Eric Coates, one of England’s most highly esteemed and widely performed
composers of light music, was born in Hucknall, England, on August 27,
1886. While attending the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he
specialized in the viola under Lionel Tertis, he supported himself by
playing in several of London’s theater orchestras. Upon graduating from
the Academy, Coates became violist with several string quartets,
including the Hambourg String Quartet with which he toured South Africa
in 1908. From 1912 to 1918 he was first violist of the Queen’s Hall
Orchestra. Meanwhile, in 1911 he realized his first success as composer
of light music when his _Miniature Suite_ was introduced at a Promenade
Concert; after 1920 he devoted himself almost completely to composition,
producing ballets, rhapsodies, suites, marches, and so forth, that were
heard around the world. In 1930, his valse-serenade _Sleepy Lagoon_
achieved a phenomenal success in London; with lyrics by Jack Lawrence
and in a popular-song arrangement by Dr. Albert Sirmay, it made in 1942
seventeen appearances on the American “Hit Parade,” twice in first
place. Coates appeared as guest conductor throughout the music world,
visiting the United States in 1946 and 1955, on both occasions
conducting concerts of his music over the radio networks. In 1957 he
became president of the British Light Music Association. He died in
Chichester, England, on December 21, 1957.
In _Four Centuries_, a suite for orchestra (1941), Coates created a
four-movement work, each of which was in a musical style of a different
century. The first movement is a fugue, the second pavane, the third
Valse, and the last is called “Jazz.”
_London Suite_ (1932), for orchestra, is one of his best known works
inspired by the city dearest to his heart. As he himself wrote: “My best
inspiration is to walk down a London street and a tune soon comes to me.
When I can think of nothing I walk down Harley Street and there is a
lamp post. Every time I catch sight of it a tune comes to my mind. That
lamp post has been my inspiration for years.” The most celebrated
movement of his suite is the stirring “Knightsbridge March,” one of the
most popular marches by an Englishman, perhaps second only in universal
appeal to Elgar’s _Pomp and Circumstance_. It has been used as the theme
music for a program on the BBC, and when first used the radio station
was swamped with over twenty thousand letters asking for its
identification. Two other highly familiar movements from this suite are
“Westminster” and “Covent Garden.” The former is a “meditation,”
introduced by the chiming of bells of the Westminster clock and followed
by tunes both gay and pensive suggesting different moods of people
strolling in London streets below. The second is a tarantella, a lively
dance recalling the fact that the famous opera house, Covent Garden, has
also distinguished itself for the performances of comic and light
operas.
_The Three Bears_ is a realistic tonal picture of the famous fairy tale
of Goldilocks and the three bears. An expressive _Andante_ section is
intended to depict the query of the three bears, “Who’s been sitting in
my chair?” In the gentle waltz section that follows, Goldilocks goes to
sleep in the small bear’s bed. A vigorous fast section demonstrates how
the three bears discover Goldilocks and chase her wildly. They finally
give up the pursuit, go home in good humor, while Goldilocks returns to
her grandmother to tell her of her adventure that day.
In _The Three Elizabeths_ (1944), Coates provides sensitive lyrical
portraits of three English queens, Queen Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen;
Elizabeth, the Queen mother, widow of King George VI; and Elizabeth II.