Whenever the phrase “British Light Music” is uttered, more often than not the name Eric Coates will never be far away. If you’ve ever listened to Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4, his piece By the Sleepy Lagoon has been used as the theme music since it began in 1942. His output is vast, yet relatively little of it is widely known besides a few popular pieces, such as The Dam Busters March, The Three Elizabeths Suite and London Suite. 

Some years ago the conductor John Wilson gave me a copy of a trio of solo piano pieces that he suspected had never been recorded, consisting of: A Fragment, Nocturne, and Valse. Incidentally, they are also Coates’ only mature works for solo piano. I was very young and green, so didn’t really know what to do with them with regards to a professional recording, so I just occasionally played them in concerts and then put them back on the shelf after a while and that was that. Fast forward to the Autumn of 2021 and a friend, the bass player Jeremy Watt asked if I’d like to record a short EP for his new label Luminate Records. I wondered about what to record, and whilst leafing through my shelves of piano music rediscovered these pieces by Eric Coates. I took them to the piano and within seconds I knew they’d be a perfect fit for the occasion. I recalled that John Wilson had said they had never been recorded, but imagined that in the past 16 or so years somebody must have corrected that situation. As it turns out only one of the set had recently been recorded (Valse, with Paul Guinery), leaving me the opportunity to be the first pianist to record them as a complete trio. Further research suggests that the pieces haven’t been heard together on the radio since a broadcast in October 1933 by the pianist Ernest Lush.

That these pieces by a significant British composer hadn’t yet been recorded 91 years after their publication seemed too good to be true, and ever since we’ve been expecting someone to discreetly draw our attention to a recording we hadn’t discovered in our research to burst our modest bubble.

What to say about them? Speaking as performer, they’re exquisitely crafted. Coates’ attention to detail and clarity of intent on the page is of the highest quality.  Like all of his music, they are very well-polished gems. They’re a pleasure to play and when listening people seem to immediately fall for their gentle sophisticated charm. That they remained unrecorded for so long is a curious, though a happy circumstance for me.

I’ve been invited to write an article about them for the Light Music Society Magazine, so will save any more in-depth chat about them for that publication.

Eric Coates Three Lyric Pieces available for purchase on Luminate Records or for streaming via the usual popular outlets.