A Pan-American composer? Coleridge-Taylor and Africa
From early published compositions (the seven African Romances, op. 17, for voice), Samuel Coleridge-Taylor consciously projected himself as a composer of lively African sensibilities. His later scores reflect more somber musical influences from the African diaspora. The composer also made one specific attempt to incorporate West African thematic materials into his work, offering a tantalizing glimpse of a path he might have taken had he not died so young. He never visited Africa or met his father, but he had firm contacts with the tight-knit social circle of West African professionals to which his father belonged. At least twenty-four West Africans attended the composer's funeral in 1912, and a wreath in the shape of the continent, highlighting Sierra Leone, was laid at his grave (Fryer 1984, 261). African aspects of both his music and his family background are relevant to proper assessment of the composer and his work. Coleridge-Taylor came to prominence at the high point of Victorian political and popular engagement with Africa. The commander-in-chief of the British-led forces in Egypt, Sir Herbert Kitchener, defeated the Mahdists at Omdurman on September 2, 1898. Tory prime minister Lord Salisbury's main intent in venturing into the Sudan was to counter French threats to control continental river and rail connections. On
Victorian England: Aspects of English and Imperial History 1837-1901
This clear and thought-provoking examination of the years from Queen Victoria's accession to the close of the century, pays particular attention to the post-1875 period.
Italian Influence on the Development of Calvinist Scholasticism
THIS ARTICLE TRIES to show that the rise of Calvinist scholasticism, which was the most important development in Calvinist theology during the second half of the sixteenth century, stemmed largely from several converging Italian influences, particularly from the writings of Peter Martyr Vermigli and Jerome Zanchi. Here Calvinist theology refers not only to the personal thought of John Calvin but also to the teachings of the founders of the Reformed or Calvinist tradition as it spread out from Geneva and Switzerland to France, Germany, England, Scotland, Poland, and the Low Countries. In this context Calvin emerges as the brightest star in a galaxy of Reformed theologians which includes Heinrich Bullinger, Pierre Viret, Theodore Beza and Wolfgang Musculus as well as Martyr, Zanchi and others. These theologians were often more influential than Calvin himself at a given place or time or on a given point of doctrine. Bullinger, Martyr, and Martin Bucer were all more important for spreading Calvinist ideas to Edwardian England than was John Calvin. Early Elizabethan Protestantism looked more to Zurich than to Geneva, as did early Polish Calvinism. German Calvinism owed more to Heidelberg than to Geneva.' These leaders developed their theologies sometimes in mutual dependence, sometimes with surprising independence. By no means was their relation to Calvin simply that of disciple to master, for each gave a personal nuance to his style of Calvinism. Thus the sixteenth century Jesuit Cornelius Schulting states on the opening page of his five volume polemic against Calvin and Peter Martyr that Martyr was clearer and far more learned than Calvin.2 Recently John Bray has pointed out that research in seventeenth century Calvinism leads "to the conclusion that the impact of Calvin upon the Calvinistic movement has been greatly over-rated. It may well be that some of