Introducing Cecil Coles

Cecil Frederick Gottlieb Coles is one of the most gifted composers to have been killed during the Great War: he is also one of the least known.

Coles was born near the Galloway market-town of Kirkcudbright in 1888 and after moving with his parents to Edinburgh attended the George Watson Grammar School and Edinburgh University.  In 1906 he went up to the London College of Music.  Although he had won the Cherubini Scholarship, he was always rather short of cash. There is an apocryphal story told of how he used to stand outside a nearby pickle factory and enjoy the smell for his lunch! Fortunately, he made an impression with an older lady called Miss Nancy Brooke. She was a lecturer at Morley College and soon took young Cecil under her wing.  At that College Coles met Gustav von Holst who had been appointed director in 1907. Soon he was a member of the orchestra and was helping to get it into a state where they could give respectable performances. The relationship between the two men blossomed and Coles began to assist Holst with his teaching duties.

After further study at the Stuttgart Conservatory, Coles was appointed as Assistant Conductor to the Stuttgart Royal Opera.  He concurrently held the post of organist at that city’s Anglican Church, St Catherine’s.

In 1912 he married Phoebe Relton and after a brief sojourn in Stuttgart returned to the United Kingdom the following year.

Coles went on to serve a distinguished career in the Queen Victoria Rifles. He corresponded regularly with his older friend Holst and sent him drafts of his music for comment and correction. On 26 April 1918 Cecil Coles was killed whilst courageously helping to bring wounded soldiers back from behind the lines. 

Cecil Cole’s catalogue is not large. The few pieces that have been heard in recent years include the orchestral works From the Scottish Highlands, a Scherzo in A minor, an Overture: ‘The Comedy of Errors’ and an effective ‘dramatic scena’ Fra Giacomo set for baritone and orchestra.  There are a handful of songs and piano pieces.

His final work was composed when he was on active service. The suite Behind the Lines was a four movement orchestral piece written in 1918: only two movements survive.

In 2001 a retrospective CD of Cecil Coles orchestral works was released on Hyperion (CDA67293): since that time there has been little further exposure of his music.  All discussion of Coles and his music owes much to the Scottish musicologist and composer John Purser.