DEEP RIVER Op.59 No.10

Deep River' is one of the most famous African-American spirituals to have carried forward from the slavery era. In his renowned and opulent original setting of the melody for solo piano, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) wrote on the score that "In the author's opinion, this is the most beautiful and touching melody of the whole series". As he set no fewer than twenty-four folk melodies in total, hailing from different regions of the African Diaspora, his comment upon the pre-eminence of 'Deep River' (Opus 59/10) is significant.

Althea Talbot-Howard writes:
This transcription is a recent arrangement which differs from the 1904 violin & piano arrangement, made by the American virtuosa, Maud Powell. She met Coleridge-Taylor during his American tour, in 1904. Having previously performed her transcription twice on the oboe, I found it insufficiently idiomatic to be comfortable for a woodwind player. In 2020, I decided to create a specialist woodwind arrangement which was mindful of breathing needs - using material from the centre of the piece, that Powell had rejected. The long central section was, in fact, cut by both of us. Whilst she chose fiery music that was violinistic and idiomatic in its use of chords, I chose the slower and more peaceful material that was better suited to long, single-line woodwind melodies.

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