This album marks the debut of the minority-oriented
Chineke! Orchestra on the
Decca label, and it is quite a promising beginning indeed. Perhaps the African-British composer
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was a natural choice for the group, but even with his 21st century revival, it seems to be the same few pieces that are played and recorded over and over, focusing on the traces of African-American music and African music in his work. Hearing a lot of his music together in one place is something of a revelation, for his melodic gift seems inexhaustible. Sample the
Romance for violin, Op. 39, and one will see why some of
Coleridge-Taylor's contemporaries dubbed him "the Black
Dvorak"; it is a much better moniker than the "African
Mahler" nickname bestowed during his U.S. tour. Indeed, even in the
African Suite, Op. 35 (an arrangement of a piano work), the African element, though it is there, is minimal. Another big attraction here, and the explanation for the nonspecific
Coleridge-Taylor title, is the presence of the tone poem
Sussex Landscape, Op. 27, by
Coleridge-Taylor's daughter
Avril, dating from the mid-'30s. Though not on the cutting edge of British music, it is a fine, evocative work with a plangent English horn part. The young orchestra plays with not only enthusiasm but also precision in live as well as studio tracks, and the group seems to be offering not only a mission but musical value. ~ James Manheim
