John Coates (tenor) - 1901-1916 in Festival and Oratorio

1901-1916 in Festival and Oratorio

The year 1901 saw John Coates' first English festival engagement, at Leeds, and he was thereafter in all the chief English festivals, notably at Worcester, Brighton and Norwich, and at The Crystal Palace. In November 1900 he appeared for Henry J. Wood in the Arthur Sullivan Memorial Concert at Queen's Hall in The Golden Legend, alongside Lillian Blauvelt, Louise Kirkby Lunn and David Ffrangcon-Davies.

He was above all admired in The Dream of Gerontius, in which work he and fellow English-born tenor Gervase Elwes held foremost place in public esteem. In the 1902 Sheffield Festival he sang Gerontius under Elgar's baton with Marie Brema and Ffrangcon-Davies, and with the same soloists under Henry J. Wood at the Queen's Hall, with the London Choral Society, in February 1904. He was chosen to appear at the Festival of Elgar's music under Hans Richter at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, performing Gerontius on 14 March 1904 with Kirkby Lunn and Ffrangcon-Davies, and then with Agnes Nicholls, Kennerley Rumford and Andrew Black in The Apostles, on 15 March of that same year.

Elgar, writing to Frank Schuster in 1905, wanted to hear Coates perform the 'Three Holy Kings' scene from Wolfrum's Weihnachtsmysterium. Gerontius was performed with the 1904 line-up under Henry Wood's direction in his 1906 season. Then Frederic Austin was Priest and Angel of the Agony to Coates's Soul at the Festivals of Southport (1906) and Birmingham (1909) and at Manchester (1908). In 1907, in correspondence, Elgar wrote of him: 'The Arch-chanter John was the greatest success and a joy to see.'

Classical-singing commentator Michael Scott (who, incidentally, calls Coates 'one of the finest English singers on record') notes in The Record of Singing that his repertoire was exceptionally wide-ranging and included Handel's Messiah and Belshazzar, Mendelssohn's St Paul and Elijah, Bach's St Matthew Passion, Elgar's King Olaf and Saint-Saëns's The Promised Land. John Coates and Gervase Elwes were great friends, and Coates stood in for an indisposed Elwes on (at least) one occasion at Gloucester. On another occasion, at Worcester in 1911, Elwes (a Roman Catholic) was booked to sing Gerontius, but upon being told that the name of Mary Mother of God must be excluded from the text (to sing, 'Jesu, pray for me' instead of 'Mary' etc., and with other absurd substitutions and cuts) on the insistence of the Dean and Chapter, he refused to perform, and Coates was called in to replace him. Coates performed the Bach Mass in B minor in the April Festival of 1915 at Queen's Hall, under Henri Verbrugghen.