page_title: Eric Coates
section_title: Orchestral
hierarchical_section_title: Eric Coates / Music / Orchestral
caption_attribution_description: Plaque to Eric Coates, Selsey, W. Sussex, England, 24 Sep 2003 Pic taken by Jonathan Barnes (user:Puffball) and uploaded by him
context_page_description: Eric Francis Harrison Coates was an English composer of light music and, early in his career, a leading violist.
  Coates was born into a musical family but, despite his wishes and obvious talent, his parents only reluctantly allowed him to pursue a musical career. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music under Frederick Corder and Lionel Tertis, and played in string quartets and theatre pit bands, before joining symphony orchestras conducted by Thomas Beecham and Henry Wood. Coates's experience as a player added to the rigorous training he had received at the academy and contributed to his skill as a composer.
  While still working as a violist, Coates composed songs and other light musical works. In 1919 he gave up the viola permanently and from then until his death he made his living as a composer and occasional conductor. His prolific output includes the London Suite, of which the well-known "Knightsbridge March" is the concluding section; the waltz "By the Sleepy Lagoon"; and "The Dam Busters March".
context_section_description: Coates's orchestral works are the core of his output, and are the best known. He wrote a few works outside his normal genre – a rhapsody for saxophone and orchestra in 1936 and a "symphonic rhapsody" on Richard Rodgers's "With a song in my heart" – his only treatment of music by another composer. But in the main his orchestral works fall into categories: suites, phantasies, marches and waltzes, plus a stand-alone overture and other short orchestral items. Of the thirteen suites, the most often played are the London Suite (1932), London Again (1936) and a later work, The Three Elizabeths (1944),  alluding musically first to Elizabeth I, then Elizabeth of Glamis (the then queen consort), and finally the latter's elder daughter, the future Elizabeth II. The suites generally follow a pattern of robust outer movements with a more reflective inner movement. Of the seven stand-alone waltzes, the best known, "By the Sleepy Lagoon" (1930), is described as a "valse-serenade", although over the years it has been rendered as a beguine,  a slow waltz and a slow fox-trot.
  In his orchestral scores Coates was particular about metronome markings and accents. When conducting his music, he tended to set fairly brisk tempi, and disliked it when other conductors took his works at slower speeds that, to his mind, made them drag.
caption: Blue plaque at Selsey, commemorating the composition of "By the Sleepy Lagoon"
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