Coates conducts Coates

ERIC COATES (1886-1957): All of his commercial recordings 1923-1957.

Description: I would call this a pretty exhaustive chronicle of English light music master Coates as conductor of his own works: there are 87 individual recordings here of 56 different titles (some works, like By a Sleepy Lagoon and Knightsbridge March, have as many as four separate recordings). These appeared on 78s and LPs, on the following labels: Vocalion, Zonophone, Chappell, Boosey & Hawkes, Columbia, HMV, Decca, London, Parlophone, Pye-Nixa and Imperial, sourced from ten separate collections. A "bonus" seventh CD brings recordings by other conductors and includes some items Coates himself never recorded. One might note that, contrary to the discs' subtitle, there is a c.1918 acoustic Zonophone recording here also. Mostly London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, New Queen's Hall Orchestra and New Symphony Orchestra along with several nameless orchestras. The track listing alone takes 17 pages of its own booklet so we can't provide a list of every one of the 87 recordings, with orchestra and date. The primary booklet, by Michael Payne whose biography of Coates was just published last year, contains 22 pages of notes and 7 photos. Gramophone called the transfers "immaculate". 7 CDs.