Eric Coates - Songs (Kathryn Rudge; Christopher Glynn)

Information

Composer: Eric Coates

1. Little Boy Blue
2. Sleepy Lagoon
3. I Pitch My Lonely Caravan at Night
4. Bird Songs at Eventide
5. The Scent of Lilac
6. The Fairy Tales of Ireland
7. The Mill o' Dreams: No. 1, Back o' the Moon
8. The Mill o' Dreams: No. 2, Dream o' Nights
9. The Mill o' Dreams: No. 3, The Man in the Moon
10. The Mill o' Dreams: No. 4, Bluebells
11. Dreams of London
12. Song of the Little Folk
13. Reuben Ranzo
14. Sea Rapture
15. Green Hills o'Somerset
16. Always as I Close My Eyes
17. Tell Me Where Is Fancy Bred
18. 4 Old English Songs: No. 1, Orpheus with His Lute
19. 4 Old English Songs: No. 2, Under the Greenwood Tree
20. 4 Old English Songs: No. 3, Who Is Sylvia?
21. 4 Old English Songs: No. 4, It Was a Lover and His Lass
22. Our Little Home
23. I Heard You Singing
24. By the North Sea
25. At Daybreak
26. Stars and a Crescent Moon
27. Rise Up and Reach the Stars
28. Homeward to You

Kathryn Rudge, mezzo-soprano

Christopher Glynn, piano

Date: 2019

Label: SOMM Recordings

https://somm-recordings.com/recording/songs-by-eric-coates/

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Review

Eric Coates, the ‘King of Light Music’, is of course best known for his orchestral pieces. His more than 130 published songs tend to be overlooked, belonging as they do to an English song tradition that, by and large, is completely ignored by today’s recitalists. So full marks to Kathryn Rudge and Christopher Glynn for this, the most comprehensive collection of Coates songs ever presented on a single disc – 28 titles, including almost all the best-known ones.

Sadly, the results are not a total success. The ear quickly adjusts in the opening brief song (‘Little Boy Blue’, 1'39") to the empty studio acoustic and the balance between voice and piano, not dissimilar to that on a previous Coates song collection – Brian Rayner Cook and Raphael Terroni back in 1986 (ASV, 3/87 – nla): I prefer to hear voice and piano conjoined in the sound picture. Cook, however, does not have Rudge’s noisy intakes of breath. And his diction is better.

It is unfortunate that her second song should be ‘Sleepy lagoon’, the gloopy 1940 vocal version approved by Coates of his famous 1930 orchestral hit. It is manifestly unsuited to Rudge’s operatic delivery – you cannot hit the word ‘lagoon’ as hard as she does and hope to convey the sense of the lyric. Some of the other gentler songs come off well (‘The Scent of Lilac’, ‘Always as I close my eyes’) with elegant phrasing and a pleasing feel for period style. ‘The Green Hills of Somerset’, one of several songs Coates wrote with the prolific Fred E Weatherly, is sweetly yearning, though spoilt by the unnecessarily splashy final ‘t’ of each ‘Somerset’ (Joan Hammond, in her evergreen recording, managed without). Again, ‘Bird Songs at Eventide’ and ‘I hear you singing’, two more once-popular Coates songs, are fine but compromised by Christopher Glynn’s metronomic reaction to his task (listen to Edwin Schneider, accompanying John McCormack in 1927, taking the song to another level).

The rollicking ‘Reuben Ranzo’, another Weatherly lyric, is better suited to a male voice (Rayner Cook is tremendous) and Richard Edgar-Wilson with pianist Eugene Asti on his splendid disc of lesser-known Coates songs (Marco Polo, 4/96) makes you ask why the spine-tingling ‘Rise up and reach the stars’ is not heard in our concert halls more frequently. The Somm disc comes with a good English-only booklet (Jeremy Dibble) and all the lyrics.

-- Jeremy Nicholas, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2019/Feb/Coates_songs_SOMMCD0192.htm

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2019/Mar/Coates_songs_SOMMCD0192.htm

https://www.classical-music.com/reviews/choral-song/eric-coates-songs/

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Eric Coates (27 August 1886 – 21 December 1957) was an English composer of light music and a viola player. He was principal violist of the Queen's Hall Orchestra under Henry J. Wood for 7 years. Coates's music, with its simple and memorable melodies, proved particularly effective for theme music; several of his compositions was used by BBC to introduce its programs. Coates is also well known for his contribution to the film score for The Dam Busters (1955). He made a number of 78 rpm recordings of his music for The British Columbia label and Decca Records; some of these were later issued on LP and CD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Coates

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Born in Liverpool in 1986, Kathryn Rudge studied with Susan Roper at Royal Northern College of Music (2004-11). She has won numerous awards and was an English National Opera (ENO) Young Artist, a YCAT artist, and a BBC New Generation Artist (2015-17). The Times’ Rising Star of Classical Music 2012, Kathryn made her critically acclaimed debut as Cherubino (Marriage of Figaro) with the ENO. Her debut recital album Love’s Old Sweet Song was released in 2014. She made her BBC Proms debut in 2016 in Rossini’s ‘Petite Messe Solennelle’, and has performed as soloist with all of the BBC Orchestras.

https://kathrynrudge.com/

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Christopher Glynn (born 5 September 1974 in Leicester) is an English classical pianist and festival director. Glynn studied piano with John Streets in France and Malcolm Martineau at the Royal Academy of Music. He is especially noted for his work as an accompanist with many leading classical singers, including Claire Booth, Bernarda Fink, Jonas Kaufmann, Dame Felicity Lott, and Bryn Terfel. Glynn has performed at venues including Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, Royal Opera House, Aldeburgh Festival and the BBC Proms. He is also Artistic Director of the Ryedale Festival.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Glynn
http://www.cglynn.com/

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