Crossing the River at Night
(New York Public Library, Public Domain)
(New York Public Library, Public Domain)
150th Anniversary Season!
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Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)
arr. Althea Talbot-Howard Deep River (1904/2020) A bespoke wind/brass & piano transcription, direct from the original solo piano score Duration: 4'00" Level: Intermediate OBOE, CLARINET, SOPRANO SAX TENOR or SOPRANO RECORDER FLUTE, HORN, TRUMPET, VIOLIN |
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Videos
Oboe, Recorder, Soprano Sax, Horn
Oboe, Recorder, Soprano Sax, Horn
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Hassan Anderson & David Korevaar play through Deep River in rehearsal, whilst leading recorder player Sarah Jeffery discusses and plays it, placing the work into its historical context.
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Louis Suc & Leo Nicholson perform live in London, whilst Anne Howarth & Julia Scott Carey, members of Juventas New Music Ensemble, perform live in East Cambridge, MA, USA.
SCORES
PDF Editions
150th-Anniversary Editions
CLICK ON IMAGE, TO PURCHASE
from June Emerson Wind Music
N.B. LIFT is also available in the USA from Cimarron Music Press
150th-Anniversary Editions
CLICK ON IMAGE, TO PURCHASE
from June Emerson Wind Music
N.B. LIFT is also available in the USA from Cimarron Music Press
Oboe or Violin & Piano in E major
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Recorder/Bb instruments in F major
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Flute & Piano in G major
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Horn & Piano in G major
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NEW PRINTED Editions
CLICK ON IMAGE, TO PURCHASE
from June Emerson Wind Music
CLICK ON IMAGE, TO PURCHASE
from June Emerson Wind Music
Oboe or Violin & Piano in E major
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Recorder/Bb instruments in F major
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Flute & Piano in G major
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Horn & Piano in G major
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MUSICIANS!!!
Need more music? CHECK OUT... New Chevalier Sonata!! (c.1779/2022) by Afro-French Classical composer Chevalier de Saint-Georges & AT-H Multi-instrumental Scores |
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Or this popular original work...
The Door of No Return explores 400 years of slavery and the American Civil Rights movement. The two programmes intersect in 2019, as the late Representative John Lewis visits Ghana for its Year of Return, shortly before his death in 2020. Level: Advanced Duration: 13 mins Performances to date: approx. 50 Multi-instrumental Scores |
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Prefer something without piano?
CHECK OUT Three Country Dances by British ex-slave & Abolitionist, Ignatius Sancho! Level: Intermediate Duration: 4 mins Multi-instrumental Scores |
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This transcription of Deep River (Opus 59/10) is a new arrangement from the original piano score, and differs from the 1904 violin & piano arrangement by the American virtuosa, Maud Powell. Having performed her transcription twice on the oboe, I found it insufficiently idiomatic to be comfortable for a woodwind player. In 2020, I decided to create a specialist woodwind arrangement which was mindful of breathing needs - using material from the centre of the piece, that Powell had rejected. The long central section was, in fact, cut by both of us. Whilst she chose fiery music that was violinistic and idiomatic in its use of chords, I chose the slower and more peaceful material that was better suited to long, single-line woodwind melodies.
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Biography
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was a bi-racial composer of English and Sierra Leonean descent. Born in south London in 1875, he was raised by his English family: a musical family which taught him so well that he gained a place - in the 1890s - at the Royal College of Music in London. His areas of study were Violin and Composition.
Coleridge-Taylor's principal Composition teacher was Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924). After leaving the RCM, Coleridge-Taylor gained work as a professional musician in his natal Croydon area, as a teacher and conductor. In 1899 he married Miss Jessie Walmisley, whom he had met whilst studying at the RCM, and they had two children: Hiawatha and Avril Coleridge-Taylor. Both children pursued musical careers in their adulthoods. |
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Coleridge-Taylor found it difficult to earn sufficient income as a composer, but persevered until his early death at the age of thirty-seven. He experienced a number of successes en route, including three tours of the United States in the 1900s, and patronage by Sir Edward Elgar - also an alum of the RCM. His cantata Hiawatha's Wedding Feast was a runaway success - and it was his failure to make sufficient money from score sales that lead to the formation of the PRS - the Performing Right Society.
His Op. 59 set of piano melodies from the African diaspora caught the attention of American violin virtuosa Maud Powell, and she created her own, renowned arrangement of Deep River for Violin & Piano in 1904, as mentioned above. It was during these visits to the USA that Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was received at the White House by President Theodore Roosevelt. The composer died in England of pneumonia, in 1912. |
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ON THIS PAGE
Deep River - A New Transcription for Woodwind, in three keys Duration: 4'30" Level: Intermediate ELSEWHERE The Deep River Sonata (Includes Deep River & three other pieces from Op.59) Duration: 10'00" Level: Advanced |
F-major Sampled Piano Accompaniment MP3!
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