There
can be few doubts about the authentic
Coates style when we have so many of
his recordings surviving from 1933 to
1955. They were variously made for Decca,
HMV, Columbia and Pye-Nixa. This is
not a composer beholden to his orchestras
and companies. He held a position of
great public affection from which he
called the shots so we can assume that
what we hear was what he intended.
For
Your Delight (1937) is a winsome but not
very English serenade-waltz redolent
of Fibich and the never-never land of
Bohemia. Wood Nymphs (1917) is
surprisingly quick-footed with Coates
not squeezing sentiment. He adopted
exactly the same tight-lipped and dry-eyed
line when recording By the Sleepy
Lagoon in 1935 and Footlights
in 1940. Disc 1 ends with Sound and
Vision - the ATV march brightly
recorded in 1955.
Easy-going
Dvořákian honey is gently ladled
through On the Edge of the Lake from
the suite Summer Days (1919)
but is that a dash of the Irish-lachrymose
I hear. Was this what people ached for
after the Great War? Coates was a master
of the catchily sentimental!
By
the Tamarisk reeks more of Bohemia's woods
and fields than of frangipane. The
Three Bears Fantasy is suitably
fantastic and with a dramatic Hispanic
accent. This version was recorded in
1945, twenty years after it had been
written. He spread his creative wings
again in 1929 for the Cinderella
Phantasy being a form well attuned
to the free-spirited Royal Academy of
Music from which he had come.
Is
a Song by the Way deliberately Delian: I think it might
be. The recording quality is very good testimony to the recreative
skills of Peter Dempsey
(who also writes the good notes - there
are no poor ones) and Alan Bunting but
the 1933 London Suite in which
an unnamed orchestra is conducted by
the composer perhaps cannot help sounding
papery and insubstantial.
The
Saxo-Rhapsody here played by
world famous Sigurd Rascher is amongst
my favourite Coates. Nowhere in this
work does Coates descend into that wince-making
sentimentality he could so easily relax
into. It is a lovely piece and is splendidly
played by Rascher. Its undulant themes
recall the Glazunov concerto dating
from about the same time; no matter,
it is wonderful stuff - part Delian
dream and part Tchaikovsky 5. Strongly
recommended.
The
second CD blasts off with the queasy
Oxford Street March but as if
in compensation this London Again
suite includes one of Coates' most
poker-faced and successful slow movements
- the affecting Langham Place Elegy
- treasurable stuff. It has a glowing
trio section that would grace any great
snappy march. The mid-1930s were a productive
time for Coates as we can hear in the
rather hackneyed-bland Springtime
Suite although the final Dance
in the Twilight is good and kicks
the trend rather well. The The Princess
arrives (1932) is absurdist stuff
with its diminutive fanfares and toy
soldier marching.
The
Three Elizabeths from
1940-44 is classic Coates. Certainly
Halcyon Days starts well even
if it tapers off into superficial jauntiness.
That splendid fanfare is well used again
in Springtime in Angus for Elizabeth
of Glamis where gentle winds do
"shake the darling buds of May". Shame
that Youth of Britain slips back
into that all-purpose jaunty manner
like a glove.
Also
pleasing is the Four Centuries Suite
where the centuries are imaginatively
hymned. Each hundred year period is
portrayed in music that is silvery and
poetic and gravely grand with frankly
little differentiation between the first
three movements. It is only when we
get to the 20th century - Rhythm
that we get a dramatic change of
gear. It's jazzily syncopated - wah-wah
and all - Gershwin with an English accent.
It relaxes for some smoochy strict-time
ballroom at 1:59 before resuming the
jazz stuff reminiscent of the big rumpuses
sported by the George and Ira Gershwin
musicals. High-spirited stuff and it
still works.
Classic
Coates ends the collection with The
Dam Busters March. Coates
knows his stuff and italicises the introduction
to the grand march on its second appearance.
Supremely
popular Coates died while still well-loved
and with new recordings being made.
The frost that fell over British light
music descended in the 1960s and tightened
its grip well into the 1980s. Coates
was not there to see it.
At
first glance I thought this set was
a direct reissue of a long-deleted double
disc set issued by Conifer in 1994-97.
No such thing - although there is some
overlap.
Full
discographical information is provided
even if I have abbreviated it for this
review.
Vintage
Coates conducted by Coates - mono and
historic but enjoyable in its own right
and strongly recommendable for the Saxo-Rhapsody,
Halcyon Days, Four Centuries,
A Song by the Way and the two
Phantasies. Across two generously packed
CDs old friends, surprising delights
and tired classics jostle for place.
A Coates treasury and no mistake.
Rob Barnett
I am grateful to Alan Bunting for the
content of the following note which
provides a correction to the above review:-
It now seems that Coates DID re-record
both The Three Elizabeths and
The Four Centuries suites
in the 1950s for the Decca LP. It
is these recordings
that we hear on the Living Era set
not the 1944 sets of 78s. Both performances
and sound are remarkably similar
to the 78 version but there are
differences (principally that there
are several cuts in the 1944 version,
presumably to accommodate the time
limitations of the 78 format)
I carefully say 1950s because I
have heard various views on whether
they come from 1951 or 1953 and
my efforts to track down details
have so far failed. We hope to contact
Decca/Universal next week to see
if their record cards shed any light
on the sessions. They must have
been reviewed in The Gramophone
at the time but I don't have any
access to their archives.
My thoughts at the moment are that
they were released in 1953 as they
are not in my Decca LP catalogue
which includes everything issued
up to January 1952 but, of course,
the release date does not necessarily
reflect the recording date.
Both the 78 and LP recordings were
in the Decca catalogues simultaneously
for a while and as, in the early
50s, Decca were still re-mastering
and re-issuing many of their superb
ffrr 78s on LP, I assumed, that
they were the same recordings, Decca
having simply "re-named" the orchestra
for marketing purposes.
This error does not of course make
the set any less enjoyable - indeed,
having now dug out the old Conifer
2CD set which does have the 78s
on it to do the comparison, these
later versions are, in my view superior.
I should make it clear that the
Living Era transfers from the original
discs were done by Peter Dempsey
and that I was responsible for the
restoration and re-mastering work
- both essential to the process
but neither any good, one without
the other!
Further research reveals that these
versions of The Four Centuries and
The Three Elizabeths suites were
recorded on 20 May 1953.
En passant, last year I did an
article for their magazine describing
how the Guild "Golden Age of Light
Music" series is prepared - much
of the technical side of this applies
to the Living Era series. It can
be found at:
http://www.rfsoc.org.uk/jim39.shtml
Alan Bunting
January 2007
I have a Decca Ace of Clubs LP ACL164
issued 1962 which includes these two
suites in which Eric Coates conducts
the 'New Symphony Orchestra of London'.
Neither the LP nor the sleeve give any
hint of date of recording. RB
Light Symphony Orchestra/Eric Coates 
