Title: Danse nègre
Duration: Approximately 6 ½ minutes
Composer: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor  (Born in Holborn (London), England in 1875; died in Croydon (London), England in 1912)
Work composed: 1898 (for piano and string quartet, as part of a larger work titled African Suite, Op. 35); 1901 Danse nègre arranged for orchestra
Instrumentation: 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, triangle), strings

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was an outstanding English composer and conductor, whose list of compositions is long and impressive for his short career.  His most well-known work – the cantata Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast written in 1898 – gained quick popularity around the world, especially in England, where it became as beloved as Handel’s Messiah.  Of particular social importance at the time, too, Coleridge-Taylor was of mixed-race heritage.  His father, Daniel Taylor, was from Sierra Leone, and while studying medicine in London he met Coleridge-Taylor’s mother, Alice Martin.  After Samuel was conceived, however, Daniel wasn’t allowed to practice medicine in England and had little choice but to return to Freetown, Sierra Leone, and practice there.  Alice chose to stay in London with their son, and thereafter Daniel played no part in his son Samuel’s upbringing.  Alice then renamed Samuel in honor of England’s great poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner), inverting the order of his names.  At a very young age, Samuel’s extraordinary talent for music was recognized by his maternal grandfather, who was a musician, and by the age of 14 Samuel was enrolled in the Royal College of Music in London.  Although race was certainly a suppressive factor in England, several of Britain’s finest composers, particularly Edward Elgar, gave Coleridge-Taylor immense support.  Unfortunately, his career was just beginning to truly blossom when he succumbed to pneumonia at age 37, leaving behind a legacy similar to Schubert’s and Bizet’s, and one that America’s own W.E.B. DuBois claimed proved what all Black men could accomplish if only they were given the proper cultural support, as (at least in DuBois’s perspective) Coleridge-Taylor had been given in England.  Because of his racial heritage, Coleridge-Taylor’s success was especially important in the Western world, and he became a cultural icon, even in his lifetime, particularly in America.  

Coleridge-Taylor met African-American author Laurence Dunbar (1872 – 1906) in 1897 in London while Dunbar was there on a literary tour.  Perhaps now best known for his 1899 poem, Sympathy, and its immortal line “I know why the caged bird sings,” Dunbar was the first African-American poet to be celebrated as such in the United States and internationally.  He and Coleridge-Taylor struck up a friendship that would last the remainder of their short lives.  During their first meeting in London, the two artists collaborated on several songs, which became African Romances, Op. 17.  Their friendship would eventually lead Dunbar to invite Coleridge-Taylor to visit and tour America several times.  But while still in London, Dunbar also encouraged Coleridge-Taylor to explore his Sierra Leonean roots and the music of the West African region. 

Coleridge-Taylor took Dunbar’s advice and began several works inspired by African music, one of them written for piano titled African Suite, Op. 35, completed in 1898.  Of the four pieces in that Suite, he orchestrated the last movement, Danse nègre, for orchestra in 1901, which quickly became popular as a stand-alone piece.  Coleridge-Taylor’s approach to setting these African-inspired songs was very much as European Classical composers had been doing with folk songs since before Mozart – by recasting them into a fully European art music setting.  Eventually, Coleridge-Taylor began to explore African melodies more and more in the remainder of his career – within a few years he began using African-American songs, especially Spirituals, as the basis for his music. As Coleridge-Taylor said:

“What Brahms has done for the Hungarian folk-music, Dvořák for the Bohemian, and Grieg for the Norwegian, I have tried to do for Negro melodies.”

With regards to Danse nègre, Coleridge-Taylor captures the vividness and liveliness of two West African dance tunes and adds to them the sparkling colors of the orchestra.  Two grand chords introduce the Danse, as though the proceedings were being officially presented to the onlookers.  The violins then scurry underfoot playing quiet and hyper-fast passages, intensifying the energy.  The flute enters and plays a galloping and fun melody, its solo status likely imagining a lone dancer introducing the first of the dance steps.  The full orchestra picks up the flute’s melody too, as though the whole dance troupe has now joined in.  What’s dazzling is the lustrous colors that Coleridge-Taylor creates in the orchestra to portray the energy and joy in this dance.  An example of that joy is a brief passage for the strings as they whirl upwards and downwards in chromatic steps, creating the sensation of spinning.  Percussion instruments are used prominently, too – whereas the original folk-melodies would have used a series of drums and typically rattles or shakers, Coleridge-Taylor uses a great deal of timpani to keep driving the energy, occasionally having the drums play two pitches simultaneously to represent multiple drums at the dance.  The bass drum, cymbals and triangle create the necessary sparkles and clanging to charge the air with effervescence.

The tempo begins to slow, and at about three-and-a-half minutes, a contrasting middle section is introduced by the strings and a glinting triangle.  The theme is lyrical and graceful, with lazy, upward leaps, as though two dancers are poetically raising their arms as they step together in their choreography.  As much a love song as it is a folk pas-de-deux, Coleridge-Taylor captures a touching gallantry and courtliness in this middle section.  The piccolo then quietly enters the dance arena in a faster tempo with the first, galloping theme.  The work then revisits several of its previous moments in succession until its joyful and emphatic ending bars.