24 Negro Melodies, Op. 59/1

Composer: COLERIDGE-TAYLOR, Samuel
  • This is a set of 24 folk song arrangements for piano. The set was published in Boston in 1905.1
  • Coleridge-Taylor took about half of the melodies from African folk songs, and about half from African-American spirituals.2 
    • You can see a full list of the contents of the set here. 
    • The score, which is available online, gives the source of each tune, and transcribes each tune in its original form before the composer’s piano arrangement. 
  • Coleridge-Taylor first heard spirituals in 1899, when the Fisk Jubilee Singers toured England. He began using melodies from spirituals in his compositions after this experience.3 
  • Coleridge-Taylor had made his first visit to the United States in 1904 the year before he published this collection. He had been invited by the Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society, an African-American choir formed in 1901 in Washington, DC in the composer’s honor.4
  • Note: Coleridge-Taylor’s Romance for Violin and Piano is also designated as his Op. 59. To distinguish the two works, the Negro Melodies are sometimes labeled Op. 59/1, and the Romance as Op. 59/2.5

Sources

  1. Stephen Banfield and Jeremy Dibble, and Anya Laurence, “Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel,” Grove Music Online (2003), accessed July 23, 2021,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002248993. 
  2. Ibid.
  3. “Samuel Coleridge-Taylor,” The Library of Congress, accessed July 23, 2021, https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200038837/. 
  4. Banfield and Dibble, and Anya Laurence, “Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel,” Grove Music Online.
  5. Ibid.

Cut IDs

21259 21259 23614 23768