Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

In this presentation, I will be discussing the cross-genre borrowings between Western art music and slave songs in Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Six Sorrow Songs, Op. 57, No. 6: “Too Late for Love”, and the ways in which textual meaning changes when the poem is set to music and performed in this song.

In this presentation, I will be discussing the emergence of “sorrow songs” at this point in time in Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s life, with focus on the intertext of Western classical and slave songs in these Sorrow Songs, Op. 57 as well as the creation of a story in this musico-literary hybrid. I will also discuss his trips, experiences, the socio-political events of the time, and the influential black artists to understand how Coleridge-Taylor’s musical path was reshaped with this song cycle.