British Library talk: Albert Coates and other 'lost' conductors of the inter-war era
Damian R
and with a decent attendance.
The talk fell into three sections - a biographical section on Coates,
details of Coates's recording career, and a consideration of the reasons for
the neglect into which he and other conductors of the era fell.
The talk contained excerpts from a number of recordings by Coates:
Tristan und Isolde - Love duet with Leider and Melchior (1929) - the
recording which sparked David Patmore's interest in Coates
Scriabin - Poeme d'Extase (1920 recording)
Strauss - Don Juan (1926)
Stravinsky - Petrouchka (1927)
Tchaikovsky - Francesca da Rimini (1930)
Wagner - Faust Overture (1928)
Wagner - Das Rheingold Prelude (1926)
Strauss - Till Eulenspiegel (1928)
Beethoven Symphony No.9 (conclusion - 1926)
Holst - The Perfect Fool excerpt (1926)
Bax - Mater Ora Filium (Leeds Festival Chorus, unaccompanied - 1925)
Shaporin - On the Field of Kulliko - Lullaby (excerpt) - a BBC radio
broadcast from 1945, with Kathleen Ferrier, the BBC Choral Society and the
BBC SO
Coates - Piano Concerto - played by Coates pupil Frank Laffitte, conducted
by Avril Coleridge-Taylor - from the 1959 Coates memorial concert at the
Wigmore Hall
Tchaikovsky - Pathetique final section - Decca 1945, Coates final commercial
recording.
These provided an excellent overview of Coates's qualities as a conductor.
They were supplemented by an excerpt from the 1944 MGM film "Song of
Russia", made for propaganda purposes to support the USSR as an Allied power
in the war. It celebrates the wonders and glories of Communist Russia, and
was roundly demolished by Ayn Rand and others in the 1950s. It's not
available on DVD or video. The excerpt shown was of the conclusion of
Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1 - with Albert Coates as piano soloist.
Coates made one other film in Hollywood in 1944, "Two Girls and a Sailor",
which featured other musical and stage stars of the era (Jose and Amparo
Iturbi, Carlos Ramirez, Jimmy Durante, Gracie Allen, Lena Horne, Xavier
Cugat)
Also featured was a wonderful, rare, recently discovered silent clip of
Coates conducting. It's thought to be from the mid 1930s, with Coates
conducting Elgar's Polonia in the Queen's Hall. No other footage is known of
Coates as conductor.
(Not mentioned in the talk was that Coates was also musical director for the
Richard Tauber 1936 film of Pagliacci, with Boyd Neel as assistant MD)
In looking at the reasons for the neglect of Coates and other conductors,
David Patmore considered the effect of the merger of Columbia Graphophone
and the Gramophone Company to create EMI. He suggested that documentary
evidence of meetings show that the idea of the merger was first tabled the
year before the Great Depression, so is unlikely to be ascribable to the
financial downturn as is usually the case. In fact both companies were in
fine fettle and recording excellent profits at the time, with Columbia doing
particularly well. However, in 1929 RCA bought Victor which had a major
shareholding in the Gramophone Company. The suggestion is that the pattern
of the merger bears all the hallmarks of the business and monopolising
practices of David Sarnoff of RCA and NBC. The 30s then brought a focus on
promotion of particular artistes, with NBC making a huge thing of Toscanini.
A few conductors were therefore emphasised to the expense of others. In the
UK, Beecham and EMI founded the LPO partly as a recording orchestra,
supplanting the LSO contract of the time.
To conclude, David Patmore discussed the loss to posterity of other
conductors of the same time, mentioning Percy Pitt and Alick Maclean
specifically.
A Q&A session followed, with various questions about Coates's recordings,
compositions and archives. This was rounded off wonderfully when one of the
audience stood and introduced his wife, Tamara - Coates's daughter. He also
introduced Coates's granddaughter, the violinist Elizabeth Wallfisch, and
her husband, cellist Raphael Wallfisch, and their son, composer Ben
Wallfisch.
Attendees at the talk were given a folder containing a brief biography of
Coates (from Patmore's A-Z of Conductors), a free CD of other "lost"
conductors of the interwar years, for which I provided the recordings and
remastering, and track list and biographical details of the conductors
included on the CD (Landon Ronald, Raymond Roze, Eugene Goossens III,
Bainbridge Robinson, Alick Maclean, (Albert Coates), Alexander Mackenzie,
Henry Wood, Edward German, Percy Pitt and Dan Godfrey).
There was chance for drinks and chat afterwards.
Damian
Bill Anderson
Thank you for your time supporting, and documenting, this important
lecture.
I wish I could have been there.
- Bill
Otterhouse Rolf
Thanks for the details... !
Rolf
Rich S.
wrote:
>David Patmore's talk at the British Library this evening was fascinating,
>and with a decent attendance.
I wish I could have been there.
Does the British Library often have talks on historical recordings??
Every once in a while I pass through London and it would be fun to
attend one of these.
Rich
Dontait...@aol.com
The same from me. This account is beautifully detailed. Many thanks,
Damian.
Patmore's observations about the merger of Columbia and HMV, which
created EMI, are especially fascinating. It has indeed always seemed
to be written that the merger took place in 1931 because they, like
most other record companies, were in financial straits because of
meagre sales revenue due to the Depression. Other factors were perhaps
at work, it would seem.
Don Tait
thoren...@yahoo.com
>
> Patmore's observations about the merger of Columbia and HMV, which
> created EMI, are especially fascinating. It has indeed always seemed
> to be written that the merger took place in 1931 because they, like
> most other record companies, were in financial straits because of
> meagre sales revenue due to the Depression. Other factors were perhaps
> at work, it would seem.
>
> Don Tait
Is there any way to hear or see this online ? I have always wanted to
learn more about this.
Roger
Bill Anderson
lecture was recorded for their own archives, no podcasts or downloads
are envisioned due to legal concerns.
That being said, the lecture will be made available but only if you go
to the Library itself to listen to it.
- Bill
Otterhouse Rolf
Or try to contact David Padmore... He helped me with the MMS/concert
hall story on my page.
Rolf
Ed Romans
wrote:
> Is there any way to hear or see this online ? I have always wanted to
> learn more about this.
For those interested, David Patmore is involved in a 4CD package that
has just been released by Naxos entitled the A-Z of Conductors -
biographies of 100s of conductors with excerpts.
Ed
Bill Anderson
I have already contacted him about this. A very informed and generous
individual, as you already know. While he could not assist in
accessing this lecture, I greatly appreciated his comments and
additional information he provided me.
Nick Morgan, a colleague of David's at Sheffield University, informed
me that David presented a paper addressing the HMV-Columbia merger at
a recent CHARM conference.
- Bill
david
With apologies for the delay in achieving this, Naxos have now
published the detailed track list and some sample biographies for its
'A-Z of Conductors' at
http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.558087-90
under the link 'Extract from text'.
American collectors might be especially interested in the extract
featuring William Steinberg.
Best wishes - David.
Brendan R. Wehrung
If Naxos is brave enough to sell it in the U.S. I don't see why not,
given that 95% of the recordings are out of copyright by any reasonable
standard a lawyer might use.
And if Borders is intelligent enough to stock it at a time they have a
30% off coupon floating around.
Brendan
Peter J
> On Nov 11, 11:26 am, Ed Romans <cab...@strath.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > On 10 Nov, 21:16, "thorenstd...@yahoo.com" <thorenstd...@yahoo.com>
> > wrote:
>
> > > Is there any way to hear or see this online ? I have always wanted to
> > > learn more about this.
>
> > For those interested, David Patmore is involved in a 4CD package that
> > has just been released by Naxos entitled theA-ZofConductors-
> > biographies of 100s ofconductorswith excerpts.
>
> > Ed
>
> With apologies for the delay in achieving this, Naxos have now
> published the detailed track list and some sample biographies for its
>
> http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.558087-90
>
> under the link 'Extract from text'.
>
> American collectors might be especially interested in the extract
> featuring William Steinberg.
>
> Best wishes - David.
My copy arrived the other day - excellent book! Some of the transfers
are rather better than others, unsurprisingly. Mozart/Busch, Brahms/
Toscanini and the Ansermet are particularly good; Delius/Beecham dire.
I'd rather not have had quite so many odd movements; still, you can't
please everybody.