November

“Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast” is a choral gem, widely performed in England, where its popularity rivals Handel’s “Messiah,” but is now rarely heard in America. This is surprising, since the text by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, one of America’s beloved poets, celebrates the saga of Native Americans, and the music is melodic, expressive and highly effective in its evocation of a joyous, humorous, noble Iroquois culture. The composer, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912) was the son of an African father and English mother. His enormous musical ability appeared at a young age and he studied violin at the Royal College of Music in London, then composition with Charles Villiers Stanford. He was much admired by Edward Elgar, who recommended him to the Three Choirs Festival. It was for this festival that Coleridge-Taylor wrote Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, and its success was so great that the composer came to be called the "African Mahler.” Listeners can compare the two composers, as the song cycle, “Rückert Lieder,” by Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) is also on the program. The five songs, set to poems by Friedrich Rückert, an important German poet who wrote in the spirit of Oriental masters, show Mahler’s contributions to late Romantic musical style, especially his development of the Lied (song) cycle so brilliantly conceived by Schubert into a showcase of orchestral color and exotic effects.