Eric Coates - Works

Works

Coates's music, with its simple and memorable melodies, proved particularly effective for theme music. As well as "Knightsbridge", the BBC also used Calling All Workers (1940) as the theme for the radio programme Music While You Work, and By the Sleepy Lagoon (1930) is still used to introduce the long-running radio programme Desert Island Discs. Coates' "Halcyon Days", the first movement of the suite The Three Elizabeths, was used as the theme to the popular 1967 BBC TV series The Forsyte Saga, although he received no credit. This piece was originally written in the early 1940s. It was later used as a celebration of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. It has had a recent resurgence in popularity, featuring on a number of CDs.

Coates also wrote a number of pieces that were used as television start-up music: the BBC Television March (for BBC-TV), was used daily from 1946 to the end of 1958 and occasionally from then until 1960, the Rediffusion March (written as Music Everywhere; for Associated-Rediffusion, from 1956 to 1957), Sound and Vision (for ATV in London from 1955 to 1968 and in the Midlands from 1956 to 1971), and the South Wales and the West Television March (for TWW from 1958 to 1968).

Coates is also well known for his contribution to the film score for The Dam Busters (1954); he composed the famous main title march. He was unwilling to write the entire score when asked by the film's producers, but warmed to the idea of writing a signature march around which the rest of the film's score was based - in fact, he submitted a piece that he had recently completed, so the famous Dam Busters March was not itself composed with the film in mind. The final film score was completed by Leighton Lucas.

His songs, some with lyrics by Arthur Conan Doyle and Fred E. Weatherly, are less well remembered, despite their initial success. He wrote some thirty songs before turning his attention to orchestral works.

Miniature Suite was the first of many orchestral works by Coates. It was written in 1911, and consists of three movements - Children's Dance, Intermezzo and Scene du Bal.

Coates made a number of 78 rpm recordings of his music, initially for The British Columbia label and then for Decca Records (released in the U.S. on the London Records label). He recorded his London Suite and London Again Suite for Columbia. Some of his recordings were later issued on LP and CD. From the surviving recordings, it is clear that he was a very competent conductor, who benefited from advances in high fidelity recording.