Gipsy Suite, Op. 20

Composer: COLERIDGE-TAYLOR, Samuel
  • This suite is a set of four pieces for violin and piano. It was published in 1897.1 A version with only two movements exists as well.2
  • Coleridge-Taylor dedicated this suite  “To My Pupil, Miss Edith Carr.” Edith Carr had excelled in Coleridge-Taylor’s orchestra class at the Croydon Conservatory,3 and she and her mother became good friends and lifelong supporters of his music.  
    • Judging from Coleridge-Taylor’s letters to Carr, she was a fine singer, and also a composer: at her request, he offered advice on one of her compositions in 1912.4 
    • We can probably assume that she played the violin as well: in addition to this dedication, there are records that she wrote to the composer asking about acquiring more of his new violin pieces in 1902.5
  • The suite was orchestrated by an L. Artock, whom Coleridge-Taylor commissioned to orchestrate several of his chamber works.6

Movements

  1. Lament and Tambourine 
  2. A Gipsy Song 
  3. A Gipsy Dance 
  4. Waltz7

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. “Gipsy Suite, Op. 20 (Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel),” IMSLP, accessed July 29, 2021, https://imslp.org/wiki/Gipsy_Suite%2C_Op.20_(Coleridge-Taylor%2C_Samuel). 
  3. W.C. Berwick Sayers, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: His Life and Letters (London: Cassell and Company, 1915), 70, 115.
  4. Ibid., 130.
  5. Ibid., 133.
  6. David Ades, liner notes to Coleridge-Taylor: Hiawatha Overture et al, RTE Concert Orchestra, Adrian Leaper, Naxos 8.223516, CD, 1995.
  7. Banfield, Dibble, and Laurence, “Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel,” Grove Music Online.

Cut IDs

21329