Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was born August 15, 1875 in London to an unmarried white woman and an African doctor. His father had been in England to study medicine and become, but had gone back to Africa by the time his Coleridge-Taylor was born. His mother was also an illegitimate child, and named her child after the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge-Taylor began studying violin when he was 15 at Royal College of Music in London. The principal hesitated letting Coleridge-Taylor join the school because he was worried other students might object to having a black student. However, there were no complaints and Coleridge-Taylor was able to flourish with the attention he received. Two years later he began composing his own pieces. In 1892 …show more content…
Together they had two children, a son named Hiawatha in 1900, and a daughter named Gwendolyn in 1903.
Coleridge-Taylor toured the U.S. for the first time in 1904 where he met Theodore Roosevelt at the white house, which was a honor even more rare for black people. He was welcomed with even more success than he had had in England. He would tour the U.S. two more times before his death. People there called him the “African Mahler”, comparing Coleridge-Taylor to the Austrian composer during the same time.
Coleridge-Taylor died in 1912 when he died of pneumonia. He had been under financial stress for some time which is believed to have caused his sickness and contributed to his death. It was common for composer and musicians to sell their music rights to make quick immediate income, which is what Coleridge-Taylor had done for Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, meaning he did not directly benefit from its success. Although his life was cut short, his legacy lived on through his daughter who became known as Avril Coleridge-Taylor and followed her father’s footsteps by becoming a composer. Coleridge-Taylor’s music has some of the first signs of blues in it by using flatten degrees in scales in 3rd and 7th position. His music was able to blend hard and soft while the parts were able to still sound cohesive. Some parts felt deep, heavy, and oppressive, and other parts felt lightweight, carefree,