Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s "The Atonement"

[Reverie]

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's "The Atonement" (a cantata for chorus/soloists and orchestra) will be performed Thursday, March 16, at 8:00 p.m. in Hill Auditorium, Rackham Graduate School, University of Michigan.

I'm hoping there will be a recording of this, fingers crossed.  It has not been performed in its entirety in over 100 years.

Details: https://rackham.umich.edu/discover-rackham/reviving-the-lost-work-of-a-groundbreaking-black-composer/

I have created a rendition of the Prelude.

The Atonement Prelude:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ISZAVj0k90

[scottevan]

That article does mention "a project to create the first full recording of the piece" so one can only hope. Considering the incredible number of performances, and durability, of "Hiawatha's Wedding Feast" it's always amazed me that more of his choral works aren't available on recordings. I've especially been eager to hear "A Tale of Old Japan," which I believe was once in the Downloads section, but currently missing. Let's hope this performance of this major work of Coleridge-Taylor does atone for that (pun intended.)

[Martin Eastick]

Apart from the substantial costs involved, locating the orchestral material for Coleridge Taylor's "other" choral works has proven to be problematic, and only the enduring persistance of a rather small but dedicated number of musical practitioners has enabled an occasional performance, such as that of his cantata "Meg Blane", which I was lucky enough to be present at (also in our downloads. This superb work does much to reinforce Coleridge Taylor's reputation as a thoroughly talented and accomplished composer in that most popular of mediums in late Victorian Great Britain. It is scandalous that a work of such quality and appeal should be still unperformed and unrecorded.
 (See here,from 20th March 2011:

A mixed, but fascinating, selection for today - early British piano sonatas by Pinto, Donaldson and Potter, Henry Pierson's brooding and eccentric Symphonic Poem Macbeth (1859), Ethel Smyth's 1887 Cello Sonata, three works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Haydn Wood's Apollo Overture and a suite of dances by Ernest Tomlinson.

Two of the Coleridge-Taylor items have slightly problematic sound: Meg Blane was recorded at a live amateur performance and suffers from some distortion in louder passages, whilst in the Five Choral Ballads the sound is very recessed (I remember that this was an inherent problem with the recording as originally broadcast) and noise-reduction is highly counterproductive. Originally heard in orchestral guise in 1905, the full score is unfortunately lost but it is well worth getting to know these very attractive and often moving settings of Longfellow's poems about slavery. A vocal score of Meg Blane can be downloaded from IMSLP (http://imslp.org/wiki/Meg_Blane,_Op.48_%28Coleridge-Taylor,_Samuel%29) - the orchestral parts of this stormy seascape were quite literally rescued by an enthusiast when Novello's were junking their archives prior to a move of premises and leaving such material on the road-side for waste-paper collection! 

It is great to have these rare works in BMB and many thanks again to Martin Eastick for providing the original cassette tapes. 

 

I sincerely hope that a recording of "The Atonement" eventually materialises - perhaps to be followed by "A Tale of Old Japan", and the "5 Choral Ballads" Op54 (these would certainly need to be re-orchestrated as, in spite of much research, the orchestral score/parts are unfortunately lost).

[Christopher]

Hello - does anyone know if this performance of The Atonement was recorded/released?

[Andrew]

I came across this post wondering whether any recording had been issued yet: I presume the answer is still no.

I can add the information that the Three Choirs Festival is to put on a performance of The Atonement in Hereford Cathedral on the evening of Thursday 31st July 2025.

Unfortunately, as far as I know, the festival doesn't normally record its performances.  However, the BBC usually broadcasts Choral Evensong from the Festival on the Wednesday, and occasionally stays on to record an evening concert where rare works are performed, for later broadcast on BBC Radio 3 - so fingers crossed!