The Definitive Eric Coates - Eric Coates conducts his own compositions

Eric COATES(1886-1957) All of his commercially released recordings 1923-1957 plus bonus CD of Eric Coates compositions conducted by others. Track Listing and samples at Nimbus websiteNIMBUS NI 6231 [7 CDs: 08:50:00] Ian Lace, in his excellent review of this Nimbus release, considers who will buy this set of CDs. He wonders if ‘this superbly crafted music, so full of vitality and romance [will] appeal to audiences below the age...

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Moura Lympany: An English Pianist playing Rachmaninov 3

I heard Moura Lympany's performance of the Edvard Grieg Piano Concerto in A minor at a 1975 Glasgow Promenade Concert:  ever since I have been a fan of her playing. Shortly after this concert, I found a copy of her recording of Alan Rawsthorne’s first piano concerto. This had originally been issued on HMV CLP1118 in 1957. Around the same time I bought one of the iconic series of Decca Eclipse albums that featured Lympany playing Rachmaninov’s...

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Granville Bantock: ‘Hebridean Symphony’ at Edinburgh, 1930

I am doing research into early performances of Granville Bantock’s superb Hebridean Symphony which was first heard at Glasgow on 1 February 1916. There was a later performance at Edinburgh on 6 November 1930. The Reid Symphony Orchestra gave their ‘second concert’ of the season under the baton of Professor Donald Francis Tovey.  It was part of the University of Edinburgh’s Sixty-Eighth Session of Reid Orchestral Concerts.  It was certainly...

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Hubert Parry: Early Chamber Works

C. HUBERT H. PARRY (1848–1918)String Quartet No.3 in G Major (1878) String Quintet in E-Flat Major (1884; rev. 1896/1902) The Bridge Quartet:  Colin Twigg (violin) Catherine Schofield (violin) Michael Schofield (viola) Lucy Wilding (cello) Robert Gibbs (viola, Quintet)EMR CD016 The story of the genesis and the re-discovery of Hubert Parry’s String Quartet No.3 is a delight. After rehearsals during February 1880, the work was premièred at...

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Granville Bantok: An Anecdote by Josef Holbrooke

Josef Holbrooke’s controversial, eccentric but ultimately essential study of Contemporary British Composers (1925) is crammed full of interesting opinion, stories and anecdotes. Holbrooke knew virtually everyone that mattered in the musical world even if he was not always on the best of terms with people. The present short anecdote is presented as a good example of his story-telling. To understand the references to Bantock’s Hebridean Symphony, two...

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The Golden Age of Light Music- Here’s to Holidays  For better or worse, I have always associated ‘light music’ with travel and holidays. The first piece I consciously became aware of was ‘Coronation Scot’ by Vivian Ellis. I can recall that even as a youngster, I could imagine one of Sir William Stanier’s powerful pacific locomotives pounding up Beattock Bank or Shap Summit. I could picture the passengers in the first-class dining car enjoying...

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William Alwyn: A Research and Information Guide John C. DresslerRoutledge Musical BibliographiesRoutledge, hardback 336 pagesIBSN 978-0-415-88605-5£95.00I first came across William Alwyn’s music in 1972: it was hearing the Symphonic Prelude: Magic Island on Radio 3’s Record Review. As soon as the programme ended I rushed into Cuthbertson’s music shop in Glasgow and bought the record with some hard saved pocket money. I fell in love with that work and the coupled Symphony No.3. Apart from the sleeve notes, I could find no details about the...

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Arnold Bax: A Wish List for Recordings from ‘The Gramophone’ July 1927

My last musings on W.A. Chislett’s contribution to early Arnold Bax discography considers his ‘wish list’ of music deemed to be appropriate for future recording. He suggests that the best place to begin would be with a few of the songs and the shorter piano pieces. A more ambitious ‘first shot’ would include the Quintet for harp and strings. He suggests that for larger scale pieces record companies ‘should choose first of all the ‘Symphonic Variations’...

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The Golden Age of Light Music- Melodies for the Starlight Hours

The proceedings get off to a great start with a smoochy, smoky little number by Robert Katscher – ‘When Day is Done’. I guess that this piece epitomises the selection of music on this disc. This Laurie Johnson arrangement emphasises it as a late-night piece. There is a particularly moody break for trumpets before the music closes with a violin solo. Many of the numbers derive from various ‘shows’ or ‘films’. There is a fine arrangement of ‘I could...

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Arnold Bax: Early Reviews of the Oboe Quintet

W. A. Chislett writing in the July 1927 edition of The Gramophone magazine noted that the National Gramophonic Society (N.G.S.) were about to issue Arnold Bax’s Oboe Quintet. In fact, he had heard the ‘test prints’ and declared that ‘these records are technically the finest yet made for the Society.’ Some nine months earlier, in the October 1926 edition the N.G.S. had advertised the forthcoming release of this Oboe Quintet. Other British works scheduled included Delius’ ‘Summer Night on the River’, Eugene Goossens’ Violin Sonatas and Ralph...

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Gustav Mahler: British Criticism from the 1930s.

Over the weekend I was reading Norman Lebrecht’s excellent book Why Mahler? (Faber & Faber Limited, 2010)  In his introduction he notes that until the Mahler revivals of the ‘fifties and ‘sixties, musical criticism in Britain claimed that his works were ‘laboriously put together and lacking that vital spark of inspiration.’ I checked out the references which are to The Musical Companion. This was a ‘compendium for all lovers of music’ edited by the great critic A. L. Bacharach. It was published by Victor Gollancz in 1934 and was subject...

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