Othello, Op. 79

Composer: COLERIDGE-TAYLOR, Samuel
  • This suite is taken from incidental music Coleridge-Taylor wrote in 1910-11 for a production of Shakespeare’s Othello.1 The production opened at His Majesty’s Theatre on April 11, 1911.2
    • This is one of many works of incidental music that influential Shakespearean actor and producer Herbert Beerbohm Tree commissioned Coleridge-Taylor to write for productions at His Majesty’s Theatre.  
  • Coleridge-Taylor actually completed these selections before the entire incidental music score was finished; the suite was published in 1909.3
  • Coleridge-Taylor produced both orchestral and piano versions of this suite.4 He also released a vocal version of The Willow Song (a setting of Desdemona’s song from Othello).5

Movements

  1. Dance  
  2. Children’s Intermezzo  
  3. Funeral March  
  4. The Willow Song  
  5. Military March6

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. W.C. Berwick Sayers, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: His Life and Letters (London: Cassell and Company, 1915), 284.
  3. Banfield, Dibble, and Laurence, “Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel,” Grove Music Online.
  4. “Othello, Op. 79 (Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel),” IMSLP, accessed February 2, 2022, https://imslp.org/wiki/Othello%2C_Op.79_(Coleridge-Taylor%2C_Samuel).  
  5. Sayers, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, 284.
  6. “Othello, Op. 79 (Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel),” IMSLP.

Cut IDs

21331