Organist Clara Gerdes Bartz plays "Idyll" by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

Recorded on the Newberry Memorial Organ at Woolsey Hall, Yale University E.M. Skinner, IV/197, 1928 Filmed March 13, 2021 I absolutely love this little-known piece and hope you enjoy it too! Some background about this extraordinary composer: Samuel Coleridge Taylor’s brilliant but underrated works are still in the process of gaining their rightful place in the canon of classical music. Named after the famous English lyric poet, Coleridge Taylor was Creole, descended through his father from enslaved West Africans in Canada whom the British freed and repatriated following the American Revolution. He quickly made a name for himself at a young age as composer and violinist, studying at the Royal College of music with Charles Stanford, premiering works at the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival and receiving encouragement in his career from Edward Elgar and others. After he heard the Fisk Jubilee singers in concert, Coleridge Taylor became intensely interested in Black American folk music and began to incorporate it in his compositions; this helped nurture his relationship with the American public and led to three tours of the United States and a personal audience with Theodore Roosevelt. Despite all this, Coleridge Taylor died in poverty at age 37, a tragic event which raised British awareness for the financial struggles of artists and led to the formation of the Performing Rights Society which still exists today. Coleridge Taylor’s Idyll, from the posthumously published Organ Album, perfectly exemplifies the tender, sincere melodic quality and lush orchestration which can be found in all of this composer’s works.