Albert Coates (musician)

thumb|Coates, c. 1922|alt=right profile photo of youngish white man, clean shaven, with full head of neat dark hair

Albert Coates (* 11 <sup>jul.</sup>/23 April 1881<sup>greg.</sup> [deviant: 1882] – 11 December 1953) was an English conductor and composer. Born in Saint Petersburg, where his English father was a successful businessman, he studied in Russia, England and Germany, before beginning his career as a conductor in a series of German opera houses. He was a success in England conducting Wagner at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1914, and in 1919 was appointed chief conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.

His strengths as a conductor lay in opera and the Russian repertory, but he was not thought as impressive in the core Austro-German symphonic repertory. After 1923 he failed to secure a permanent conductorship in the UK, and for much of the rest of his life guest-conducted in continental Europe and the US. In his last years he conducted in South Africa, where he died at 71.

As a composer, Coates is little remembered, but he composed seven operas, one of which, Pickwick, was performed at Covent Garden and was the first opera to be televised on the newly launched BBC, in November 1936. He also wrote some concert works for orchestral forces.

Early years

Coates was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, the youngest of seven sons of a Yorkshire father, Charles Thomas Coates, who managed the Russian branch of an English company, and Mary Ann Gibson, who was born and raised in Russia to British parents. He learned the violin, cello and piano as a child in Russia, and was raised in England after turning twelve. After attending the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys and the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth,

Coates returned to Russia to join his father's company, but was drawn to conducting in Artur Nikisch's conducting classes. In the same year, he was invited by Eduard Nápravník to conduct in St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre. In July 1910, he married Ella Lizzie Holland. and particularly for his conducting of Die Meistersinger. His conducting of Puccini's Manon Lescaut later in the same season was also well received, his Parsifal less so.

The Russian Revolution in 1917 did not at first adversely affect Coates. The Soviet government appointed him "President of all Opera Houses in Soviet Russia", based in Moscow. By 1919, however, living conditions in Russia had become desperate. Coates became seriously ill, and with considerable difficulty left Russia with his family by way of Finland in April 1919. After his arrival in England, he was appointed chief conductor of the LSO. Reviewing his first performance in the post, The Times praised him warmly, along with the younger Adrian Boult and Geoffrey Toye, in an article on "The Conductor's Art". In September 1919, he was appointed to teach a new class for operatic training at the Royal College of Music. Reporting the appointment, The Times wrote, "There can scarcely be a musician in this country with so wide and cosmopolitan an experience of operatic performance."

The following month, there occurred an incident for which Coates is remembered in many books and articles. The LSO gave the world premiere of Elgar's Cello Concerto under the baton of the composer, but Coates, who was conducting the rest of the programme, appropriated most of Elgar's allotted rehearsal time. As a result, the orchestra gave a notoriously inadequate performance. Elgar did not complain publicly, but the musical world knew privately of Coates's behaviour. With this exception, Coates served English composers well in the post-war years, giving the first performances of large-scale works including Vaughan Williams's revised A London Symphony (1920), Delius's Requiem (1922), Bax's First Symphony (1922), and Holst's Choral Symphony (1925). He conducted many other early performances of music by contemporary English composers, including the second complete performance of Holst's The Planets in 1920, two years after its premiere. Among works from continental Europe introduced to England by Coates were Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto and Rachmaninoff's Fourth Piano Concerto, each with its composer as soloist. Coates left Rochester in 1925 as a result of a disagreement with the orchestra's sponsor, George Eastman, over artistic policy. The reason for his failure to secure a permanent position in the UK was, according to one commentator, that although he was a fine conductor of opera and of Russian concert music, "his interpretations of the Viennese classics were less acceptable" and as the latter were more important in British musical life, "Coates failed to win for himself the highest reputation among his own countrymen." In 1938 he conducted George Lloyd's opera 'The Serf' at Covent Garden with The New English Opera Company, directed by Rosing.

When World War II broke out, Coates moved to the US. There, together with Rosing, he founded the Southern California Opera Association. Productions included Coates's opera Gainsborough's Duchess. His concert works included a piano concerto and a symphonic poem The Eagle, dedicated to the memory of his former teacher Nikisch, which was performed in Leeds in 1925.

Recordings

Coates made early contributions to the representation of orchestral music on record, beginning in 1920 with Scriabin's The Poem of Ecstasy and afterwards conducting many excerpts from Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen and (in 1923 and 1926) two complete recordings of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Restored recordings of works by Scriabin, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Holst and others, dating from 1920 to 1932, were issued by Pristine Audio in 2026.

Personal life

Albert Coates was married twice. In 1910 he married Ella Holland, with whom he had one daughter, Tamara Sydonie Coates, who became a professional oboist. Coates' grandchildren include violinist Elizabeth Wallfisch and doublebass player Paul Miller. His great-grandchildren include composer Benjamin Wallfisch, cellist and baritone Simon Wallfisch and singer-songwriter Joanna Wallfisch. Later in life, Coates married South African mezzo-soprano Vera de Villiers, née

Johanna Veronique Waterston Graaf. He also had an affair with Angel Records founder Dorle Soria, uncovered after Soria's death.

Notes and references

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Sources

External links

Albert Coates at the Bach Cantatas Website
Concerto for index finger from Two Girls and a Sailor, with Coates conducting Gracie Allen, plus José Iturbi