Coleridge-Taylor, son of a Sierra Leone Creole physician and English woman, achieved such success when touring the U.S. in the early 1900s that he was likened to Mahler
The hugely popular The Wasps Overture is a brilliant marrying of Ravel’s French influence with broad, thoroughly English humor
“The Vaughan Williams concerto is robust with fantastic melodies and gives the audience a chance to really hear what the tuba can do, both technically and musically.”
A work of both seriousness and humor, Elgar dedicated the variations “to my friends pictured within,” each variation a musical sketch of one of his close acquaintances