Description
Autograph manuscript of Southern Love Songs, captioned "Six Love Lyrics (English to Southern) by various authors, set to music by S. Coleridge-Taylor, Op. 12" (with "Six" crossed out and the word "Five" added), 14pp. autograph music; with an additional, unpublished, autograph score of a sixth song "Keep these eyes still purely mine", 2pp., bound with the printed score of Coleridge-Taylor's "Southern Love Scenes, Op. 12", Augener, 1896, inscribed on the cover "To Miss Mamie Fraser, with all best wishes for the New Year from S. Coleridge-Taylor, Jan. 1897", and the printed score of "African Romances, 7 Songs, Op. 17", Augener, 1897, with a similar inscription, bound in brown morocco, stamped "M.M.E." on upper cover, several leaves loose, a little light dust-soiling, a few short marginal tears, spine very worn
Footnote
Note: The "Miss Mamie Ellis" of the inscriptions was Mary Maeve Ellis, neé Fraser, the grandmother of the vendor, who was a fellow student with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor at the Royal College of Music in London in 1897. After leaving the R.C.M. Mary Maeve Fraser left for India where she married, returning as Mrs Mary Maeve Ellis, hence the initials on the cover of the works.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (15 August 1875 – 1 September 1912) was an English composer, of mixed English and Sierra Leonean parentage, who achieved such success that he was once called the "African Mahler". By 1896, Coleridge-Taylor had earned a reputation as a composer. He was later helped by Edward Elgar, who recommended him to the Three Choirs Festival. There his Ballade in A minor was premiered. His early work was also guided by the influential music editor and critic August Jaeger of music publisher Novello; he told Elgar that Taylor was "a genius." His greatest success was undoubtedly his cantata Hiawatha's Wedding-feast.