Albert Coates (musician) - Early Years

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. From 12, he was raised in England. After attending the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, he studied science at Liverpool University.

Coates returned to Russia to join his father's company, but he also studied composition with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. In 1902, he entered the Leipzig Conservatory, to study the cello with Julius Klengel and the piano with Robert Teichmüller, but was drawn to conducting by Artur Nikisch's conducting classes.

Nikisch appointed Coates répétiteur at the Leipzig opera, and he made his debut as a conductor in 1904 with Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann. He was engaged as the conductor of the Elberfeld opera house in 1906, in succession to Fritz Cassirer. From there he progressed to the post of assistant conductor at the Semperoper, Dresden (1907–8), under Ernst von Schuch and Mannheim in 1909 under Artur Bodanzky. He made his London début in May 1910, conducting the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) in a program consisting of a symphony by Maximilian Steinberg, Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto and Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. The Times judged him "sound and artistic", though "not particularly inspiring to watch." In the same year, he was invited by Eduard Nápravník to conduct in St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre.

Coates's conducting of Siegfried at the Mariinsky led to his appointment as principal conductor of the Russian Imperial Opera, a post he held for five years, during which he became associated with leading Russian musicians, including Alexander Scriabin, for whose music he became a strong advocate. In July 1910, he married Ella Lizzie Holland.