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Home , Adrian Boult, Frederick Corder, James Walker (conductor), Kenneth Wilkinson, Kingsway Hall, The Proms

SRCD.246 STEREO ADD

ERIC COATES (1886-1957) 1 The Merrymakers (1923)*† (4’40”) (1862-1924) 11 Marche Caprice* (3’23”) Summer Days Suite (1919)*† BOULT 2 1. In a Country Lane (2’46”) conducts (1902-1983) 3 2. On the Edge of the Lake (3’49”) 12 Hamlet: Funeral March** (4’44”) 4 3. At the Dance (4’58”) (1872-1958) From Meadow to Mayfair Suite (1931)*† 13 The Wasps: March past of 5 1. In the Country (3’32”) the kitchen utensils* (3’04”) COATES 6 3. Evening in Town (4’47”)

The Three Elizabeths Suite (1944)*† GIOACCHINO ROSSINI (1792-1868) The Merrymakers 7 3. March ‘Queen Elizabeth’ (5’12”) (arranged by ) Summer Days Suite In the Country & Evening in Town † 14 Soirées Musicales: March** (1’28”) 8 The Three Bears Phantasy (1927)* (9’44”) The Three Bears 9 March ‘The Dam Busters’ (1954)** (4’02”) (1874-1934) March ‘Queen Elizabeth’ 15 Suite in E flat Op.28 No.1: March** (3’00”) March ‘The Dam Busters’ (1882-1961) 10 Children’s March ‘Over the Hills and Marches by (63’08”) and far away’** (3’55”) Rossini/Britten * New (leader Carl Pini) Holst/Jacob ** Philharmonic Orchestra Grainger conducted by Walton Sir Vaughan Williams Delius The above individual timings will normally each include two pauses. One before the beginning of each movement or work, and one after the end. ൿ 1978 †ൿ 1979 The copyright in these sound recordings is owned by Lyrita Recorded Edition, . New Philharmonia Orchestra ൿ This compilation and the digital remastering 2007 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England. London Philharmonic Orchestra © 2007 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England. Lyrita is a registered trade mark. Made in the UK LYRITA RECORDED EDITION. Produced under an exclusive license from Lyrita by Wyastone Estate Ltd, PO Box 87, Monmouth, NP25 3WX, UK ric Coates (1886-1957) was a miniaturist who excelled in the field of . www.lyrita.co.uk EIn the early 1900s, he was following in the footsteps of Sir and Note © 2007 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England , showing his melodic gift in a large number of songs. By the 1950s, Copyright Lyrita photo of Sir Adrian Boult by Hans Wild he had written many popular hits both in England and America, including By the Design by Keith Hensby Sleepy Lagoon, best known as the signature tune for the BBC radio programme Recording location: , London , The Dam Busters’ March, and Knightsbridge March,which was Merrymakers Overture, Summer Days Suite & Queen Elizabeth March also adopted as a signature tune for the radio programme ‘In Town Tonight’. Recorded on November 9th 1976 was born in Hucknall, a small mining town in Nottinghamshire, on The Three Bears, Evening in Town, In the Country 27th August, 1886. He gives a vivid and highly entertaining account of his childhood Recorded on December 6th 1976 Recording Producer: in his autobiography A Suite in Four Movements. Here he describes how, as a boy, he Recording Engineer: Stanley Goodall cycled the leafy lanes and grew to love the countryside, to which he had a yearning Grainger Children’s March, Holst/Jacob March from Suite in E flat, to return to live for the rest of his life. Some of his music looks back nostalgically to Rossini/Britten March from Soirées Musicales, Walton Funeral March from Hamlet those early days, and draws genuine inspiration from his understanding of the Recorded on November 13th 1973 particular nature of the English countryside - as is the case with so many of his Recording Producer: James Mallinson contemporaries, in particular Elgar, who had a great regard for Coates’s music. Recording Engineer: There was an affinity between these two composers: each were masters of writing March ‘The Dam Busters’ Recorded on August 10th 1973 music in a lighter vein which had great popular appeal. Yet it was London and London life which were to excite Coates’s imagination Delius March Caprice Recorded on August 15th 1973 most, and it was here that he came to live permanently. He began his professional Recording Producer: Michael Woolcock career as a viola player. He entered the in 1906 and studied Recording Engineer: Kenneth Wilkinson viola with the legendary Lionel Tertis, whose place he was invited to take in the Vaughan Williams March from The Wasps Hambourg Quartet for a tour of South Africa. He subsequently played in the Recorded on September 19th 1973 Queen’s Hall Orchestra under Sir , who introduced Coates’s Digital Remastering Engineer: Simon Gibson compositions at . For seven years he was principal viola with the Queen’s Other works by ERIC COATES available on Lyrita: Hall Orchestra, but was finally forced to retire as a result of recurring bouts of Suite:The Three Men, Concert Valse: Dancing Nights,Two Symphonic Rhapsodies neuritis in his left hand. Idyll: Summer Afternoon, Ballet:The Enchanted Garden His compositions quickly achieved popularity and, by all accounts, he was a Concert Valse: Footlights, 20th Century Rhythm, March: London Bridge London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Barry Wordsworth……………………………SRCD.213 good conductor of his own music. At the Royal Academy of Music, he studied composition with Frederick Corder and wrote many songs - his melodic gift was WARNING Copyright subsists in all Lyrita Recordings. Any unauthorised broadcasting. public evident from the outset. At the age of 26 he married Phyllis Black, a young actress performance, copying, rental or re-recording thereof in any manner whatsoever will constitute an infringement of such copyright. In the United Kingdom licences for the use of recordings for public eight years his junior whom he had seen giving a recitation of Tennyson at the Royal performance may be obtained from Phonographic Performance Ltd., 1 Upper James Street, London, Academy of Music: “The music of her voice charmed my senses”, he wrote. It was a W1F 9DE 2 7 Marche Caprice by Delius (1862-1934) is from his Little Suite (1889-90). Its long and happy marriage. Indeed, many would say he had a charmed life: idyllic, complexity is contained in its title. It is not a rousing march, or a march to march youthful days and a long and successful career. to, but a lightly-scored romantic piece with a bohemian flavour.The orchestration is When Eric Coates died on December 21st 1957, at the age of 71, his career had beautiful and sensuous, and as always with Delius, it dies away. spanned two World Wars, and from his early song successes in Edwardian days to those of his last orchestral works (including The Dam Busters’ March) he had There is a marked contrast between our next two marches in the programme. Sir gauged the public taste unerringly. William Walton’s (1902-1983) Funeral March is from the suite adapted from his Sir Adrian Boult (1889-1983) had a gift for music in a lighter vein. incidental music (1947) for Laurence Olivier’s film of Hamlet. Walton’s film music With his understanding of musical structure and his well-judged tempi, he could has an enduring quality. His inspiration in this medium was always at a high level, bring a lightness of touch and an airiness to, for example, Elgar’s Wand of Youth or and even now, fifty years on, its emotional power is undiminished. Dream Children (Coates was a friend of Elgar), which led naturally to him agreeing Vaughan Williams composed incidental music to The Wasps, a play by to record the music of Eric Coates, and the carefully chosen programme of English Aristophanes, in 1909, for a Cambridge Greek Play production. The play is a satire light music on this recording. of the Athenians and their love of lawsuits. The March Past of the Kitchen Utensils The programme opens with The Merrymakers Overture, which dates from is described by Michael Kennedy in his biography of the composer as “a short 1922. Coates writes that at the time they were living in a little flat on the top floor of moment of fun” in which a pot, a pestle, and water-jug are called as witnesses to the a charming house in St. John’s Wood. His wife had recently made a hit in the West good character of a dog accused of stealing a cheese. Out of this intellectual conceit End, “so while she played, I composed”. This was one of two orchestral works that comes a lively piece that fizzes along, the tune for trumpet and piccolo giving it the were “the result of the charming sitting-room which looked down onto the wide road quality of pantomime. A musical tease here: the tune hinted at is a parody of “Here’s with its abundance of trees where the birds sang all day”. It was first performed by a health unto His Majesty”. the New Queen’s Hall Light Orchestra under Alick Maclean, a well-known conductor of the day and champion of Coates’s music, to whom it is dedicated, at a Chappell Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) put together his Soirées Musicales Op. 9 from several Ballad Concert in 1923. It is exuberant, with a hint of exotic colour, and a lovely pieces by Rossini that he had adapted and orchestrated for a documentary film for woodwind melody (oboe and clarinet in unison) that is warmly reiterated by the the GPO Film Unit. This was early in his career when he was 25 years old, and they strings at the end. were used later as a ballet by Antony Tudor in 1938.The short March demonstrates No wonder Elgar admired Coates’s music! He once told Coates that he always his skill at unusual and effective orchestration, the hard-edged textures increasing bought his gramophone recordings - indeed, he had a standing order with the the sense of fun and displaying a deftness of touch. gramophone company to supply him with each new recording as it was issued. His favourite was the Summer Days suite, which he told Coates “he had literally worn Gustav Holst’s March from his Suite in E flat (1909) - orchestrated by out!”. (1940) was originally scored for brass band. It is boisterous, yet at the same time it The Summer Days suite dates from 1919. The first movement, In a Country has some of the magic of his ballet , and brings a sequence of Lane, begins with a lilting 6/8, reminiscent of Sullivan. The second, On the Edge of marches to a celebratory close. the Lake, has a lovely pastoral melody (played here by the oboist Gordon Hunt) and PAUL READE the third, At the Dance, is a little choreographic poem - a delightful waltz which, 6 3 although with obvious echoes of Johann Strauss and Franz Lehar, is nonetheless a thé-dansant at the Savoy Hotel “and ate masses of sandwiches and cakes while distinctively Coates’s own. gazing in open-eyed astonishment at a mummy and a daddy practising the latest We now hear two of the three movements from the suite From Meadow to Charleston steps to the strains of the Savoy Havana Band”. Mayfair (1930). The first movement, In the Country (Rustic Dance), begins with a This anecdote prepares us for a charming, light-hearted tone-poem. After a pastoral tune reminiscent of Sullivan; but as it develops, the influence of Elgar is dramatic opening, there is some “hurry” music which contains the main musical evident: the languid, elegant, Edwardian mood; the lovely shifting, eddying strings motif which runs throughout the piece, and to which fit the inimitable words “Who’s and the ebb-and-flow in the gentle, chromatic counterpoint. The waltz Evening in been sitting in My chair?”. Coates was one of the first to introduce dance-band Town (the third movement from the suite) has a charmed, dreamy quality, with a syncopation into the symphony orchestra - a little risqué in those days, and certain dramatic flavour. Here again we see how Coates absorbs the influence of dependent on some discreet adaptation in playing style on the part of the brass other composers and yet moves so skilfully away from them. The music remains section! There is a technicolor waltz for a dizzy Goldilocks, followed by a fugato with distinctively his own. three comic entries in the woodwind - one for each bear, of course! This leads to a From 1944 - a very different era - dates The Three Elizabeths suite. Each cinematic version of the theme, which takes us to present-day Hollywood. A mild movement in turn is dedicated to a Queen of England: Elizabeth Tudor (Queen suggestion of American Blues (how Coates loved the New York of the 1920’s!) Elizabeth I), Elizabeth of Glamis (The Queen Mother, then George VI’s Queen), and reminds us of his dancing days and nights. This is Coates at home with the spirit of the one we hear now, The Queen Elizabeth March, which was dedicated to the the age. Elgar loved this work too: he once sat behind the drums at a performance present Queen (then Princess) Elizabeth II. The idea for the suite was suggested to Coates was conducting in Eastbourne, and distracted him by “tapping his feet and Coates during the War by a clergyman - “a complete stranger” -the Rev. Arthur L. waggling his head from side to side”. Hall, Vicar of Barnes. Coates received many suggestions for suitable subjects for Coates had always turned down offers of film work. Its exacting demands did musical treatment, which (as he describes in his autobiography) ranged from “an not appeal to him, especially as he grew older. However, in 1954, when he was 68, he air-raid warning to a footfall final”! However, this one, far from filling him with was approached for the film The Dam Busters. From its impressive synopsis, it was despondency, fired his imagination. He finished the pencil sketches in London obviously going to be an important film, and, as it happened, there was a march during a time when flying-bomb (the infamous doodlebug) attacks were becoming already sitting on his desk which fitted the bill perfectly! This became the title piece more frequent, so he decided to retire to the beautiful Vale of Evesham to complete for the film, on which the rest of the score (by Leighton Lucas) was based. It is a the orchestration. It begins with a quick march - a Cockney-cheeky “Good morning, tribute to the quality of Coates’s music that Sir Adrian Boult chose in 1969 to include good morning” - followed by a warm gracious melody (the tempo gear-change so The Dam Busters’ March in his 80th birthday concert. deftly managed here by Boult). Like so many of Coates’s marches, it follows a familiar pattern and yet remains so fresh. Percy Grainger (1882-1961), a younger friend of Delius, had an irrepressible sense of Eric Coates excelled in writing miniatures, and not least in his orchestral fun, in evidence in his Children’s March: Over the Hills and far Away (1918) with its fantasy The Three Bears (1926). It is based on his four-year-old son’s favourite unorthodox use of the orchestra and its extrovert percussion effects. Another bedtime story, “which was read to him with such dramatic effect by his mother musical tease: which nursery song is it - “Baa baa black sheep” or “Over the hills and before being tucked up for the night”. Coates gives us another glimpse of their family far away”? Or both? life when he tells us how, at six, their young son, Austin, accompanied his parents to 4 5 ERIC COATES: THE MERRYMAKERS NEW PHILHARMONIA LYRITA MARCH ‘THE DAM BUSTERS’… LPO • BOULT SRCD.246 (3’23”) (4’44”) (3’04”) (1’28”) (3’00”) (63’08”) after the end. (1872-1958) SRCD.246 STEREO ADD (1792-1868) (1862-1924) (1902-1983) (1874-1934) (1886-1957) FREDERICK DELIUS FREDERICK The Wasps: March past of March The Wasps: the kitchen utensils* BRITTEN) (arranged by BENJAMIN Soirées Musicales: March** March** Suite in E flat Op.28 No.1: Marche Caprice* Marche WILLIAM WALTON March** Hamlet: Funeral WILLIAMS RALPH VAUGHAN GIOACCHINO ROSSINI HOLST GUSTAV 13 14 11 12 15 conducted by † (9’44”) (4’02”) (4’40”) (3’55”) Sir Adrian Boult † † † (1931)* 2007 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England. Edition, Recorded 2007 Lyrita ൿ (1923)* (1944)* (1927)* † (1954)** ** London Philharmonic Orchestra ERIC COATES ERIC COATES (1919)* (1882-1961) * New Philharmonia (leader Carl Pini) Orchestra 1979 The copyright in these sound recordings is owned by 1979 The copyright in these sound recordings ൿ March ‘The Dam Busters’ March PERCY GRAINGER Summer Days Suite Summer Days 3. March ‘Queen Elizabeth’3. March Bears Phantasy The Three (5’12”) ‘Over the Hills March Children’s and far away’** 1. In a Country Lane1. In a Country of the Lake2. On the Edge 3. At the Dance Meadow to Mayfair Suite From 1. In the Country (3’49”) 3. Evening in Town (2’46”) Elizabeths Suite The Three (4’58”) (3’32”) (4’47”) The Merrymakers Overture Overture The Merrymakers † 7 8 9 2 3 4 5 6 1 10 1978 2007 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England. Lyrita is a registered trade mark. Made in the UK is a registered Edition, England. Lyrita Recorded 2007 Lyrita ൿ © The above individual timings will normally each include two pauses. One before the beginning of each movement or work, and one before The above individual timings will normally each include two pauses. One LYRITA RECORDED EDITION. Produced under an exclusive license from Lyrita Lyrita under an exclusive license from RECORDED EDITION. Produced LYRITA UK by Wyastone Estate Ltd, PO Box 87, Monmouth, NP25 3WX, Lyrita Recorded Edition, England. Recorded Lyrita This compilation and the digital remastering

ERIC COATES: THE MERRYMAKERS NEW PHILHARMONIA LYRITA MARCH ‘THE DAM BUSTERS’… LPO • BOULT SRCD.246