Lehar & Eric Coates

[LeMartinPecheur]

Listening to excerpts from Lehar's Paganini on CotW this morning I was struck by a marked resemblance in orchestral 'sound' (scoring?) to Eric Coates. Was this just me?

I'm guessing that if there is any link it must have come from from Coates either having played or deliberately studied Lehar's scores. Is there any evidence for this?

[Pabmusic]

None that I know of, but your perception is good. Lehar and Coates were both gifted writers of music in a 'popular' style. Coates would almost certainly have been familiar with much music by Lehar (though almost certainly not as much as we are now) and his playing years were mostly spent in the Queen's Hall Orchestra with Henry Wood, who regularly programmed 'lighter' pieces. But I suspect that Elgar and Edward German were greater influences by far (his composition teacher at the Academy, after all, was Frederick Corder, who had a similar style).

[Biffo]

Looking through my very meagre stock of Coates (from Lyrita reissue conducted by Boult), the sleeve notes say pretty much the same as Pabmusic but also mention Sullivan as an influence. They also say 'At the dance, is a little choreographic poem - a delightful waltz which, although with obvious echoes of Johann Strauss and Franz Lehar, is nonetheless distictively Coates's own'. Anyway, you have sent me back to a disc I haven't listened to for ages.