Abstract
The art songs of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) have largely fallen out of today’s repertoire despite the composer writing over 130 songs which sold well at the time of their release. This essay provides a brief biography of Coleridge-Taylor, showing how his music was able to transcend racial barriers throughout his life. Eleven art songs are then analyzed according to a standardized format. This format begins with the vocal range, tessitura, determined vocal difficulty, and a link to a digitized version of the song before detailing the pedagogical considerations and applications of the song. Pedagogical components analyzed include registration, breathing, rhythmic and melodic elements, harmonic and piano elements, and accessibility.
The analyses show that Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s art songs can be useful in the voice studio to address a number of pedagogical benchmarks. Several songs are appropriate for developing consistency in a singer’s registration while staying within a range of roughly an octave. Other songs have breathing elements that may be used to train singers how to carry energy across a breath to complete the textual thought. Many songs may be used in the studio to teach a student how to add time for a breath while working with a collaborative pianist.
There are many avenues for further research into Coleridge-Taylor’s vocal music. As noted on many of the scores, most of the songs were published in multiple keys. However, there is no easy access to more than a single key of any of these songs today. With the success of Coleridge-Taylor’s music, copies of these scores must still exist today. There are Samuel Coleridge-Taylor archives at both the Royal College of Music and the Black Cultural Archives in London, and these items are likely starting places for this material. Furthermore, since all of the original printings of the composer’s music have fallen out of copyright, people should have access to these scores through online resources.