Hiawatha is an epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It’s lengthy, but worth the read; the mythic story is fascinating and the rhythm of the verse will put you in a trance.

Once again I return to Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. His three-part oratorio “The Song of Hiawatha” was such a hit in England that when it premiered, it was conducted by no less than C. V. Stanford, and attended by the great C. H. H. Parry and Arthur Sullivan, who practically had to be carried there because he was on his death-bed – but absolutely insisted on going to hear the performance. In the four years that followed, the work received over 200 performances in England alone.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (again, NOT Taylor-Coleridge) must have been a serious wunderkind to have been noticed by Edward Elgar and C. V. Stanford, two of England’s best-known Victorian Imperial composers. He wrote this “Ballade for Orchestra” for the famous Three Choirs Festival when he was 20; the maturity of this composition puts the genius of Coleridge-Taylor on par with Mendelssohn (who wrote his famous “Midsummer Night’s Dream” overture at 17).

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor – not to be confused with Samuel Taylor-Coleridge. They’re both English. They’re both artists. But SCT was a black composer, and STC was a white poet.

Coleridge-Taylor’s musical career was skyrocketing when he died (like so many great composers) in his 30s. Thankfully, in his 37 years, he left a legacy of works that have earned him his nickname, “The African Mahler.”