus 30 cantata Song of Hiawatha. The simple lyricism of the expressive melody in G minor is both heartfelt and melancholy.