1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel

COLERIDGE-TAYLOR, SAMUEL (1875–1912), British musical composer, was of Anglo-African parentage, his father being a native of Sierra Leone and his mother an Englishwoman. He was educated at the Royal College of Music in London, entering as a violinist in 1891. In 1893 he won an open scholarship for composition, and studied for four years under Sir Charles Stanford. In 1898 his cantata, Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, was produced in London with marked success, and was followed by two other cantatas, The Death of Minnehaha and The Departure of Hiawatha (see 19.85). This trilogy was first given complete at the Albert Hall, London, in 1900. The Blind Girl of Castel Cuillé was given at Leeds in 1901, Meg Blane at Sheffield in 1902, and an oratorio, The Atonement, at Hereford in 1903. He also produced Endymion’s Dream and the Bon-Bon suite (1908–9), and A Tale of Old Japan (1911). He died at Croydon Sept. 1 1912.