The Life and Music of Eric Coates

Michael Payne

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781409434085
• eBook ISBN: 9781317025627
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

Eric Coates (1886-1957) is perhaps the most familiar name associated with British light music. Sir Charles Groves said that 'his music crackled with enthusiasm and vitality. He could write tunes and clothe them in the most attractive musical colours'. Coates won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, and from 1912 to 1919 he was principal viola of the Queen's Hall Orchestra under Sir Henry Wood. He also played under such conductors as Elgar, Delius, Richard Strauss, Debussy, and Beecham. It was, however, as a composer of orchestral music that he found his greatest success. Beginning with the Miniature Suite, written for the 1911 Promenade Concerts, he forged an enviable reputation as a composer. By the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most popular and highest-paid British composers, with a string of popular works flowing from his pen. Coates' music has become indelibly entwined with such popular radio programmes as the BBC's In Town Tonight, which was introduced by the 'Knightsbridge' March and Desert Island Discs whose signature tune for the past forty years has been By the Sleepy Lagoon. Perhaps his most memorable work was his march for the Dam Busters film. Michael Payne traces the changing fortunes of the career of the man who composed some of Britain's best-known music. In many ways, Coates' story is the story of British light music, and Payne's study offers a fascinating insight into the heyday and decline of the British light music tradition.

PART I
The Early Years

Chapter 1
Light Music

It was a Viennese friend of mine, who years ago, was teasing me about English music. ‘What is all this about “light music”?’ he asked. ‘Are you still such a nation of shop keepers that you even sell music by weight’?1

The name of Eric Coates is synonymous with the genre of light music, a genre he practically defines. Mention light music and Coates is the first, and in many cases the only, name that people will think of. In discussing Coates’ contribution to the genre one has to consider the history of light music and his place within that genre.

Light music has never attracted a proper, rigorous study as a genre. There is no ‘Urtext’ definition of light music; even the august New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, does not have an entry for ‘light music’ or the adjective ‘light’ as applied to music, which is a staggering omission. Indeed, the origins and first use of ‘light music’ are shrouded in mystery. The composer Richard Addinsell believed: ‘The trouble is that no two people mean the same thing by “light music” … for “light music” can be both an art form and an art perversion.’2 The term ‘light’, is, as Louise Latham in the Oxford Companion to Music defined it, ‘an adjective applied broadly (often pejoratively) to music deemed of no great intellectual or emotional depth, intended for light entertainment, and usually for orchestra. There is a large repertory of British light music, much of it witty, imaginative, and skilfully orchestrated … . ’3 Latham is right to praise it for its humour and orchestration, but light music is a genre in which melody (most importantly), emotional buoyancy and a sense of humour all combine to produce a piece of music that raises a smile, is easily enjoyable and does not outstay its welcome. The genre also shares a large amount of common ground with ‘serious music’ by dint of the fact that light music is almost exclusively scored for orchestra (not used in any ‘light way’). Because of its immense popular appeal, light music has often been the victim of snobbery. Light music is an ‘umbrella term’ for music that appears to be too frivolous and likely to damage the reputation of a ‘serious’ composer. It can range from symphonic pieces such as Haydn Wood’s May Day Overture and Coates’ Four Centuries Suite to mere fripperies such as Torch’s Comic Cuts and Bucalossi’s The Grasshopper’s Dance to the operettas and musicals of Arthur Sullivan, Vivian Ellis and, dare one say, Andrew Lloyd Webber. By its very nature, light music is eclectic. Coates never thought of himself as a light-weight composer, but as a composer of light music. In much the same way, Edward German did not want to be viewed as a ‘good light composer’, but as a composer of ‘light good music’.4

Light music, if considered to be a genre expressing emotional buoyancy, has existed for many centuries without being designated as such. Consider the catches of Purcell and the minuets of Haydn, which are examples of technical dexterity but are undoubtedly light (or indeed vulgar in the case of Purcell) in terms of sentiment. The success of these works clearly demonstrates that in past centuries there was little or no aesthetic distinction made between the ‘buoyant’ and the ‘grave’. By the mid-nineteenth century, the ‘light’ and ‘serious’ strands of music were becoming increasingly polarized as there was a growing trend towards a lighter style of writing in the works of Bizet, Rossini (cf. his opera overtures), the Strauss family and Tchaikovsky, often in their opera (especially that of the French school, cf. Massenet, Thomas and Offenbach) and ballet music. The philosopher Theodor Adorno in his essay Leichte Musik (translated by Ashton as ‘Popular music’) talks of light and serious music as initially originating from the same circle; they had both come from the same source but had bifurcated into two polarized semicircles.5 Perhaps this polarization was strongest in England. Great Britain has constantly had a great volume of light composers, almost to the point that, with certain key exceptions, light music is a British peculiarity. America and Europe have also had their share of light music composers, such as John Philip Sousa, Leroy Anderson, David Rose, Franz Lehár and Paul Linke respectively, but their composers of light music have tended to be more ‘serious’ composers who have written lighter works; there is not a dynasty of light-music composers as in England.

In England, this concept of writing in a lighter style was swiftly grasped by many composers at the fin-de-siècle (such as Arthur Sullivan and Edward German) who then wrote a good deal of lighter music such as operettas, incidental music and concert music. Geoffrey Self, in his history of light music, places Sullivan’s overture Di Ballo (written for the 1870 Birmingham Festival) as ‘the progenitor of a whole of line of light music’.6 German’s dances from Nell Gwyn, Henry VIII and Merrie England became immensely popular in the early years of the twentieth century. Alongside German, there was a growing army of musicians who were specializing in writing light music, such as Charles Ancliffe, Sydney Baynes, Archibald Joyce, Kenneth Alford, Albert Ketèlbey and John Ansell. By the 1930s, there was a particular flowering of composers, a so-called ‘golden age’ that included established names such as Eric Coates, Haydn Wood, Percy Fletcher and Billy Mayerl.

There was nothing ‘light’ about the education of these composers, they were all educated in exactly the same way as ‘serious’ composers. They were, however, content to write almost exclusively light music. There were exceptions: Wood wrote a violin and a piano concerto and Phillips two piano concertos (written early in his career). From the start of his student days, Coates chose to write exclusively light-orchestral works. The fillip for the focus of so many composers of light music was a demand for short, tuneful, effervescent miniatures. After the First World War, there was a surge of interest in orchestral music. By October 1923, the music publishers Chappell and Company had disbanded their Ballad Concerts in favour of Popular Orchestral Concerts.7 The likes of Haydn Wood and Montague Phillips had had great success with their songs during the war and, in the 1920s, Phillips had scored success in light opera with The Rebel Maid.

Until the end of the 1930s there were a large number of openings for light composers, not solely with orchestral music. Also popular were ballads (where large money could be made in the 1900s and 1910s), music for brass and military bands, light opera, instrumental music for the amateur market and music for the theatre and music hall.

The revolutions caused by the advent of the cinema and broadcasting brought the need for library or ‘mood’ music; music that conjured up quickly the mood that was being presented on screen or in the programme. Albert Ketèlbey published a number of pieces for this genre, with titles such as Mysterious and Love’s Awakening. The De Woolf Recorded Music Library was founded in 1927 to provide background music for films. Post war, publishing firms such as Chappells, Boosey & Hawkes, Francis, Day and Hunter and Paxtons all ran flourishing recorded music libraries to provide music for film and broadcasting.

After the Second World War, the focus of light music moved towards providing music for radio, television and film: either using original music or writing music for the recorded music libraries. Light music was still a popular feature on BBC Radio and featured in a whole host of dedicated programmes such as: Music While You Work, Grand Hotel and Friday Night is Music Night. In addition, the rising younger generation, comprising such composers as Charles Williams, Sidney Torch, Ronald Binge, Ernest Tomlinson, Trevor Duncan, Mona Liter, George Melachrino and Robert Farnon continued to provide works for the concert hall, helped in the 1950s by the BBC’s Light Music Festivals. By the 1960s and 1970s, light music was in terminal decline and featuring less in radio broadcasts and in the concert hall. The conductor Iain Sutherland commented of these developments that: ‘It wasn’t that light music was dead, just the BBC were in the process of burying it alive.’8 Owing to the mass appeal of pop music, the younger generation were not interested in light music and the genre was increasingly alienated from the contemporary ‘classical’ music of Boulez, Berio, Birtwistle, Maxwell Davies and Ligeti. There were still several opportunities for concert works, but life was difficult and opportunities scarce for light-music composers. Peter Hope gave up composition in the 1970s, focusing entirely on orchestrations and arrangements (though since 2000 he has returned to composition). It was not until the 1990s that light music began to become more popular on radio, CD (with a landmark series devoted to British Light Music on the Marco Polo label) and to feature more prominently in concert programmes. Today the genre is undergoing a further renaissance with a growing number of composers such as Philip Lane (also a noted record producer), Matthew Curtis and Adam Saunders amongst others who are producing new works and enjoying success in the recording studio.

Even within mainstream British music of the twentieth century, one occasionally catches a glimpse of a lighter style, some may call it lyricism, in the music of composers such as Henry Balfour Gardiner (Shepherd Fennel’s Dance), Arnold Bax (Rogue’s Comedy Overture), Arthur Bliss (Adam Zero), George Dyson (Children’s Suite), Gerald Finzi (Five Bagatelles for clarinet and piano), E.J. Moeran (Serenade in G), and Ralph Vaughan Williams (English Folk Song Suite). While these composers are most definitely ‘serious’ in their outlook, there is at times a degree of lightness beneath the surface. This lighter edge can still be seen today in composers such as Bryan Kelly, Patric ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Music Examples
• Abbreviations and Library Sigla
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Part I The Early Years
• Part II The Years of Struggle and Triumph
• Part III The Establishment Figure
• Appendix 1: Work List
• Appendix 2 The Use of Material from Snowdrop in The Enchanted Garden
• Select Bibliography
• Index