"That you came so far to see us": Coleridge-Taylor in America.

By the time that Samuel Coleridge-Taylor made his first visit to the United States in 1904, American audiences were not only aware of the status of this young musician as the foremost composer and conductor of England but, by degrees, were also becoming acquainted with his music. Following the European model, American choral organizations had historically adopted the masterworks of Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn as staples of their repertory. But in the year following the London premiere of Coleridge-Taylor's Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, American choral societies began to tackle this "experimental" and "modern" work, which was based on the words of American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. On March 23, 1899, the Temple Choir of Brooklyn, New York, performed Hiawatha's Wedding Feast (Janifer 1967, 187). Almost a year later, on March 14, 1900, the highly respected Cecilia choral organization of Boston performed the work under the baton of J. B. Lang, repeating it two days later in response to the high demand. In 1901, the society added Hiawatha's Departure to its repertory and in 1903 performed it again along with The Death of Minnehaha. According to records of the New York Public Library dated May 2, 1901, the Albany Musical Association of New York gave the first United States performance of the trilogy, known as The Song of Hiawatha (187).

A highly significant early performance of portions of the Hiawatha music took place in Winsted, Connecticut, on June 5, 1901. The Litchfield County Choral Union of Norwalk, Connecticut, then a young and little-known choral society, presented Hiawatha's Wedding Feast and The Death of Minnehaha at its spring festival with an ideal assembly of musical forces. Soloists and a chorus of 190 members were accompanied by sixty instrumentalists selected from the orchestras of the Philharmonic Society and the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, conducted by Arthur Mees. The lengthy program included arias from Wagner's Tannhauser and Die Meistersinger, the "Indian Bell Song" (Vaill 1912a, 64, 65) from Delibes' Lakme, and Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2. (1) Coleridge-Taylor was made an honorary member of the Littlefield County Choral Union, only the second person to receive this distinction, which was later accorded composers such as Saint-Saens, Horatio Parker, Sibelius, and George Chadwick.

Comments on the choral union program highlighted the position of the new entry into America's choral music repertory. The Hartford Courant observed, "It is well known how shy the old-established societies are of new works, as the almost inevitable deficits have made them timid; and so the money-sure 'Elijah' and 'Messiah' are in a sense stagnating influences" (quoted in Vaill 1912a, 66, 67). The writer described the Hiawatha works as "intensely modern and fascinating for a strangely weird cast of melody and the brilliant, sumptuous instrumentation." His conclusion that "the chorus is now on record as one of the best in the State," suggests that he considered the ability to sing Scenes from Hiawatha a defining test of a choir's excellence. Indeed, a certain prestige came with the successful presentation of the Hiawatha music and brought fame to the Litchfield County Choral Union, especially in Europe.

The Litchfield County Choral Union was an unusual organization. Established in 1899, it consisted in 1907 of nearly seven hundred singers from five choral groups in the Litchfield area--the Norfolk Glee Club, the Winsted Choral Union, the Salisbury Choir, the Canaan Choral Society, and the Torrington Musical Association (Vaill 1912b, 208). The latter, the last to be admitted, presented the second performance of Hiawatha music for the community in 1907. The groups performed together in a series of festivals established and largely supported by Carl Stoeckel and his wife, Ellen Battell Stoeckel. Carl Stoeckel, a philanthropist and patron of music and soon to be a good friend of Coleridge-Taylor, was the son of Gustav Stoeckel, the first head of the Yale University School of Music; Ellen Stoeckel was the daughter of Norfolk jurist and philanthropist Robbins Battell, a man of considerable wealth, in whose honor the festivals were established (Vaill 1912a, 23-24).

Ellen and Carl Stoeckel supported handsomely the annual festivals or meetings, as they were called, through 1925 by regularly adding twenty thousand dollars to a ten thousand dollar annual endowment (Self 1995, 186). This underwriting was a boon to the community and was influential in determining the direction of concert music in Connecticut (Vaill 1912a, 105-107). For the first few years, tickets were sold; after 1904, entrance to the concerts was strictly by invitation (23, 26). Although it offered only choral music until 1907, the choral union became well known for both orchestral and choral works introduced at its annual June concerts (134, 135). The Litchfield County Choral Union would become one of the most auspicious influences in Coleridge-Taylor's life.

Additional performances of the Hiawatha works between 1900 and 1910 demonstrated the growing interest of American choruses in Coleridge-Taylor's music. There were further presentations by the Cecilia Society and by the Church Choral Society of New York, which performed another of the composer's works, The Atonement, on February 24 and 25, 1904, under conductor Henry Warren. The Southington Harmonic Society and Hosmer Hall Choral Society in Hartford, Connecticut, the Cleveland, Ohio Vocal Society, and other choral groups in St. Louis, Missouri, Des Moines, Iowa, and Nashville, Tennessee, all participated in what seemed for a time to be a rush to perform the Hiawatha music (Janifer 1967, 187).

Overall, the American press accepted these early presentations with some enthusiasm, but there were some dissatisfactions. A writer in the Boston Herald ("The Cecilia Society" 1903, 5) of February 4, 1903, was less than positive about the Cecilia Society's Death of Minnehaha: "The second section contains little that either edifies, impresses or delights." On the positive side, the critic admitted to "winning moments, bland, fluent phrases and its full, unusual harmonies" but felt that there was a lack of feeling. Contrasting the great interest in the first performance of Hiawatha's Wedding Feast with the reception of The Death of Minnehaha, an article signed with the initials B.R.G. (1903) concluded that "It was not altogether a wise move on the part of the Cecilia Committee to provide too much of a good thing." The critic's comments on the uneven singing and poor diction invite a question about whether his displeasure stemmed from the composition itself or from the performance.

While Americans in general were impressed by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's success and intrigued by the thought that a person of African heritage could be the idol of London audiences, many African Americans looked upon the composer with an admiration that frequently bordered on hero worship. Black newspapers followed his career and kept readers supplied with news of his successes. For example, the Washington Colored American ("An Afro-American Musical Genius" 1900) reprinted on its front page an article from the October 4, 1900, Daily Argus newspaper of Birmingham, England, describing Hiawatha as the "first favorite" at the Birmingham Festival and "by general consent the greatest [work] produced for a long time, and manifestly the product of real genius." Black Americans must have relished the identification of their English cousin as Afro-American.

At this time, black Americans were facing the most extensive repression of their civil liberties, political rights, and economic opportunities since the days of slavery. News of Coleridge-Taylor's triumphs brought much-needed inspiration and encouragement and helped to reinforce ideas of economic self-sufficiency and artistic creativity among these citizens. Another issue of the Colored American ("Doings of Stage Folks" 1900, 6) voiced the aspirations of many: "We may ultimately look among colored Americans for composers of music who will do honor to their country and their art, a prediction all the more easily made because of the general recognition given to the work of S. Coleridge-Taylor, a man of African blood, resident in England, whose 'Hiawatha's Wedding Feast' has commanded the widest approbation of a high creative gift." This statement defined Coleridge-Taylor's position in the minds of African Americans. His was the role of standard-bearer for the future, the unequaled exemplar of what the black artist could be. Almost every review of a concert of Coleridge-Taylor's music in the United States in the next few years would contain a reference to race, and writers frequently took considerable pains to extract from his circumstances lessons in race relations for both black and white Americans.

Education and, along with it, artistic productivity, was seen by black Americans as the primary means of improving their status. The Negro Music Journal ("A Grand Production" 1903, 185) made the case this way:

   That our race is steadily progressive along all lines of education
   is daily being manifested. In the industrial life, the scientific
   world, the college curriculum, the artistic sphere, in each is to
   be noticed that the Negro's brain is able to comprehend the various
   arts and sciences. If this be not a fact, for what do such characters
   as Dunbar, Wheatley, Tanner, Booker T. Washington, Bruce,
   Coleridge-Taylor, Burleigh and others stand? It is not for us as a
   race to feel that we are inferior to any race--for the same God
   created us all: white and black, brown and yellow, out of the same
   substance. Our all-important duty is to THINK and LABOR to prove that
   we can understand and execute works of art. (2)

In this list of artists and writers, the modern eye may note the absence of W.E.B. Du Bois, the professor who had known Coleridge-Taylor since 1900. Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk ([1903] 1982) was published in the month following this Negro Music Journal issue. The book was an dramatic manifesto that divided black Americans into advocates of protest or, following educator Booker T. Washington, adherents to theories of accommodation with white oppression. Considerations of racial progress in the United States were long affected by the tensions symbolized by the two men. Coleridge-Taylor knew them both. Although not in agreement with the concept of limiting black efforts to the utilitarian, abandoning the artistic and creative, Coleridge-Taylor respected Washington.

The hunger for higher education on the part of the mid-nineteenth-century African American was satisfied in part by the establishment of historically black colleges. By 1900, African Americans could study music at several such institutions, including Howard University (Washington, D.C.), Fisk (Nashville, Tennessee), Hampton Institute (Hampton, Virginia), Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute in Alabama's cotton belt, and a cluster of colleges that eventually combined to form the Atlanta University System in Georgia. A handful of white conservatories of music including Oberlin in Ohio, the New England Conservatory in Boston, and the National Conservatory of Music in New York City admitted black students.

Educational opportunities for black Americans were particularly abundant in Washington, D.C., where the black population of ninety thousand constituted nearly a third of the city's residents at the turn of the century. In the wake of the Civil War, many families came to Washington hoping not only for federal protection from the more heinous practices spawned by racial prejudice but also for superior education for their children. The city's school system was strong, and the M Street High School--later Dunbar High School--had a national reputation for academic excellence. Access to higher education within the city included Howard University, Wayland Seminary, and Myrtilla Miner Normal Teachers College.

Washington had a well-substantiated claim to its position as an intellectual and cultural center for African Americans. It was home to the nationally known Bethel Literary and Historical Society, established in 1881 as a "forum in which maturity of thought, breadth of comprehension, sound scholarship, lofty patriotism, and exalted philanthropy could find a cordial welcome" (Cromwell 1896, 26). In the realm of music the city could point to a tradition of recitals by black concert artists and choral groups extending back to the 1850s. The Colored American Opera Company, the first such opera company, had its beginnings in Washington's St. Augustine Church in 1873, ten years before the Metropolitan Opera House was built in New York. The Negro Music Journal, a classical music magazine, was established in September 1902; it is no surprise that its first issue contained a biographical sketch of Coleridge-Taylor. A development of much broader implications was the founding by Harriet Gibbs Marshall of the Washington Conservatory of Music and School of Expression in 1903, an important addition to the opportunities for African Americans to study classical music at the college level.

At the time of the earliest American performances of Coleridge-Taylor's Hiawatha music in other cities, Washington's black press gave kudos to the first successful presentation by African Americans of a major choral work under African-American auspices. An oratorio identified in the press only by its title, Emanuel, was performed by the Asbury Church Choir under J. Henry Lewis, along with members of the Dvorak Musical Association and the Amphion Glee Club. Asbury's choir was one of several nationally famous for high standards; the Amphions were ten years old, a favorite of Washingtonians and also nationally known; and the more recently formed Dvorak Musical Association excited a great deal of curiosity. The collaboration between the three groups drew large audiences and hinted at possibilities for the concerts of Coleridge-Taylor's music that were soon to begin.

This was the background for the most exciting and arguably most eagerly anticipated concert of The Song of Hiawatha in the United States. It took place on April 23, 1903, at the Metropolitan A.M.E. Church and launched an enthusiasm so intense in Washington, D.C., as to suggest the term "Hiawatha mania." Initiated, promoted, managed, and performed by African Americans, the concert resulted from the resolve and energy of the S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society, a unique organization whose specific and immediate goal was to bring the composer to America to conduct the choir in a performance of his music. The organization further pledged itself to cultivating in its audiences interest in music that would "refine and elevate" (S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society 1901).

Stimulus for the establishment of this choral group--yet another in this city of distinguished choirs--came from Mamie Hilyer, an accomplished local pianist, who had met Coleridge-Taylor in England during the homeward portion of her visit to the Paris Exhibition of 1900. Mamie Hilyer's and Carl Stoeckel's enthusiasm led to an opportunity for Coleridge-Taylor to visit the United States.

Upon her return home from Europe, imbued with the feeling that her fellow African Americans were virtually obligated to perform Coleridge-Taylor's music and to bring him to America, Mamie Hilyer set out to encourage and cajole. An active member of the city's black upper class, she founded the Treble Clef Club in 1897. The eight young matrons who joined her wished to create more opportunities to hear and to continue the study of "good music" and to champion its cultivation in the homes of black Washingtonians. Membership fluctuated between twenty and twenty-five women, many of whom had been school music teachers. They would surely have shared information about Coleridge-Taylor and performed and discussed his music at their monthly meetings. The Treble Clef Club was committed to an annual public recital that Hilyer (ca. 1947, 1) recalled as "the only high-class musical entertainment that was given free in the city of Washington at that time." She considered it "a great incentive to young people to continue their studies in music." (3)

The statements of the Treble Clef Club and the S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society included phrases such as "good music" and "works that tend to refine and elevate" to emphasize the contrast between the dance music and popular music found in the musical comedies of the day and the concert music mainly based on European models. African Americans who held that racial uplift implied an emphasis on characteristics close to those of the mainstream culture often rejected popular music styles and felt that knowledge and sophistication would be demonstrated by mastery of the concert hall arts. Others, who felt that the progress of the race was tied to a clear recognition and promotion of its distinctive qualities, frequently showed a preference for music that reflected African roots. The distinctions became class related and survived in the conflicting views of the Harlem Renaissance or New Negro Movement of the 1920s. Black Americans in general were drawn to Coleridge-Taylor as a hero, whereas upper-middle-class black Washingtonians, the residents of Le Droit Park, were ready to welcome him as one of their class. Hiawatha mania had a distinct relationship to the cause of racial uplift, and the contribution of the S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society to this relationship should not be underestimated.

Mamie Hilyer's aspiration to bring the composer to the United States was shared by Lola Johnson, another Treble Clef Club member. Johnson wrote the composer, and having secured a positive response from him, the two women presented the idea to the other members. They pledged unconditional support. A number of influential people met at the Hilyer home, and the S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society was born in 1901 (Sayers [1915] 1969, 109-110). The board elected as officers John F. Cook (president), Lola Johnson (vice president), Arthur S. Gray (recording secretary), Jerome A. Johnson (financial secretary), Andrew Franklin Hilyer (treasurer), Dr. J. E. Rattley (librarian), and Professor John T. Layton (musical director). Cook, sometimes called the dean of black Washington, was an educator and government official and a member of the Howard University board of trustees. Andrew Hilyer was a businessman, inventor, author, and civil rights leader. The society was fortunate to have him as treasurer and a participant in the financial planning. The board roster, committee members, and the list of singers read like the blue book of upper- and middle-class black Washingtonians ("Music Festival" 1906).

The board established a guarantee or sustaining fund with the aim of accumulating three thousand dollars (or a large part of it) before offering seats for sale to the public. This goal was achieved, to the surprise of many. The plan was to form a chorus of three hundred and to commence rehearsals as soon as the scores of The Song of Hiawatha arrived. While waiting, the chorus began work on the "Inflammatus" from Rossini's Stabat Mater, presumably the first of the works that the society had pledged to perform in its effort to increase among African Americans a love and appreciation of choral masterworks. The Treble Clef Club created public interest and raised funds through activities such as musical teas and salons. Some club members contributed their performances. Mamie Hilyer, Emma Williams, Josephine Ball, and Amanda Gray formed the Chibiabos Quartet, a reference to Longfellow's "sweetest of all singers" and "best of all musicians," accompanied by Mary L. Europe, who was to become well known for her work with the S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society. Treble Clef Club members served on the choral society's committees, as members of the board, and as officers. They also showed a personal interest in the composer, sending a gift to his first-born baby, Hiawatha. Coleridge-Taylor dedicated to the club his orchestral piece Concert March: Ethiopia Saluting the Colors, op. 51 (1903).

As local arrangements proceeded apace, the real task was to reach an agreement with the composer on the details of his proposed visit. The correspondence between Andrew Hilyer and Coleridge-Taylor, published in Sayers' biography ([1915] 1969), reveals the problems. The invitation had been extended (and accepted) in December 1901, but the composer's visit was postponed until 1904. Coleridge-Taylor encountered problems finding a time that fit into his professional schedule. On the other end, the Washingtonians had difficulties meeting all of the conditions he proposed. The major obstacle was the orchestra, as will be explained. Meanwhile, the society felt obliged to proceed with its announced plan for a performance in April 1903. Just before this concert, Coleridge-Taylor wrote to Hilyer, "No performance has ever interested me half as much as this 'coloured' one, and I would give a great deal to be with you all" (Sayers [1915] 1969, 142).

Coleridge-Taylor felt a kinship with Americans of African descent even before he crossed the Atlantic. He had developed a friendship with Paul Laurence Dunbar during the latter's visit to England in 1897. Dunbar was in Washington in 1901 and probably shared in the excitement leading up to the first Hiawatha concert, but he had moved away before it came to pass. Coleridge-Taylor was musically stimulated by his contacts with Frederick Loudin, leader of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Loudin was largely responsible for arranging the meeting between Mamie Hilyer and the composer in 1900, and afterward, from his London base, Loudin sent her news clippings about the composer. There were other American contacts and influences. Andrew Hilyer sent Du Bois' Souls of Black Folk to Coleridge-Taylor, and Du Bois sent gifts, as well. In 1905, James Weldon Johnson, his brother J. Rosamond Johnson, and Robert "Bob" Cole, then appearing at the Palace Theatre in London, made contact with the composer (Johnson 1990, 213). Coleridge-Taylor's half-sister Marjorie Evans recalled his respect for the comedians Bert Williams and George Walker, whose musical In Dahomey had taken London by storm in 1903 and had been widely praised. Hilyer sent other items to England, from which the composer would have obtained information about the lives of those who had invited him. Coleridge-Taylor's familiarity with the culture of black America had limitations, and he felt a need for greater knowledge and closer connections. This was the American side of his Pan-Africanism.

Booker T. Washington touched Coleridge-Taylor, too. The composer had sought the educator's advice in early 1904 concerning the problems of publicizing a new musical work. The long-established Oliver Ditson publishing house of Boston had commissioned a collection entitled Twenty-four Negro Melodies, op. 59, well before the composer left for America (Coleridge-Taylor 1905). Washington wrote a preface for the volume dated October 24, 1904, the day before Coleridge-Taylor left England for Boston and a meeting at Ditson's.

The lengthy delay between Coleridge-Taylor's acceptance of the invitation in December 1901 and his arrival in November 1904 was the result of negotiations relating to the orchestra. Coleridge-Taylor was accustomed to highly skilled instrumentalists in England and orchestras associated with reputable conductors such as August Manns, Hans Richter, and Henry Wood, as well as the student orchestra at the Royal College of Music under Holmes and Stanford. He was also acquainted with poor orchestras and knew the problems that they could cause. He was therefore insistent that there be adequate instrumental support, feeling that not only the success of the choral society but also his reputation as an orchestral conductor would be threatened without it.

The society had no hope of hiring a large orchestra and was frustrated in trying to arrange even for a small one because of the dearth of orchestral performers in early twentieth-century Washington. There was no flourishing symphony orchestra in the city, and if there had been one, it is doubtful that it would have associated itself with a black choral group. The best-known black group that played concert music was an orchestra conducted by Will Marion Cook in the 1890s, but by 1901, most of the players had left for New York, as had Cook (who conducted In Dahomey in 1903). The Eclipse Orchestra, conducted by Elzie Hoffmann, seemed promising, but the experience of these instrumentalists was likely insufficient for the complicated music of The Song of Hiawatha. Local white musicians suffered the same limitations, being accustomed mainly to providing music for dance salons, theaters, and hotels. In desperation, the society turned to a group directed by the white conductor Professor Donch. After two rehearsals, it was clear that the demands of the Coleridge-Taylor score were beyond them. Pianists Mary Europe and Gabrielle Pelham, together with organist William Braxton at the vocalion, took on the assignment of providing the accompaniment and were more than equal to the task ("A Negro's Music" 1903).

The Song of Hiawatha was performed by the S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society on April 23, 1903, at the Metropolitan A.M.E. Church in Washington, D.C. Normally seating eighteen hundred, the church that evening held about two thousand people, and a larger number had to be turned away. A dress rehearsal the previous evening brought out an audience of a similar size. Because the soloists were among the outstanding black performers in America, their names must have had far-reaching recognition value.

Soprano Kathryn Skeene-Mitchell of Cleveland was well known for her participation in oratorios and solo recitals. She was to sing in almost all of the Coleridge-Taylor concerts in 1904 and 1906. Sidney Woodward, of Florida and Washington, D.C., toured as a concert tenor, made appearances in the operatic segments of musical comedies, and conducted church choirs. Critics frequently commented on the ease with which he sang in the highest register.

By far the most famous of the soloists was baritone Harry T. Burleigh of New York. A man of many attainments, Burleigh, through his knowledge and interpretation of Negro spirituals, had influenced Dvorak during that composer's time in America in the 1890s. Burleigh achieved distinction as composer and as singer. Considered one of the outstanding black American composers of the early twentieth century, he was the first African American to be recognized as a composer of art songs. Until the 1950s, art songs by black composers were limited in number and dominated by the compositions of Burleigh and Coleridge-Taylor. As a singer, Burleigh was employed at St. George's Protestant Episcopal Church, an aristocratic New York church, and was the first black soloist at Temple Emanu-El, another prestigious institution in that city. He toured the United States and Europe and is often regarded as the first individual to spread the news of Coleridge-Taylor in black America. Burleigh and Coleridge-Taylor formed a solid friendship. The two men appeared together in most of the American recitals, and Burleigh was to perform with the composer in England at a later date.

Mary Lorraine Europe was a highly valued pianist in Washington, D.C., and a favorite of the city's vocal soloists. The fame of her brother James Reese Europe overshadowed hers, but she was included in The [Indianapolis] Freeman article entitled "The Negro's Genius for Music" (1907) on a list of outstanding instrumentalists. Elsie Smith (1947, 2-3), a member of the S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society, recalled Europe's perfect pitch, sensitivity to the needs of the singer, and ability to transpose music to any key instantaneously.

Conductor John Layton served the Washington community for many years as the regular director of the Metropolitan A.M.E. Church choir, reputed to be one of the finest in the city. He was also an outstanding bass soloist and was supervisor of music for African Americans in Washington's schools for over twenty years. His musical education included study with teachers from the Boston Conservatory of Music. A grateful public gave Layton testimonials in 1887, 1898, 1903, and 1904.

Critical response to the 1903 Hiawatha performance was overwhelmingly positive. The Washington Post ("Hiawatha's First Hearing" 1903) of April 24 had only words of praise for the "wonderfully beautiful, but wonderfully difficult" composition. The writer was equally impressed with the voice quality--"melodious, rich, and powerful" and "thrilling," in contrast to the stereotypical conception of the black voice as thin and reedy.

At the performance, as often happened with the society's presentations of The Song of Hiawatha, specific pieces had to be repeated. Audiences were partial to the baritone solo and chorus "Farewell, Minnehaha," the tenor solo "Iago's Tale of the Big Sea Water," enhanced by the women's refrain "Kaw, Kaw they said, it cannot be so," the tenor's Black Robe Chief Song, and the male chorus "We Have Listened to Your Message." Critics acknowledged Layton's training and control of the choir, spoke admiringly of Burleigh, and recognized the contribution of Mary Europe. The last words of the Post article must have satisfied the fondest dreams of the society: "The performance of Hiawatha was a splendid triumph for the colored people. They have successfully sung a work which only a few of the leading choral societies of this country has attempted."

Even the Washington Evening Star, a local paper that usually ignored the activities of the city's black population or spoke of them in condescending terms, paid tribute not only to the concert itself but to the management and organization behind it. The article included portions of an address delivered at a meeting of the Choral Society by Coralie Franklin Cook, member of the D.C. Board of Education and wife of George W. Cook, who served on the S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society Board of Managers:

   It was a stupendous, almost an audacious undertaking to organize a
   choral society and to attempt the presentation of so difficult a
   composition as "Hiawatha." To many less sanguine than this woman
   [Mamie Hilyer] with whom the idea was incipient it seemed well nigh
   impossible.... Fully 170 composed the chorus. The men wore the
   conventional evening dress and all the ladies wore white.... The
   audience was all that could have been asked, and was a real
   compliment to a yet untried organization. From the first to the last
   strain ... the audience was enthralled. ("Its Work Commended" 1903)

Writers in other local and New York papers outdid each other in expressing appreciation for the performance of the S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society. The New York Times ("A Negro's Music" 1903, 2) referred to the performance as "by far the most interesting event in the comparatively barren musical season of Washington" and concluded, "Those who came expecting to make allowances for inadequate singing because it was by colored people went away wondering whether so effective a chorus had ever before been heard in Washington.... The concert opens up a field of interesting speculation as to the possibility of the colored people in the higher regions of music, and fully justifies the decision of the managers of the society to continue their work as a permanent organization."

The adjectives "barbaric," "mysterious," "weird," and "savage" frequently found their way into descriptions of the music, as did statements categorizing the music of The Song of Hiawatha as European, lacking the expected earmarks of an African heritage. Rarely was reference made to the Indian heritage involved in the story, although Howard University professor Kelly Miller (1903) seemed to grasp the basic ironies involved: "The story of the Indian race was written by an Anglo-Saxon who is confessedly incapable of putting himself in the place of the under man, set to music by an African, whose father lived and died in an antipodal continent and rendered, in full, for the first time in America by a chorus of that race which was brought here to relieve the Indian of his burden." The assumption that the black singers had a cultural identification with Native America and were therefore at an advantage singing this music was made more than once.

Although the S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society had taken a giant step and had shaken the complacency of the American musical scene by its ability to present a concert of The Song of Hiawatha to critical acclaim, the society did not lose sight of its goal of bringing the composer to Washington to conduct his work. The group continued to perform, this being financially advantageous and useful in keeping the society in public view. Seven months later, on November 27, the society presented the same program at the Lyric Theater in Baltimore, Maryland. The same musical forces, with baritone soloist J. Gerald Tyler replacing Burleigh, received the same ecstatic welcome by the audience and critics ("Hiawatha by the S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society" 1903). Twenty-six thousand people heard the concert, about which the Landset-Baltimore (C. R. 1903) proclaimed: "Never was staid conservative Baltimore so aroused over any event as it was over this, and never the expectations of a people so cleverly and well met as this instance.... It was a great occasion and for many a day to come will men and women speak of it and the wonderful inspiration it gave to a struggling people."

Rehearsals and special performances were given for children in both Baltimore and Washington, it being felt that black youth should be aware of this Afro-British hero. The cities, forty miles apart and connected by rail, were accustomed to exchanging artists and audiences, but for the Baltimore performance, people also came from Wilmington, Delaware, Philadelphia, and the Maryland cities of Annapolis, Cambridge, and Hagerstown.

The Song of Hiawatha also received highly publicized performances by other organizations, always with good effect. Soon after the first Washington concert, the Orpheus Oratorio Society in Easton, Pennsylvania, presented the entire trilogy on May 5, 1903. This production--"the most important as well as pretentious program in the history of the organization" ("Easton Singers Give 'Hiawatha'" 1903)--took place before a crowded opera house audience in this relatively small town. The choir numbered 125, and both soloists and orchestra were imported from New York. Mr. Knauss, director of the sixteen-year-old society, was organist at the Brainerd Union Presbyterian Church. An accomplished pianist, he had a reputation for conquering difficult tasks.

Again, the performance of Coleridge-Taylor's music inspired some soul searching in racially conscious America. The fact that the idol of musical London was a black man came "in the midst of the renewed effort on the part of thoughtful men and women in America to solve the great race question," as the Philadelphia Press ("Easton Singers Give 'Hiawatha'" 1903) commented.

A second presentation of The Song of Hiawatha by the S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society at the Metropolitan A.M.E. Church, on April 12, 1904, brought together soloists tenor Frederick J. Work of Nashville, baritone Stanley Gilbert of Philadelphia, and soprano Kathryn Skeene-Mitchell. Work (1879-1942) came from a musical family, his father having directed church choirs in Nashville, from which had sprung several members of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Many in the audience respected Work, who, like Burleigh, presented black music as a cultural achievement. Programs of the choral society continued to draw an audience from both races in the racially segregated city. On this occasion, more of official Washington was present in the persons of three district commissioners. In addition, the president of the white Washington Choral Society and other nationally recognized musicians including conductor-composer Reginald De Koven were reported as being in the audience ("A Grand Production of 'Hiawatha'" 1903, 187).

Between the second and third parts of The Song of Hiawatha, Arthur Gray (secretary of the society) whetted appetites for future concerts by reading from the correspondence between the composer and officers of the society. And, in what must have been an exciting moment, he announced that Coleridge-Taylor was to come to Washington, D.C., in November. The society had finally been able to meet the composer's requirements. When Hilyer sent clippings of the 1903 triumph, with extravagant praise for the three accompanists, Europe, Pelham, and Braxton, Coleridge-Taylor responded, "I have never heard Hiawatha without orchestra, and can only imagine it to sound fearfully dull without a band" (quoted in Sayers [1915] 1969, 142-143). A similar situation existed in England, he wrote, with only about six towns having really good bands. He realized that black players would be difficult to find and suggested that a few good professionals--especially strings--be used along with some amateurs. The Hiawatha score calls for one piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, sixteen violins, four violas, six cellos, four basses, and drums (Sayers [1915] 1969, 146).

Details were worked out, and in a flyer of August 10, 1904, the society announced the festival dates of November 16 and 17 at Convention Hall. A third concert scheduled for Baltimore's Lyric Theater on November 18 was announced later. The problem of the orchestra had been solved by the hiring of the United States Marine Band. At this time, the society announced the guarantee fund and asked for subscriptions. Tickets ranged from fifty cents to $1.50 and could be obtained ahead of time through the guarantee fund and also on performance day ("Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society of Washington, D.C." 1904).

Coleridge-Taylor sailed from Liverpool on the Cunard Line's Saxonia and reached Boston on November 2, 1904. Friends, well-wishers, and the press greeted him, thus partially preparing him for the unrestrained admiration that he was to receive wherever he went in America, particularly in cities with large black populations. In Washington, Coleridge-Taylor was the guest of John P. Green, a supervisor of the United States Stamp Agency, an example of black employment in federal service at a time when southern states drew a color line. Coleridge-Taylor was entertained at the homes of General Robert H. and Mary Church Terrell, Andrew and Mamie Hilyer, and John F. Cook ("This Week in Society" 1904). The general public treated him as a celebrity, eagerly attempting to shake his hand and to visit him, much to his discomfort. In an interview with a Washington Star reporter ("A Musical Genius" 1904), Coleridge-Taylor spoke of his pleasure at the musical intelligence and discrimination of the black Americans he had met and admitted that this had been underestimated in the minds of Britons. Asked about "coon" songs, he responded, "The worst sort of rot," thereby endearing himself to many African Americans. "In the first place there is no melody, and in the second place there is no real Negro character or sentiment in these 'coon' songs. However, I will not object to the term 'coon songs.' They may be that. But they are not Negro melodies." Coleridge-Taylor visited Howard University, the Armstrong Training High School, and the Washington Normal School. He received from the students tributes and gifts, the most often mentioned being a baton made from a cedar tree that stood at the residence of the late race leader Frederick Douglass.

The festival began on Wednesday, November 16, 1904, in Convention Hall, with Coleridge-Taylor conducting the society's chorus in its fourth rendition of The Song of Hiawatha. Convention Hall seated three thousand people, two-thirds of whom, according to Sayers ([1915] 1969, 162), were black. Soloists were soprano Estelle Pinckney Clough of Worcester, Massachusetts, tenor J. Arthur Freeman of St. Louis, Missouri, and Harry Burleigh. They were accompanied by the orchestra of the United States Marine Band, William H. Santelmann, leader. President Theodore Roosevelt's secretary attended the concert, and the composer later was received at the White House and given an autographed photograph of the president. Reelected just days before, Roosevelt found time for a talk with the composer (166).

The second night's program was more varied. It opened with the overture to The Song of Hiawatha, which might have been expected to create special interest since it contained the spiritual "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen." Little or no comment about the orchestral work appeared in the press, however, for reasons that will become clear. Next came Burleigh's rendition of "Beat! Beat! Drums," the last of his Six American Lyrics, op. 45, set to Walt Whitman's words and published for contralto or baritone. "Come Away," by the chorus, was followed by a setting of the Dunbar poem "A Corn Song," sung by Freeman.

Three of Longfellow's Songs of Slavery, which constituted the first three of the composer's Five Choral Ballads, op. 54, were performed. These three Choral Ballads were dedicated to the society; two songs were added later. A quartet composed of Burleigh, Estelle Clough, Arthur Freeman, and Ida E. Chestnut performed two, and the chorus, accompanied by the United States Marine Band, sang the third, "Loud He Sang the Psalm of David." The Choral Ballads suffered most obviously from the hall's poor acoustics. Following these works, eighteen-year-old Mary Europe accompanied Clough in the "Indian Bell Song"; the chorus sang a cappella "O Gladsome Light" from Arthur Sullivan's Golden Legend; and Coleridge-Taylor accompanied violinist Clarence Cameron White in selections from the Four African Dances. The full ensemble ended the concert with "Farewell, O Hiawatha!" from Hiawatha's Departure. A Washington Post critic considered Clough's performance quite unsatisfactory and regarding the Four African Dances remarked "it may be that with as capable an artist playing the violin as Mr. Taylor is on piano, this number might demand better recognition" ("Second Taylor Concert" 1904).

The music of the second evening suffered more than that of the first from the Convention Hall's extremely poor acoustics. The concert, however, was considered a musical and social success. The Washington Post critic ("Presents Hiawatha at Convention Hall" 1904) reflected genuine admiration for the event but could not conceal his astonishment at what he had seen: "The Coleridge-Taylor festival filled this week with surprises of many kinds--the tremendous audience, the whiteness of people of color, the large proportion of prominent white people present, the beauty and perfection of the performances musically, the youth of the composer, and the admirable management of the whole unique proceeding. Both concerts were successes in a big sense." One wonders if Coleridge-Taylor read such reviews and if he was confused by them.

Although having a black conductor raise a baton over white musicians may itself have been considered a triumph in the United States at that time, most writers, chagrined that the excellent work of the choir should be so affected by the shabbiness of the accompaniment, expressed displeasure, even consternation, at the quality of the Marine Band. The Washington Post critic ("Second Taylor Concert" 1904) extended sympathy to the Englishman for the band's wretched performance and summarized the general reaction: "The great musician who came from foreign shores to personally present the children of his genius in the Capital of the United States must carry away with him some very peculiar impressions as to the standard of taste that obtains among us. We are glad that he will not leave America before going to New York and Boston." (In fact, he had already been to Boston.) The problem of the orchestra, which had delayed the composer's visit to America for over two years, had clearly not been solved in a satisfactory way, despite the choral society's efforts. All signs suggest that the United States Marine Band must have been adequate. An act of Congress had doubled its strength five years earlier. William Santelmann organized a symphony orchestra within the band, requiring each member except for the soloists to double on a stringed instrument, and in 1902 pronounced the band ready for use at the White House. Was Coleridge-Taylor's score too difficult for the group, or could the problems have arisen from lack of practice, as the more charitable writers suggested? Or, perhaps simply because of racial tensions, the band members did not play their best under a black conductor.

Coleridge-Taylor's comments about the band may have been motivated by a desire to be polite in a foreign land, when he said in an Washington Evening Star ("A Musical Genius" 1904) interview: "I have heard your Marine Band, which I think is very proficient. I went to the marine barracks the other day to conduct the Marine Band Orchestra in rehearsal for the production of Hiawatha, which is to be given here very shortly, and I was very much pleased with the work of the men." Privately, he did not have such a high opinion of the band's performances of his compositions, judging by his comment to Hilyer in September 1905 that they were not one-tenth as good as the chorus. Furthermore, he recommended that for his next visit, instrumentalists should be obtained elsewhere (Sayers [1915] 1969, 185-186).

In Baltimore, the program consisted of The Song of Hiawatha and three Choral Ballads. They were not well received, probably because the contrapuntal nature of these pieces required more rehearsal. Again, the band's inadequacy was noted. Comments that might have been made about the music itself were probably lost in the reactions to the band's weak performance.

The Baltimore concert had been well publicized, and William Arms Fisher, manager of Ditsons of Boston, was one of the visiting dignitaries. Visitors came from Richmond, Virginia, Cincinnati, Ohio, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and St. Louis, Missouri.

In the Washington Star interview ("A Musical Genius" 1904), Coleridge-Taylor commented on the brutal treatment of black citizens that he had observed, aware that, as a foreign-born black man, he had not been subject to it. When members of the S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society expressed anxiety about the possibility of his having to face racial slurs or insensitive treatment, he assured them that he had experienced negative reactions on the basis of race in Britain. On the whole, Coleridge-Taylor was in the company of his host group, which presumably was watchful in avoiding incidents. One such incident is recorded, however. The [Baltimore] Sunday Herald ("A Common White Man" 1904) carried an account of an encounter on the train ride back to Washington from Baltimore. Three passengers were sitting behind Coleridge-Taylor and a white English companion. Noticing the accent, one inquired of the white man as to Coleridge-Taylor's nationality. Upon hearing that the composer was an Englishman of mixed parentage, the man "leered and grinned" and flung a hateful epithet at the composer. Coleridge-Taylor's reply was, in part, "If you are a sample American I want to meet no more of them!" and his companion dismissed the intruder with "I'll thank you if you'll return to your seat. We desire to have no more conversation with you."

The composer's treatment in Washington helped make up for this unfortunate incident. On the final day of the festival, Washington forces gathered to entertain and honor the composer. If all reports of his shy nature are true, it must indeed have been an ordeal for him. The day included a concert presented by the amateur musicians of the Treble Clef Club and the Aeolian Mandolin, Guitar and Banjo Club. The ensemble must have been curious to Coleridge-Taylor, who no doubt did not know of the affection for mandolin and banjo that was sweeping across America around the turn of the century, affecting college ensembles especially and spawning organizations such as this Washington group (Gura and Bollman 1999).

At the close of the Washington visit, on November 21, the society held a public reception in honor of the composer. According to Sayers ([1915] 1969, 164), who likely was informed by the composer himself, "The hall was brilliant with bunting, the flags of Great Britain and America and palms, and an orchestra hidden in a border of palms discoursed music while in the center stood Coleridge-Taylor, with the officers of the Society and others, to receive their callers, who, we are told, entered at the east door, passed through an aisle of palms on each side of which the members of the chorus were banked, and passed out at the west door." At a second reception held for members of the chorus, the composer was presented with a silver loving cup inscribed with a message of appreciation that included two refrain lines from Hiawiatha's Departure (Sayers [1915] 1969, 164):

   A TOKEN OF LOVE AND ESTEEM

   To Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, of London, England,
   in appreciation of his achievements
   in the realm of music.
   Presented by the S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society
   of Washington, D.C. to their distinguished
   guest on the occasion of his first visit
   to America to conduct "Hiawatha"
   and "Songs of Slavery," November
   16, 17, and 18,
   1904.
   It is well for us, O brother,
   That you came so far to see us.

Arthur Gray, the society's secretary, had written new words for the chorus to the tune of the British national anthem, an incident that may well have reminded the composer of a similar task he had undertaken twenty years before at school in Croydon (Sayers [1915] 1969, 8). The Musical Courier ("A Great Composer" 1904) summed up the Washington experience this way: "The general impression in regard to the enterprise is of wonder and admiration, and an inspiring hope and ambition in many directions, the benefits of which cannot be sufficiently estimated." The society had treated him like royalty.

Making the most of his visit to America, Coleridge-Taylor arranged for concerts in other cities, including Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia. His visits to Chicago and Philadelphia made the greatest impression on him. The long train ride from Washington to Chicago enabled him to appreciate the comfort of train travel in America. At a concert that his agent, the Chicago Bureau Agency of Music, had arranged on short notice, the audience heard the composer's shorter works. Coleridge-Taylor played three of the soon-to-be-published Twenty-four Negro Melodies and his Oriental waltz "Zuleika"; Harry Burleigh, soprano Mary Peck Thomson, and violinist Theodore Spiering performed, with the composer at the piano (Sayers [1915] 1969, 168).

Also at the Chicago concert, Spiering, born in Berlin, played the Gipsy Suite, op. 20, and Four African Dances, op. 58. Active on the American concert circuit, the German violinist remained the composer's good friend for years, and Coleridge-Taylor attended at least two of his recitals in London in 1907 (Sayers [1915] 1969, 210-211). Coleridge-Taylor recalled this short time in Chicago with warmth, telling Sayers that it was his "best time" in America. He had a great admiration for German musicians and was impressed by the significant German presence in the audience, although he also spoke of his appreciation for the enthusiasm of the African Americans, who "always put in a large attendance" (168).

In contrast, Coleridge-Taylor disliked his time in New York, complaining about the noise that left him unable to sleep (Sayers [1915] 1969, 169). In Philadelphia, his concert was at Witherspoon Hall on December 8, in aid of the Douglass Memorial Hospital. He was assisted by three local musicians: violinist Frederick Hahn, playing from the Gipsy Suite; soprano Marie Louise Githens, contributing three songs from African Romances, op. 17, and two from Hiawatha; and baritone Edwin Evans singing "Unmindful of the Roses," "Substitution," and "The Shosone's Adieu." The program was similar to that performed in Chicago. Coleridge-Taylor's three spirituals were "I'm Troubled in Mind," "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child," and "Many Thousands Gone," and he again played the waltz "Zuleika" ("S. Coleridge-Taylor Recital" 1904).

Present at the Philadelphia concert was Sylvester Russell, an African-American music critic whose critical commentary was often at odds with that of his fellow critics. Although his opinions sometimes provoked antagonisms, he was, nevertheless, respected for his high standards. Russell had studied music in college and toured as a concert tenor; his reviews were published in The [Indianapolis] Freeman and, briefly, in the Chicago Defender. His experience included popular music, church music, musical comedy, and classical music. Because of this background and his character, Russell's opinion provides a valuable addition to the reviews of white newspapers.

In his review, Russell (1904) evaluated the music and also commented on a controversy that surrounded the Philadelphia concert. He found fault with all four performers, and, while he gave Coleridge-Taylor credit as a great European composer, he emphasized the fact that the music, even those with African titles, had no African qualities. Russell compared Coleridge-Taylor's "Indian music" (meaning The Song of Hiawatha) to "Big Indian Chief," a song written by African American Bob Cole and used in the Black Patti Troubadours show (1904), pronouncing the latter composition more authentic. The songs of Bob Cole and the Johnson brothers (James Weldon and J. Rosamond) were replacing coon songs and breaking into many Broadway shows at this time (Levy 1976, 86), leading Tin Pan Alley to give them the sobriquet "ebony Offenbachs." Russell may not have been completely serious when he claimed that "Big Indian Chief" was more authentic, but his point was that since Coleridge-Taylor's music reflected no African or Indian influence, the composer should be judged solely as a writer of European music.

As usual, Russell gave attention to social issues. A controversy had developed concerning the use of white American musicians on the Coleridge-Taylor program to the exclusion of blacks other than the composer. Russell took the position that this situation occurred not because of a lack of black performers with sufficient training or talent, as some suggested, but rather as the result of a poor decision by the sponsors. Among noted black performers in Philadelphia were Marie Selika, an opera singer, and Azalia Hackley, a singer and educator who was soon to travel to Britain (Green 1998, 189-190, 198) and who was responsible for Clarence Cameron White's scholarship for study with Coleridge-Taylor in England. Both artists were present at the concert. Russell also noted that attendance should have been larger and implied that the limited patronage was due to the absence of African-American soloists.

Coleridge-Taylor ended his American visit in Boston, where he was again welcomed and where he met Booker T. Washington. The American tour had been so successful that Coleridge-Taylor already had plans to return in 1906, and he duly promised to travel to Alabama to see Washington's Tuskegee Institute (Sayers [1915] 1969, 167). Washington's daughter Portia, who studied music in Germany from 1905, seems to have visited the composer in England in 1906 and perhaps again in 1907 when she returned to America with her stepmother (Green 1998, 189). Aware that the financial rewards had been sufficient to compensate for the payments he had had to make to the deputies employed to cover for him in England, confident from audience responses to his arrangements of spirituals that Ditson's book would sell well, and above all, with a broader social experience, the young composer sailed from Boston for England on December 13, 1904.

Sayers ([1915] 1969, 171), who knew Coleridge-Taylor from this time, indicates that his friend had been so impressed with America that for some time he considered emigrating. What may have stopped the composer was his awareness of what the future held for Jessie Coleridge-Taylor as the white wife of a colored man. She may well have received comments from her sister Emma Sykes, who lived in America.

American audiences retained their interest in Coleridge-Taylor's longer choral works. It had not yet become general practice to program a single Coleridge-Taylor composition along with works by other composers. As Hiawatha mania became less intense, however, performers began to look carefully at some of the shorter compositions such as his piano pieces, selections from Twenty-four Negro Melodies, arias from The Song of Hiawatha, and some of his art songs. For example, shortly after Coleridge-Taylor left the United States, a French tenor, Vernon d'Arnelle, selected an aria from Hiawathia's Departure for a recital that he performed in Virginia. The aria, following two groups of classic German lieder, was described in a Musical Courier review ("Vernon d'Arnelle Song Recital" 1904) as "full of fire and splendidly dramatic."

The S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society, with cash reserves (its surplus in 1904 was nearly six hundred dollars; see Figure 1) and its reputation enhanced, made plans for the composer's return and continued to spread awareness of the composer and to program his music. The concerts added to the society's funds and when performed for charity helped build up goodwill in the community.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Andrew Hilyer and the composer exchanged letters and news; in September 1905, the composer detailed his views of the marine band. He suggested spreading the concerts out, using small halls where a smaller orchestra would not be a problem, unlike the gigantic Convention Hall with its poor acoustics (Sayers [1915] 1969, 184-186). He asked that Clarence Cameron White be involved in selecting string players, and Burleigh the soloists. In December 1905, he told the Americans that he had no objection to conducting a smaller orchestra "provided the members are all good" (186). A year later, Coleridge-Taylor was back in America, conducting his Atonement.

The Atonement, op. 53, premiered in England in September 1903, had been given its first Washington performance by the society at Easter in 1906, at the Tenth Street Congregational Church. An earlier rendition of the work in New York's St. Thomas Episcopal Church was in the style of a church service, with no applause and combined with sections of the regular service, a treatment that John Layton, in the audience, observed but did not follow. A few days after the Washington performance, Layton took the choral society, still numbering 175, to Philadelphia for a repeat concert at the Academy of Music. Burleigh and Woodward were joined by soprano Corine Rovelto of Providence, Rhode Island. Melville Charlton, also new to the society's roster of performers, was organist. A New Yorker born in 1880, Charlton studied at the National Conservatory of Music and was beginning his career as a soloist. He and Mary Europe provided the accompaniment.

The society again presented The Song of Hiawatha, on July 31, 1906, once more in a benefit concert for the building fund for the Douglass Memorial Hospital. Burleigh, Skeene-Mitchell, and George Holt were the soloists. Americans were continuing to enjoy Hiawatha mania--as were the British.

Between the composer's visits to Washington, Clarence Cameron White, assisted by funds from Azalia Hackley, crossed the Atlantic with his wife. By July 1906, White was active in the musical world of Croydon, centered around his friend the composer. White's papers contain letters from Jessie Coleridge-Taylor, including news of her son's first recital (Green 1998, 187, 189).

Coleridge-Taylor's second American tour again started in Boston, where he saw friends and visited Ditson. He then began a crowded schedule in New York beginning November 16, 1906, assisted by Burleigh and Lola Johnson. The concert in Mendelssohn Hall, New York, opened with African-American violinist Felix Fowler Weir performing two sections of Coleridge-Taylor's theater music from Nero, op. 62. Weir's second appearance featured a Romance, probably op. 52, and he concluded the concert with the Four African Dances, with the composer at the piano. Born in Chicago in 1885, Weir studied in Germany and was the organizer of the American String Quartet, later known as the Negro String Quartet (Southern 1982, 395). The soprano Lola Johnson appeared twice, presenting a total of four songs; so did Burleigh. Coleridge-Taylor played his two Oriental Waltzes, including "Zuleika" from his previous program.

Other concerts followed much the same pattern, although Weir more often played "A Gipsy Song" and "A Gipsy Dance" from the four-part Gipsy Suite or items from the Four African Dances. The singers varied their selections too, with Johnson usually singing "The Young Indian Maid" and "Beauty and Song" from Three Song-Poems, op. 50. Burleigh performed selections from the Five Choral Ballads and Six American Lyrics. "Spring Had Come" from Hiawatha's Departure and "Unmindful of the Roses" from Sorrow Songs, op. 57, were also often programmed. With the composer's performance of "Zuleika" and spirituals from his Twenty-four Negro Melodies at the piano, these works formed the basic components of the concerts presented in Baltimore on November 23, in Pittsburgh on November 28, and in St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Toronto (Sayers [1915] 1969, 198-200).

Coleridge-Taylor renewed his contacts with the S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society and the Hilyers in Washington, D.C. On November 21, the society presented The Atonement and "The Quadroon Girl" from the Choral Ballads; the next day, the group performed The Song of Hiawatha. Presented in the city twelve times before, it was still the most welcome of the three pieces. The Hiawatha music left such a strong impression that the composer's other compositions could hardly compete for the affection of American audiences. The society, most likely accepting the advice of the composer, used the Metropolitan A.M.E. Church and not Convention Hall. The reviews were full of admiration, although they lacked the awe and wonder seen two years earlier. In Pittsburgh, Coleridge-Taylor was assisted by Melville Charlton (organ) and tenor J. W. Loguen, who performed "Onaway, Awake, Beloved" from Hiawatha's Wedding Feast. This song was entering the repertory of many English-language tenors, and its infrequent use on other concerts of this tour is surprising. The reason may have lain in its difficulty. This program saw another modification--the inclusion of works by other composers. Charlton, a brilliant organist and associate of the American Guild of Organists, played Bach's Toccata in F major and Thiele's Chromatic Fantasie. The tour moved on to Chicago, where they performed December 3-5.

In Chicago, where two years before the composer had admired the German musicians and audience, Coleridge-Taylor's touring concert group appeared at the Pekin Theatre, the first black-owned and operated theater for blacks in the country. The year before, its new owner Robert Mott employed the Berlin-educated Will Marion Cook to direct the orchestra in musical comedies. For this special occasion, Mott hired Kemper Harreld, a classical violinist and head of the music department of Morehouse College in Atlanta. Harreld was to become a fervent supporter of Coleridge-Taylor's music.

Mott presented a two-day festival of Coleridge-Taylor's music. The four programs included the staples of the Coleridge-Taylor recital tour, but these pieces were intermixed with compositions in popular music styles. The Hiawatha pieces featured included "True Is All Iago Tells Us" (sung by Burleigh), "Onaway" (sung by tenor N. Clark Smith), and "Spring Song" (sung by soprano Minnie Adams). The other familiar Coleridge-Taylor compositions included "The Young Indian Maid," "Beauty and Song" (sung by N. Clark Smith); "Acorn Song," "Love's Passing," "Substitution," "Once Only," " She Rested by the Broken Brook," and "Beat, Beat, Drum" (sung by Burleigh); and African Dances (William Tyler, violin). As usual, Coleridge-Taylor accompanied the other artists at the piano and performed excerpts from the Twenty-four Negro Melodies. Comet solos (Irene Howard), an unidentified baritone solo (J. Frances Mores), selections by the Pekin Orchestra ("Man from Bam," "Ragtime Symphony"), and a reading of Paul Lawrence Dunbar poems by Charles Higgins created variety (Simpson 1990, 36). (4)

Back in Washington on Friday, December 7, Coleridge-Taylor appeared in a grand farewell recital of his own compositions. To those that had been performed on the tour, the society added choruses from The Death of Minnehaha and Hiawatha's Departure. Fittingly, this concert was given as a benefit for the Ladies' Home Missionary Society of the First Congregational Church, an institution that had historically been cordial to the city's black population. In a prayer meeting held at this church, the idea of providing higher education for the blacks of Washington, D.C., was conceived, and Howard University was born. In addition, the church had helped the S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society financially when, due to smaller facilities of the Metropolitan A.M.E. Church, the earlier 1906 concerts were financially unsuccessful. This was the last concert the composer was to give in Washington, D.C.

Coleridge-Taylor moved on to Baltimore with the now-standard program on December 10, and to Boston on December 12. The Musical Courier ("Coleridge-Taylor Appears" 1906) seven days later reported on a recital at Jordan Hall. This afternoon concert was a chamber recital of Coleridge-Taylor works with the composer as pianist. Willy Hess (violin), George Grisez (clarinet), and a quartet from the Boston Symphony played a somewhat new set. Still present with the composer, Burleigh sang four songs, and Grisez and the quartet played the Clarinet Quintet, op. 10--the first of Coleridge-Taylor's student works known to have been performed on this tour. The Romance, op. 59 (the same number shared with Twenty-four Negro Melodies in Sayers' [1915] 1969 listing) and "Gipsy Dance" with Hess and the composer were also included, as were five of the Twenty-four Negro Melodies, arranged for violin, cello, and piano. Proceeds from this recital went to Atlanta University (where Du Bois was teaching) and the Calhoun Colored School, a small school in rural Alabama established in 1892.

From Boston, the composer traveled to Connecticut, where he renewed his connection with the Litchfield County Choral Union, to which he had been elected an honorary member in 1901. The choral union invited him to present a complimentary recital, and Burleigh and Weir, with tenor Reed Miller, joined the composer in a recital in the pattern that had been established for this tour. Coleridge-Taylor was received with much fanfare and expressions of esteem (Vaill 1912a, 173).

Coleridge-Taylor then sailed for England. He still retained his high opinion of musical life in the United States, although he noticed that there were fewer small choral societies than could be found in Britain. He also continued in his admiration for the large German element in urban America's musical life.

Contacts and correspondence with his American friends continued. During one of his frequent visits to England, Carl Stoeckel met the composer in London in October 1909. He and his wife were invited to the composer's home later that year, at which time they gave young Hiawatha an Indian costume. Other American visitors included Azalia Hackley and Burleigh--with whom he worked in 1908 and, it seems, 1909. Clarence Cameron White had returned to study in central London, where in 1909-1910 he was staying with John Alcindor, the Trinidad-born medical doctor who had been with Coleridge-Taylor, Du Bois, and Loudin at the Pan-African Conference of 1900. Du Bois was back in London in 1911 for the Univeral Races Conference and again met with the composer (Sayers [1915] 1969, 251; Green 1998, 249).

Coleridge-Taylor's third and last visit to the United States was in May 1910. The festival committee of Norfolk, Connecticut, had been deluged with requests for Verdi's Requiem and for Coleridge-Taylor's Wedding Feast and Death of Minnehaha. It was recommended that all should be performed at the 1910 festival, the Requiem being presented in honor of deceased members. Coleridge-Taylor accepted the invitation to conduct the Hiawatha pieces and his new composition, Bamboula: Rhapsodic Dance, op. 75. For this visit, he was a guest composer and as such was accorded the special privileges of that status.

An invitation to perform in Norfolk was the result neither of applications nor of competitions by composers. The Litchfield County University Club appointed a committee of three to five people to select composers--preferably of American birth--to compose an orchestral or choral work. If selected, the composer was notified and upon acceptance of the invitation, was given a generous honorarium. After the premier performance by the choral union, the composer retained all rights of publication and performance. It was the choral union's custom to pay somewhat larger than ordinary fees to the artists and to guarantee the finest available assisting artists as well as however many rehearsals the composer desired (Vaill 1912a, 254).

Coleridge-Taylor was a special case. The committee was sensitive to the fact that he had received no compensation in 1901, when Hiawatha's Wedding Feast and The Death of Minnehaha were first performed in Norfolk, in 1906 when he, with Weir, Burleigh, and Miller, had voluntarily performed a recital for them, or in 1907 when the Torrington Musical Association gave the second Norfolk performance of The Song of Hiawatha. The committee also felt that a debt was owed to Coleridge-Taylor because the choral union had enjoyed increased recognition as a result of association with The Song of Hiawatha. They were anxious to treat the composer fairly and to make up for the fact that, having sold the copyright to The Song of Hiawatha, Coleridge-Taylor had received no compensation for the performances of "the most popular choral composition in a decade" (Vaill 1912b, 36). That the committee was aware of this in 1910 strongly suggests that Stoeckel discussed financial matters with the composer, probably during his visits to England. The committee invited the composer to come to the United States and conduct his "Indian music," for which he was paid a sum of money greater than the royalties he would have been due on the sale of the one thousand copies of the music used by the Litchfield County Choral Union. In 1913, Stoeckel wrote Sayers a letter that further illuminates this transaction. The letter, which Stoeckel describes as a "Boswellian" account, states that Coleridge-Taylor was paid $1,150.00 for coming to conduct the The Song of Hiawatha music and the new composition, Bamboula, in the 1910 festival (Stoeckel 1913, 2).

The composer left England on May 7, 1910, and traveled via Boston to New York (Sayers quotes Stoeckel, who states that it was June and refers to a visit to Detroit that has not been traced). Stoeckel had agreed when in England the year before to select the instrumentalists. This made it possible to avoid embarrassment by asking all potential performers if they had any objection to working with a person of color. One withdrew. The instrumentalists, largely from the New York Philharmonic, expressed their admiration for Coleridge-Taylor (Sayers [1915] 1969, 238-243).

To the modern observer, the numbers involved in the choral groups of this era may seem remarkable. "Four hundred and fifty singers were on the stage and four hundred and twenty-five in the audience" recalled Stoeckel (quoted in Vaill 1912b, 239). The first evening concert consisted of Verdi's Requiem, Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto no. 2, and Liszt's Les Preludes. At the second concert, Coleridge-Taylor, after an impressive standing ovation, conducted Hiawatha's Wedding Feast and The Death of Minnehaha. Arthur Mees followed, conducting Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite and Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole (with violinist Fritz Kreisler). Coleridge-Taylor returned to the podium to conduct the Norfolk Festival's first hearing of his Bamboula: Rhapsodic Dance. Even for the Litchfield County Choral Union, which prided itself on not being tyrannized by the clock when planning its concerts, this was a lengthy event.

The Waterbury American described the evening with dramatic flair: "The audience rises to greet with thunderous applause a man of African blood. The color line at Norfolk has been wiped out! ... Thus begins what is without doubt the greatest performance of this work ever given on this continent" (Vaill 1912b, 27-28). Coleridge-Taylor described it as "the delight of my life" and recounted in a letter to his Croydon friend A. T. Johnson the size of the string section in the "superb" orchestra. Dated June 21, 1910, the letter describes the orchestra as "the pick of America" with eighteen first violins, sixteen seconds, a dozen violas, a dozen cellos, and eight basses (Sayers [1915] 1969, 244).

During this visit to Norfolk, Coleridge-Taylor enjoyed the hospitality of the Stoeckels. A car ride passing fields of laurel in blossom provided the inspiration for A Tale of Old Japan. That composition and a violin concerto for Maud Powell were commissioned by Stoeckel for a future Norfolk festival. The violin concerto was inspired by Ellen Stoeckel while Coleridge-Taylor was staying in the Stoeckel home. When he heard her playing the spiritual "Keep Me from Sinking Down" on the piano, the composer inquired about the melody's origin. Seeing its potential as a piece for the violin, he promised to arrange it for Mrs. Stoeckel, according to her husband who mistakenly thought that the melody "had never been in the books" (Stoeckel 1913, 1). This melody was included (number 21) in the Fisk Jubilee Singers Collection in 1875, a volume that was reprinted and revised and widely sold in England and the United States during the time that Loudin traveled with the singers. Annual reprints, which included photographs of his latest group, were sold into the 1900s. Indeed, it is most likely that Coleridge-Taylor had a copy at home; copies can still be found in used book stores more than a century later.

"Keep Me from Sinking Down" was arranged for violin and orchestra; the composer arranged "Deep River," number 77 in the Fisk Singers' book, and "Many Thousands Gone," number 22, for violin and piano. The first of these unpublished pieces was dedicated to Ellen Stoeckel and became the encore when the violin concerto was performed in Norfolk in 1912.

Coleridge-Taylor returned to England planning to write the spiritual "Keep Me from Sinking Down" into his violin concerto. Stoeckel recalled thinking in 1913 that this was unworkable. When the manuscript arrived, Stoeckel and violinist Maud Powell noticed that the second movement used "Many Thousands Gone," not "Keep Me from Sinking Down." They agreed that it was a beautiful movement, but they dismissed the first and the final movement, in which Coleridge-Taylor had used "Yankee Doodle. ... quite frequently." Fortunately, a letter from the composer requesting that the first draft be sent back saved them from making critical comments to their friend (Stoeckel 1913, 2).

The rewrite of the violin concerto was dispatched, and arrangements were made for the performance of this score. Coleridge-Taylor then wrote out and mailed the instrumental parts, and the violin concerto was played at the Norfolk festival of June 1912, along with A Tale of Old Japan, which had been premiered in England in late 1911 (1).

The performance in Norfolk was lavish. The Winsted Choral Union, one of the units of the Litchfield County Choral Union, had presented it previously, but the June 1912 festival performance was on a larger scale and considered uniquely satisfying. While the total of performers seems larger than the score of this Japanese-style love poem required, critical comment was favorable. Soprano Alma Gluck, mezzo-soprano Margaret Keyes, tenor Lambert Murphy, and baritone Clarence Whitehill were the soloists. The customary massive chorus, with 425 voices, and an orchestra of seventy made a deep impression on the audience ("Musical Hosts in Old Norfolk" 1912).

The violin concerto was also well received, and Maud Powell was recalled repeatedly. Stoeckel stated that the composer received $750.00 in cash for the concerto and was owed $150.00. Stoeckel also commented that he had paid $100 to copyists in England for parts that had never been received (Stoeckel 1913, 2). In line with the tradition of the festival, Coleridge-Taylor gave the Stoeckels the manuscript of A Tale of Old Japan; they accepted it only in "an honorary way," hoping that he would sell the composition, which he did (37). He negotiated terms with Novello that summer.

Following the June 1912 performance, the composer was correcting proofs of A Tale of Old Japan for Novello. He also continued to conduct, including a South African concert at the Crystal Palace as part of the Festival of Empire. Within three months, he was dead.

Coleridge-Taylor's death was given due notice by the American press. In addition to the expected obituaries, articles of appreciation appeared in newspapers and magazines in many cities, and the major music periodicals carried tributes. The Musical Courier carried letters and articles for several issues.

The [Indianapolis] Freeman of September 7, 1912, carried two articles, both of which were probably written by Sylvester Russell. The longer, unsigned essay ("Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Dead") reflected ambivalence, which characterized Russell's attitude toward Coleridge-Taylor. The article paid tribute to a composer "who was the last word as to intellect and art" and who was "too highly educated for a natural musician." The shorter article ("Samuel Coleridge-Taylor") appeared in Russell's regular column and also revealed both Russell's reservations and his recognition of Coleridge-Taylor's position as an outstanding black composer. A very personal view was contributed by Clarence Cameron White (1912) in the Washington Bee.

   Those of us who knew Mr. Coleridge-Taylor best are just beginning to
   realize that it is really true that our eminent composer has passed
   to the great beyond. When the news came from London on September 2d
   that Coleridge-Taylor had died the day before, we could not believe
   that this master of only 37 years was no more. But alas, it is too
   true!

   I believe that Mr. Coleridge-Taylor's life and work meant more to
   the young Negro musician and music student here in America than can
   be told in words. That his life was an inspiration to me is putting
   it mildly. My acquaintance with Mr. Coleridge-Taylor dates back to
   my student days at Oberlin (1896-1900) when I received from him a
   number of his violin compositions and a very kind letter, saying
   that Mr. Frederick Loudin, who was then in London, had spoken to
   him of me. It is useless for me to say how eagerly I practiced
   those compositions, and how many, many times I read and re-read
   that letter.

   On the occasion of Mr. Coleridge-Taylor's first visit to America,
   I had the honor of playing with him for the first time in America
   his "African Dances," and then was formed a friendship that lasted
   up till the time of his death. During my two years study in London
   it was my great privilege to be his pupil in theory and to play in
   the famous String Players' Club of which he was then the conductor.
   As Landon Ronald, the famous English conductor, says in the London
   Daily Telegraph of September 2nd "Mr. Coleridge-Taylor was in every
   sense a gentleman and was ever ready to give a helping hand, and
   had a kindly word for everybody. He was one of the most modest men
   it has been my lot to meet." And so it was I knew him. In his home
   he was always the devoted husband and father. How well I remember
   many delightful walks we had about both London and Croydon, where
   he lived. Only a few weeks ago I received a long letter from him
   telling of his new works and of what he accomplished during the
   past season and how he was looking forward to his early autumn work.

   As both friend and teacher, I found him a man of great personality
   and one who out of the goodness of his heart was ever ready with
   encouraging words and helpful suggestions. He had a keen sense of
   humor and always enjoyed a good story. Those who knew him will
   never forget his cheery smile and affable manners. It was indeed a
   blessing to know him and count him as a friend.

   Coleridge-Taylor will live as long as there is a boy or girl with
   Negro blood in his or her veins who has the "spirit of song" in his
   or her heart, and his life and achievements will be a heaven high to
   all who have the ambition to go on and accomplish great things in
   the art in which he was such a glorious star.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's influence was felt among a number of African-American musicians. Clarence Cameron White was one of these; his work clearly demonstrated Coleridge-Taylor's influence. He was inspired to become a composer through Coleridge-Taylor, and his visit to Haiti in 1928 on a folklore-collecting trip would no doubt have pleased Coleridge-Taylor. His music was performed in New York's major halls; he died in that city in 1960 (Southern 1982, 398-399). Another was Mary Europe. She had great respect for the composer and considered her association with him one of her greatest life experiences. She studied at Howard University and taught at Dunbar High School for many years, contributing enormously to the musical life of Washington, D.C., where she died in 1947 (McGinty 1982, 271). Harry T. Burleigh, the first published and widely recognized African-American composer of art songs, was influenced by Coleridge-Taylor's compositions in that genre. Regarded as a black nationalist composer, Burleigh wrote more than three hundred songs, including arrangements of spirituals. His talents were recognized by entries in mainstream reference books, by honorary degrees, and by his election to the board of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers in 1941. He died in Connecticut in 1949, aged eighty-three (Southern 1982, 55-56).

An impressive memorial service of national proportions was held on January 13, 1913, for Coleridge-Taylor in Boston, Massachusetts, at Jordan Hall. Du Bois, for whom the composer had such high regard, was the speaker. Performers included Burleigh and William H. Richardson, tenor Roland Hayes, and pianist Maude Cuney Hare (Simpson 1990, 57). Memorial services were also held in other parts of the United States. At Washington's Metropolitan A.M.E. Church, on Friday, May 16, 1913, the S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society gave a testimonial concert, assisted by the Howard University Choir, the Washington Conservatory of Music, the Treble Clef Club, Felix Weir, Kathryn Skeene-Mitchell, Charles Sumner Wormley (baritone), and Mary P. Burrill (dramatic reader). The first part consisted of the shorter pieces for the piano, a selection by the Howard choir, Weir's violin solo, a vocal solo, a recitation, "O, the Famine and the Fever," and a tribute read by Mamie Hilyer. The second part consisted of the city's favorites, Hiawatha's Wedding Feast and The Death of Minnehaha, sung by the society's choir, now reduced to ninety-six members according to the listing on the program ("S. Coleridge-Taylor Testimonial" 1913). Proceeds were to be sent to Coleridge-Taylor's widow and children in Croydon. Another memorial concert, noted in the New York Age ("Burleigh at Nashville" 1913), was that of the Mozart Society of Fisk University in Nashville. The society performed The Song of Hiawatha, presented as its seventy-first concert on May 2, 1913.

After 1906, the S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society had become less active. Hiawatha mania waned, and with it, the number of performances. Social activities, such as sponsoring family picnics and excursions to nearby River View, kept the name of the Choral Society before the public for a few years.

In an April 19, 1909, concert, the choral society, conducted by John Layton and accompanied by Mary Europe, assisted the Philippine Constabulary Band conducted by Captain Walter Howard Loving, at Convention Hall. Loving, an African American born in Virginia in 1872, had attended the New England Conservatory of Music and worked as a military bandmaster. Supported by future U.S. president William Taft, Loving crafted the Philippine police unit into a highly reputable and superior group (Southern 1982, 249). The program of operatic excerpts by the band alternating with selections from The Song of Hiawatha by the choir must have provided some much-needed variety for the choral society and its audience. At a concert in May of the same year, the society presented two of Coleridge-Taylor's Choral Ballads and excerpts from Handel's Messiah.

Members continued to meet, rehearse, and sing, especially the music of Coleridge-Taylor, but they had somewhat exhausted themselves in achieving their goal of bringing the composer from England. There is no record of plans for further visits by Coleridge-Taylor. The organization did not formally disband but gradually dissolved. The deaths of conductor John T. Layton in 1914 and Mamie Hilyer in 1916 probably contributed heavily to the final demise of the S. Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society.

Memory of the glories of The Song of Hiawatha and its composer were not allowed to die, however. Howard University's choir presented The Song of Hiawatha in 1919 and in 1943. The Musical Art Society of Washington performed The Atonement at the Metropolitan A.M.E. Church in 1932 under the auspices of the George Washington Bicentennial commission of the District of Columbia. Their baritone soloist was Todd Duncan, who was to create the role of Porgy in Gershwin's Porgy and Bess in 1935. Mary Europe was one of the two pianists, and Melville Charlton was at the organ ("Musical Art Society" 1932).

Harriet Gibbs Marshall was also active in preserving the memory of Coleridge-Taylor in America. Born in Vancouver, Canada, in 1869, she had taught in Alabama and Kentucky before reaching Washington, D.C., at the time that Coleridge-Taylor's name and music were becoming known there. Marshall founded the Washington Conservatory of Music and was its director until her death in 1941, save for a 1923-1933 stay in Haiti (McGinty 1979, 67). She visited the composer in England, and he visited her conservatory in Washington. In a letter to her dated March 18 (1905?), he wrote, "May your great work go on and flourish." During her years as director, the conservatory regularly programmed Coleridge-Taylor's piano pieces and art songs on its recitals. In 1936, celebrating the sixty-first anniversary of Coleridge-Taylor's birth, Marshall presented at the Douglass Memorial Home his The Gitanos, op. 26, for female voices, female chorus, and piano.

It is tempting to believe that theaters such as the Hiawatha and the Minnehaha, established in Washington, D.C., within the first two decades of the twentieth century for use by black patrons, and African-American organizations such as the Hiawatha Social Club of suburban Alexandria that flourished around 1901 took their names from the Longfellow characters made popular by Coleridge-Taylor. Schools certainly were named in his honor. The Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Elementary School, a Montessori school in Louisville, Kentucky, established in 1911 for African-American children, was named for the composer in 1913. And in 1926, a public school bearing his name opened in Baltimore, Maryland, the first elementary school built for African Americans in that city.

Seven years after Coleridge-Taylor's death, The National Association of Negro Musicians came into being. In carrying out its aim of promoting black music and musicians, the association paid tribute to Coleridge-Taylor many times and in many ways. An early issue of the short-lived magazine called The Negro Musician (1920) (which announced itself as the official organ of the association) carried a full-page portrait of Coleridge-Taylor on its front cover. Four branches of the National Association of Negro Musicians in the states of Massachusetts, Indiana, North Carolina, and Washington were named in his honor during the organization's first decades, and from time to time others bearing his name have been added.

When Clarence Cameron White spoke to the membership as its second president at the 1923 convention, he used Coleridge-Taylor's achievements as a standard. The fact that compositions and arrangements by Coleridge-Taylor were among the most often programmed musical selections at the organization's conventions in the early years speaks to the esteem in which the composer was held by the members. While his chamber music and choral pieces appeared in the programs of the National Association of Negro Musicians, it was the shorter compositions such as the art song "Thou Art Risen, My Beloved," arias from Hiawatha (especially "Onaway, Awake, Beloved"), and selections from Twenty-four Negro Melodies that artists preferred to sing and play.

The dramatic potential of the Hiawatha music as a theater piece was not overlooked in the United States. Music Master magazine ("Hiawatha's Wedding Feast" 1920, 16) reported that a staged version of "Hiawatha's Wedding Feast" was performed in New York City during the first week of February 1920. Advertised as the first presentation of "Hiawatha's Wedding Feast" on any stage in the world in operatic form, the work was directed by Joseph Klein and performed at the Capitol Theatre by a chorus of eighty voices, tenor soloist Warren Proctor, native Indian dancers, and an augmented orchestra. A special stage setting by John Wenger and the Indian costumes worn by all participants enhanced the theatrical effect.

Today, the compositions of Coleridge-Taylor are less popular, but The National Association of Negro Musicians still places works by him on the required list for performers auditioning for scholarships. Because the association is a national organization drawing its membership mainly from teachers of music and emphasizes programs for young talents, its efforts allow those who did not have the experience of living through Hiawatha mania the opportunity to know his music.

(1.) The program was also distinctive for its curious juxtaposition of compositions, which may have established a pattern for the Coleridge-Taylor program in the United States. It was among the first, but by no means the last, in the United States to include the "Indian Bell Song" along with the Hiawatha music. Although Delibes' Indian in the opera Lakme was a native of India, culturally unrelated to Longfellow's American Indian, the Coleridge-Taylor compositions and the "Indian Bell Song" apparently came to be considered companion pieces in later programs.

(2.) The singled-out artists are Paul Lawrence Dunbar, poet (1872-1906); Phyllis Wheatley, poet (1753-1784); Henry O. Tanner, painter (1859-1937); Booker T. Washington, educator and race leader (1856-1915); either Harvard graduate Roscoe C. Bruce (1879-1950), educator and a colleague of Booker T. Washington, or John Edward Bruce (1856-1924), journalist and historian; and Harry T. Burleigh, composer and singer (1866-1949).

(3.) This paper was read at the Fiftieth Anniversary celebration of the Treble Clef club, which took place at the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA on May 9, 1948.

(4.) N. Clark Smith was better known as an outstanding educator and bandmaster than as a singer; he organized a black symphony orchestra in Chicago.

REFERENCES

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--.1912b. Litchfield County Choral Union, 1900-1912: Founded to honor the memory of Robbins Battell. Vol. 2. Norfolk, Conn.: Litchfield County University Club.

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DORIS EVANS MCGINTY is Professor of Music Emerita at Howard University. She has recently completed, in collaboration with the late Eileen Southern, National Association of Negro Musicians: A Documentary History (Center for Black Music Research, forthcoming).