Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)
Othello orchestral suite, Op 79 (1909)
African Suite, Op 35 (1898)
Ballade in A minor, Op 33 (1898)
Petite suite de concert, Op 77 (1911)
Violin Concerto in G minor, Op 80 (1912)
Romance for violin in G, Op 39 (1899)
Nonet in F minor, Op 2 (1894)
Avril Coleridge-Taylor (1903-1998)
Sussex Landscape, Op 27 (1936)
Elena Urioste (violin)
Chineke! Orchestra/Fawzi Haimor, Kevin John Edusei, Kalena Bovell, Anthony Parnther, Roderick Cox
rec. live, 2020-22
DECCA 485 3322 [75 + 67]
This is the first release in Chineke!’s contract with Decca and the works were all recorded in live concerts in London. As I think most people know by now for one reason or another (possibly refusing to play the National Anthem when the Queen died), the orchestra consists of majority Black and ethnically diverse players.
They have selected Coleridge-Taylor for their first outing with their new label, a colourful twofer that contains a variety of music including one major piece, the Violin Concerto. If the intention of presenting so many different conductors is to stress the ‘diverse’ nature of their calling, then I think it’s a misfire. Fawzi Haimor, Kevin John Edusei, Kalena Bovell, Anthony Parnther, and Roderick Cox all turn up to conduct an ensemble in performances given in 2020-21 that sound understaffed and underpowered.
The Othello suite was recorded in a cramped-sounding Queen Elizabeth Hall. Haimor conducts dutifully but takes too much time to establish the rhythm of the Children’s Intermezzo, which as a consequence sounds lethargic and slack, whilst the Funeral March is soft-edged and lacking breadth, qualities that apply throughout. Turn to Malcolm Sargent’s old recording of 1932 to hear how an idiomatic, incisive performance should go. The African Suite has been orchestrated (largely, but not the finale, the African Dance) by Chris Cameron, from the piano original, a vernacular salon set of 1898. There’s some luxurious lyricism in the B section of the African Dance which has not a trace of anything African about it, other than its fanciful name.
The Ballade in A minor is conducted by Kalena Bovell and it sounds very similar to Grant Llewellyn’s Argo recording with the Royal Liverpool with the exception that the latter builds up arcs of tension better and that he has an immeasurably better orchestra; balances here sound odd and the strings are undernourished. The Petite suite de concert is one of Coleridge-Taylor’s best-known works and Adrian Leaper, with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra (on Naxos), finds the flowing lyricism and sense of contrast. This Chineke! recording is conducted by Anthony Parnther who has been defeated by the blunt acoustic and by a rather inconsistent approach to the material. The other piece on CD1 is by Avril Coleridge-Taylor, the composer’s talented daughter, though her Sussex Landscape, which one might have thought would be clement, succeeds in being both melodramatic and static at the same time, aiming for grandiloquence but attaining only Home Counties Trauermusik.
The Nonet, an early work from 1893-4, was recorded at the Wigmore Hall by the Chineke! Chamber Ensemble. This could have done with more rehearsal and is notably inferior to the recent recording made by the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective on Chandos. In fact, the best thing about this release is Elena Urioste in the Concerto. Her timings match the consensus established by Anthony Marwood and Philippe Graffin in their recordings – the timings in all three recordings vary by no more than 30 seconds in total, though there’s internal variation, of course; 31:25 to 31:55. Sweet-toned and sensitive, she is perceptive as to dynamics, and phrases charmingly, drawing out those rewarding, though ultimately salon-scaled, melodies. Unfortunately, she has to contend with a small-scaled and not especially detailed orchestral response under Kevin John Edusei. She’s just as fine in the Romance in G.
In every case, though, you will find elsewhere a superior performance, better recorded. This orchestra is going to have to increase its string section, employ a full-time conductor, have stable personnel, and record in the studio. Otherwise, Decca is in for a repetition of this indifferent twofer whose primary virtue lies in presenting a cross-section of the composer’s music.
Jonathan Woolf
Performance Details
February 2020 and February 2022, Live Queen Elizabeth Hall; September, October and November 2020, Royal Festival Hall; April 2021, St John’s Smith Square; November 2020, Wigmore Hall
Published: November 23, 2022
