Donald Brook wrote a series of books presenting
attractive short studies or pen-portraits of a wide variety of composers,
conductors, pianists, violinists and authors. He had met these people and had a
chance to speak to them about their achievements and interests. Sir Granville Bantock endorsed Composer’ Gallery
(1946) by insisting that it ‘will be welcomed by music lovers and the
larger public throughout the civilised world.’
On a personal note, this was one of the earliest
second hand books about music that I bought in the days before the internet, it
served as my introduction to a wide range of composers and their music. I
include several footnotes to Brook’s pen-portrait of Eric Coates.
The main resources for students of Eric Coates music
are Geoffrey Self’s In Town Tonight: A
Centenary Study of the Life and Music of Eric Coates (London: Thames, 1986)
and Michael Payne’s, The Life and Music
of Eric Coates (Farnham, Ashgate, 2012).
TURNING to lighter music for a moment, we find that
Eric Coates [(1886-1957] is one of the few who can write cheerful melodies that
appeal to the masses without being musically vulgar. We have the assurance of
many eminent composers that this is not as easy as one would imagine.
Eric Coates, who is in no way related to Albert Coates
the conductor, was born at Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, in 1886, son of a
physician. [1] He has happy memories of a carefree boyhood spent in the quiet
old house [2] in which his father practised for forty years, and he recalls
that his earliest efforts at music-making started when a friend from London
happened to leave a fiddle at the house after a visit to the family. Eric, aged
about five or six, began to experiment with the instrument, and within a couple
of weeks could play quite a number of little tunes to amuse himself.
This led ultimately to violin lessons with Georg
Ellenberger of Nottingham, instruction in harmony from Dr Ralph Horner [3] of West
Bridgford (Nottinghamshire), and, at the age of twelve, the leadership of a
little string orchestra in his native village. Then his father generously paid
ten shillings a season to the Nottingham Sacred Harmonic Society for the
privilege of allowing his son to play in their orchestra, but by the time he
was sixteen, Eric had become such a useful member of the ensemble that instead
of accepting a fee, they paid him half-a-guinea a concert for his services.
Coates began to compose when he was very small, but Dr
Horner forbad him to do so and insisted that all his efforts should be put into
his study of harmony. Despite this injunction and a stern warning from his
father about ‘wasting time’ he continued to write.
He was still at school when he took up the viola as
well, and as he seemed to make very rapid progress he wrote to Dan Godfrey, the
conductor of the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra, asking if there were likely
to be any vacancies for viola players. Godfrey replied saying that he wanted a
viola player who could ‘double’ on a wind instrument, so Coates prevailed once
again upon the parental generosity and obtained a fine Boehm flute. Although he
soon became quite an accomplished player, he never succeeded in getting into
Godfrey's orchestra.
The question of his career brought a dismal suggestion
from his father's bank manager eulogizing that monotonous profession. Eric was
horrified, and after several feverish entreaties, his father at last agreed to
give him the chance of a year in London to study music, on the condition that
if he did not succeed within twelve months, he was to return home and go into a
bank.
Coates went to the Royal Academy of Music in 1906
determined to win his laurels as a professional musician. He studied the viola
under Lionel Tertis, and composition with Frederick Corder. [4] In a
surprisingly short time he won a scholarship for the viola, and then resolving
to become independent, set about finding part-time work so that he could pay
for his own rooms as well. Again, he succeeded; for a friendship with a
professional viola player enabled him to secure sufficient work as a deputy in
various theatre orchestras to proclaim his financial independence.
After eighteen months at the Academy he went to South Africa
with the Hambourg String Quartet, [5] and while he was there he wrote his first
great success: the song ‘Stonecracker John’, which sold over half-a-million
copies.
Returning to England, he joined the Beecham Orchestra
in 1909, and in the same year his ‘Four Old English Songs’ were sung by
Princess Olga Ouroussoff [6] at the Queen's Hall Promenade concerts. Later,
these songs were made famous by Melba, who sang them all over the world.
Two years later Sir Henry Wood performed his Miniature
Suite at the Promenade concerts, and invited Coates to become his principal
viola. The invitation was accepted, and the appointment
lasted until 1918, when Coates gave up the viola and
never touched it again.
In 1913 he married Miss Phyllis Black, daughter of
Francis Black R.B.A., the eminent artist. Their son Austin, born in 1922, has
been serving as a flying-officer with the R.A.F. in India.
As a child, Austin loved the story of the three bears,
and persuaded his father to put it to music. The result was the well-known Phantasy,
which was first produced at the Eastbourne Festival in 1926. I might add here that Mrs. Eric Coates wrote
the story of The Enchanted Garden, and several other successes enjoyed by her
husband.
Coates's first appearance as a composer-conductor was
when he directed his Summer Days at
the Queen's Hall in 1919. Since then he has toured extensively abroad, and has
always enjoyed a great welcome in such countries as Norway, Sweden, Holland and
Denmark.
It is now many years since he wrote his world-famous London Suite. The BBC was partly
responsible for its phenomenal success, because the ‘Knightsbridge March’ was
chosen for that remarkably popular feature In Town Tonight. [7] Within a fortnight
of its debut, the BBC was swamped with over twenty thousand letters from
listeners eager to know the name of the jolly tune. When the London Suite was performed in Copenhagen
the audience went almost mad with excitement, and the members of the orchestra
joined in by applauding on their instruments,
creating the most cacophonous furore ever known in the
capital.
There is of course the old story of the provincial
gentleman who told the ticket-clerk of a London tube station that he had forgotten
his destination but knew that a song had been written about it. The clerk immediately burst into an
ear-splitting whistle and issued a single to Knightsbridge!
Eric Coates's Sleepy
Lagoon [8] was a success as soon as it came from the publishers' hands, but
when someone in America added words to it, the sales went up to something like
half-a-million within a few weeks. Coates knew nothing about it until he received
a cable from the States congratulating him on having written ‘No. 1 song hit in
America.’ [8]
His latest [1946] works include the Three Elizabeth’s Suite, the ‘Eighth
Army March’ and the ‘Salute the Soldier March’. It can be said with little fear
of contradiction that Coates is responsible for the great ‘march vogue’ we are
experiencing at the present time.
Although he specializes in light music, he is
absolutely sincere about it, and takes the greatest care with his work. ‘Sincerity
is the keynote of existence’ he says, and he abominates people who write with
their tongues in their cheeks. He listens critically to all new music, and
although he enjoys the work of such people as Vaughan Williams, William Walton,
Arthur Bliss and Arnold Bax, he feels very doubtful about much of the modern
music we are expected to accept to-day. He finds difficulty in appreciating the
modern trend one finds in the work of many of the American and Russian
composers and feels that they concentrate too much upon effects because they
are afraid of being thought conventional.
There is now such a craze for originality that in
trying to be ‘different’ people will write almost anything. Coates is
acknowledged by millions of musicians as the link between classical and ‘Light’
music, and he can best be described as one who produces light music from a
classical background, for he was brought up on Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. He
cannot tolerate banality in music. One critic declares him to be the ‘first
English composer to treat modern syncopation seriously’ and another has said
that he is ‘the only modern composer who can write a simple, popular melody
without being common.’
He is very fond of dancing, and frequently complains about
the sentimental drivel sung by the crooners, for he demands a sparkling
vitality in dance music. At one time, Ambrose [9] would always put on his
liveliest tunes when he saw Eric Coates and his partner taking the floor.
Eric Coates confesses that he is an incorrigible lover
of speed. He can never find a car that will go fast enough for him, and delights
in air travel. He also enjoys
photography, and is always looking for a better camera than the one he already
possesses.
Notes:
[1] Hucknall was known as Hucknall Torkard until 1916.
The composer’s father, William Harrison Coates, was a local doctor. In his
spare time, he was an amateur musician. He played the flute and ran the St Mary
[Magdalene] Church Choir.
[2] Shortly after Eric Coates’ birth, the family moved
to Tenter Hill. Here Coates grew up. The house bears a plaque provided by The
Eric Coates Society and Ashfield District Council.
[3] I could find little out about Georg Ellenberger,
save he was a onetime pupil of Joachim. Dr Ralph Joseph Horner (1848-1926) was
a local musician, composer, conductor and teacher.
[4] Lionel Tertis (1876-1975) was an English violist and
well-respected teacher. Frederick Corder (1852-1932) was an English composer,
conductor and music teacher. He is best
recalled as the teacher of Josef Holbrooke, Arnold Bax and Granville Bantock.
His musical compositions have disappeared.
[5] The Hambourg String Quartet was founded by Boris
Hambourg (1884-1954) a Russian born cellist. At the time of the South African
tour the members were Jan Hambourg (violin), John Robinson (violin) Eric Coates
(viola) and Boris Hambourg (cello).
[6] Princess Olga Ouroussoff (? -1909), a Russian born
soprano, was Sir Henry Wood’s first wife. They were married in 1898. The name and title have been a bit exaggerated.
Her given name was Olga Michailoff. Henry Wood refers to her as ‘Princess Olga
Ouroussoff’, in his memoirs, but according to Arthur Jacobs (Henry J. Wood; Maker of the Proms, 1994)
she was entitled to neither the rank nor the surname, although her mother was
Princess Sofiya Urusova.
[7] In Town Tonight
was first broadcast on Saturday, 18 November 1933. The Radio
Times reports that it was ‘A Topical Supplement of the Week's Programmes…
featuring items of topical interest which have come to hand too late for
inclusion in the printed programmes of the Press or The Radio Times. ‘In Town
Tonight’ has been started experimentally as a weekly framework for the various
'surprise items' which have been hitherto scattered about the programmes, often
at times inconvenient to the ordinary listener.’
[8] ‘Sleepy Lagoon’ was famously used as the theme
tune to the long-running radio programme Desert
Island Discs, first broadcast on the BBC Home Service on 29 January 1942
with Roy Plumley. The first castaway was Vic Oliver, the Austrian-born British
actor and radio comedian.
[8] ‘Sleepy Lagoon’ reached Number 1 in the USA
Billboard Charts during April 1942. It was played by Harry James and his Orchestra.
[9] Benjamin Baruch
Ambrose (11 September 1896 – 11 June 1971), known professionally as Ambrose or
Bert Ambrose, was an English bandleader and violinist. Ambrose became the
leader of a highly acclaimed British dance
