CD REVIEW
– ERIC
COATES : ORCHESTRAL WORKS, VOL.2
BBC Philharmonic / John Wilson
Chandos CHAN 20148
(57:00)
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This is the
release we have been waiting for:
some of the very best of the kind
of music we love the most. It is
the second instalment in a series
from our friend John Wilson, of
whom it has been said that what
he does not know about Eric
Coates' music is probably not
worth knowing.
For this album
John has chosen three 'major
works': The Selfish Giant,
inspired by an Oscar Wilde fairy
tale, Enchanted Garden,
originally written as a ballet
about the Seven Dwarfs, and the
suite Summer Days –
also the name of the composer's
cottage in Selsey. Then there are
three shorter works: the serenade
For Your Delight (it
definitely is), the waltzes Wood
Nymphs and Lazy Night.
All these are topped and tailed
by two familiar marches: London
Bridge and Calling All
Workers. The last-named
clocked up 16,000 performances
over 27 years from 1940 as the
signature tune for the BBC radio
programme 'Music While You Work'.
Everything is
admirably performed by the BBC
orchestra, recorded at
MediaCityUK, Salford, Greater
Manchester, in November 2019. The
excellent quality of the recorded
sound from this label is a given.
The CD booklet has
six pages of knowledgeable notes
by the classical music writer,
critic and consultant Richard
Bratby, and there is a charming
Lowry-like London Transport
poster on the front cover.
The album should
be another resounding success for
maestro Wilson, even if without
the amount of attention given to
his recent Sinfonia of London
recordings. While greatly
appreciating what we have here
and eagerly anticipating further
releases in this survey of
Coates' works (due to Covid-19
likely to be a long time coming),
I reckon Chandos might have given
us rather more than just under an
hour of music.
As a footnote: I
was interested to see that the
estimable Eric, who died in 1957,
was recently quoted by Rob Cowan
in Gramophone magazine
as having declared that
"wrong attitudes towards the
best light music (were fostering)
an insidious form of musical
snobbery among listeners teaching
them to despise melody".
© Peter
Burt 2020
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