Coates, Gloria (1933 – 2023)

[Pulcinella]

Gloria Coates died in Munich on 19 August 2023 (unable to link to Times obituary, spotted today).

Here's a link to her Wiki page:

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

There are very few posts on the forum that mention her or her music, but those that do suggest that the string quartets (on Naxos) might be worth investigating.

[RichardB]

I don't know much of her music but what I do know is strange in a very American, maybe post-Ives, kind of way (oddly since she lived in Germany for most of her life), combining extremes of dissonance and consonance, often simultaneously. In the first movement of the orchestral Transitions, for example, a piano plays Purcell's "O Let Me Weep" while the rest of the orchestra plays a texture of slow glissandi around it. I don't know her chamber music though.

[smittims]

A year or so ago there was a Radio 3 programme (The New Music Show?) in which two or three of her symphonies (they're quite short) were played. What interested me in them was their differences from the music of the group of living British composers much favoured by Radio 3 (Judith Weir, Judith Bingham, George Benjamin, Thomas Ades,, etc.)

They are undoubtedly knowledgeable, learned, skilful composers who know how to turn out a well-finished score which, however, to my ears, is devoid of interesting ideas. Gloria, on the other hand , actually had a interesting idea, but lacked the skill to elaborate it into a convincing work, so she resorts to repeating it or prolonging it for 13 minutes or so. Nevertheless, I regard her as a refreshing yankee pioneer like Ruggles and others. We need music like that occasionally, as well as the other kind.

[Andrew Slater]

A year or so ago there was a Radio 3 programme (The New Music Show?) in which two or three of her symphonies (they're quite short) were played. What interested me in them was their differences from the music of the group of living British composers much favoured by Radio 3 (Judith Weir, Judith Bingham, George Benjamin, Thomas Ades,, etc.)

I'll have to listen. This is a list of all the broadcasts over the last few years, gleaned from the Radio 3 playlists. 3 items are still available for a few days on BBC Sounds.

[RichardB]

They are undoubtedly knowledgeable, learned, skilful composers who know how to turn out a well-finished score which, however, to my ears, is devoid of interesting ideas. Gloria, on the other hand , actually had a interesting idea, but lacked the skill to elaborate it into a convincing work, so she resorts to repeating it or prolonging it for 13 minutes or so.

Surely it's better to assume that the more or less static or repetitive nature of some of GC's music is the result not of lack of skill, but of a particular individual vision that happens not to coincide with received notions of what makes a "well-finished score", which, as you say, is an overrated quality. My impression is that she knew very well what she was trying to achieve and how to achieve it, and that the results are worth more than any number of worthy contributions from imaginations mired in convention.

[Andrew Slater]

I'll have to listen. This is a list of all the broadcasts over the last few years, gleaned from the Radio 3 playlists. 3 items are still available for a few days on BBC Sounds.

The 2nd movement of the 7th symphony, broadcast on NMS, sounds like re-processed Vaughan Williams, with an almost verbatim section taken from the 'Landscape' movement of the Sinfonia Antartica. This didn't seem to be mentioned in NMS, nor the notes accompanying the Naxos CD so I'm not sure whether the influence is acknowledged or not.

[RichardB]

The 2nd movement of the 7th symphony, broadcast on NMS, sounds like re-processed Vaughan Williams, with an almost verbatim section taken from the 'Landscape' movement of the Sinfonia Antartica. This didn't seem to be mentioned in NMS, nor the notes accompanying the Naxos CD so I'm not sure whether the influence is acknowledged or not.

Interesting. Michael Oliver says in his enthusiastic Gramophone review of the CPO disc of her 1st, 4th and 7th symphonies: "The second movement of the Seventh Symphony would perhaps be a good starting point, since here her ‘cluster’ textures and her chorale-like writing for the most part simply alternate, eventually generating a three-note brass motif that grows impressively, for a moment distinctly recalling the awesome apparition of a great iceberg in Vaughan Williams’s Sinfonia Antartica."

[Andrew Slater]

Interesting. Michael Oliver says in his enthusiastic Gramophone review of the CPO disc of her 1st, 4th and 7th symphonies: "The second movement of the Seventh Symphony would perhaps be a good starting point, since here her ‘cluster’ textures and her chorale-like writing for the most part simply alternate, eventually generating a three-note brass motif that grows impressively, for a moment distinctly recalling the awesome apparition of a great iceberg in Vaughan Williams’s Sinfonia Antartica."

The similarity might be purely coincidental, and it doesn't sound quite so blatant on decent speakers, as it did on the laptop earlier, but it's very obvious, and I was surprised that Tom Service didn't remark on it. There's also the coincidence that Sinfonia Antartica is RVW's 7th symphony. (I think it's a glacier, rather than an iceberg, in the Scott film.) I'll go away and listen to the rest of the (Coates) symphony.

[RichardB]

I was surprised that Tom Service didn't remark on it.

Maybe, like me, he doesn't know the RVW work well enough. I wouldn't notice it either.

[smittims]

It's not surprising that Antartica should re-echo in American symphonies. VW's music was popular in the USA then and there are passages in that symphony , especially the short repeated sections in the second and third movements, which seem to me (momentarily) to look forward to John Adams and Steve Reich. When I heard the Coates symphonies I didn't think of VW, but it was a first hearing.

[Andrew Slater]

Maybe, like me, he doesn't know the RVW work well enough. I wouldn't notice it either.

Perhaps, but surprising as TS seems to be something of an RVW expert, writing articles in the Guardian and presenting at least one TV documentary.

[smittims]

Am I the only person who finds the words 'Tom Service' and 'expert' in the same sentence rather odd?

[Andrew Slater]

Am I the only person who finds the words 'Tom Service' and 'expert' in the same sentence rather odd?

I don't wish to be controversial, but I did say

seems to be something of an RVW expert

[smittims]

Yes, of course. I was a little unfair; he may after all be an expert in something, and be modest enough to conceal it; it's just that he does get ragged on this forum.