Tag Archives: Royal Albert Hall
Memories of Hiawatha in the Royal Albert Hall
Two of our readers have recently very generously sent us material relating to the Hiawatha performances at the Royal Albert Hall in years around the 1930s. We are grateful to George Parnell for this Programme of Hiawatha performances, and to … Continue reading
Notes: Robert Eichert on children, education and Coleridge-Taylor
Robert Eichert writes: I could not agree more about SC-T’s music telling a story and there can also be interesting background to the music. Obviously, there is Hiawatha, faithfully keeping to Longfellow’s epic poem about love and loss among native … Continue reading
A radio programme-maker asks: Do you recall ‘Hiawatha’ at the Albert Hall, or elsewhere?
Andrew Green writes: Can you help? In this, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s centenary legacy year (2012), I’ll be fulfilling a long-held ambition to make a radio programme focusing on the famous Albert Hall ‘Hiawatha’ performances of the 1920s and 30s – the high-point in … Continue reading
‘Thelma’, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s only full-length opera, performed at last
Jonathan Butcher writes: Up until 1900 Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (born in 1875) had had little to do with composing for the theatre. His main body of work was choral and orchestral and, of course, his most famous opus, and the one that catapulted him to fame, was his major oratorio, Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast. His involvement with the theatre, though Herbert Beerbohm Tree, with all its colourful characters, magic and intrigue, may well have been the very spark Coleridge-Taylor needed to spur him on to write his only full length opera. Continue reading
Notes: Cumbria Choral Initiative SCT Concert, 28 July 2012
On July 28th 2012 the Cumbria Choral Initiative is to perform the entire Song of Hiawatha as the opening concert for the Lake District Summer Music Festival in the Coronation Hall in Ulverston, Cumbria. We are excited about this project, … Continue reading
Recalling my Father’s reminiscences on Hiawatha
Richard Gordon-Smith writes: My father David Gordon-Smith* was born in 1915. In the very class-conscious (by today’s standards) 1920s and ’30s my father’s parents would have been considered ‘lower middle class’. Their cultural aspirations included occasional theatre and concert attendance, musical … Continue reading
