Coates: Orchestral Works, Vol. 2 BBC Philharmonic Orchestra & John Wilson

• Eric Coates (1886 - 1957):
• 1 London Bridge 04:11
• 2 The Selfish Giant (Ed. J. Wilson) 09:44
• 3 Wood Nymphs 03:24
• The Enchanted Garden:
• 4 The Enchanted Garden: Maestoso 02:38
• 5 The Enchanted Garden: Allegro 02:51
• 6 The Enchanted Garden: Tempo I - Andante moderato 02:48
• 7 The Enchanted Garden: Allegretto 02:37
• 8 The Enchanted Garden: Allegro molto 02:05
• 9 The Enchanted Garden: Tempo I - Allegro 03:19
• 10 The Enchanted Garden: Andante moderato 02:34
• Eric Coates:
• 11 For Your Delight 03:46
• Summer Days Suite (Ed. J. Wilson):
• 12 Summer Days Suite (Ed. J. Wilson): I. In a Country Lane 02:48
• 13 Summer Days Suite (Ed. J. Wilson): II. On the Edge of the Lake 04:02
• 14 Summer Days Suite (Ed. J. Wilson): III. At the Dance 04:08
• Eric Coates:
• 15 Lazy Night (Ed. J. Wilson) 02:52
• 16 Calling All Workers (Ed. J. Wilson) 03:05
• Total Runtime 56:52

Info for Coates: Orchestral Works, Vol. 2

For the second volume of the music of Eric Coates, John Wilson has built his programme around three contrasting ‘major’ works. The Suite Summer Days was premiered in October 1919, shortly after Henry Wood had fired Coates from his position as lead viola in the Queen’s Hall Orchestra. An immediate hit, the suite received rave reviews and many more performances. It was recorded in 1926, Sir Edward Elgar telling Coates that he had played it so often that he had worn out the disc!

The Selfish Giant, from 1925, based on Oscar Wilde’s story, was the first in a series of highly successful musical retellings of fairy tales.

The Enchanted Garden originated in a commission from the Swedish Broadcasting Company. Although he described The Enchanted Garden as a ballet, Coates conceived it principally as a concert work. Composed in June and July 1938, it was premiered in a BBC radio broadcast in November that year, immediately before Coates took it on tour to Stockholm.

Of the other, shorter pieces on the album, Calling All Workers is arguably Coates’s best-known work, composed in the summer of 1940 and dedicated ‘to all who work’. The march was adopted by the BBC as the signature tune for their new daily radio show ‘Music While You Work’, and was heard twice daily for twenty-seven years – clocking up more than 16,000 broadcast performances.

"A splendid follow-up to the first volume - more please." (MusicWeb International)

BBC Philharmonic
John Wilson, conductor

John Wilson
is known for the vivid nature of his interpretations and is applauded repeatedly for the rich and colourful sounds that he draws from orchestras in repertoire ranging from the core classical through to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. An outstanding communicator, Wilson has developed long-term affiliations with many of the UK’s major orchestras and festivals, and is working increasingly at the highest level across Europe and Australia. In 16/17 he became the Associate Guest Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducting them regularly across Scotland as well as at the BBC Proms and Aldeburgh Festival.

In 18/19 Wilson returns to the BBC Proms with the London Symphony Orchestra as well as with his own John Wilson Orchestra, and at London’s South Bank he returns to the Philharmonia Orchestra and makes his debut with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Elsewhere in the UK he conducts the BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish, City of Birmingham Symphony and Royal Northern Sinfonia and in Europe he returns to the Oslo Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic and Swedish Radio Symphony orchestras. Wilson also makes his debut at English National Opera in a new production of Porgy and Bess and in Summer 2019 he returns to Glyndebourne Summer Festival for a new production of Cendrillon.

In recent seasons Wilson has made his debut with many major orchestras including Oslo Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and further afield he has twice been to Australia to conduct the Sydney Symphony. In 2016 he made his opera debut with Glyndebourne Festival Opera to great critical acclaim, described as a “sensational success” by Opera Magazine, conducting the theatre’s first ever Madama Butterfly in a new production for their autumn tour.

In 1994, Wilson formed his own orchestra, the John Wilson Orchestra, dedicated to performing music from the golden age of Hollywood and Broadway; for the past decade he has been performing with them annually at the BBC Proms and touring regularly across the UK. John Wilson and the John Wilson Orchestra record exclusively for Warner Classics (formerly EMI Classics) and their performances are broadcast regularly on television and radio.

Wilson has a large catalogue of recordings with a range of orchestras. His most recent recordings are three volumes of symphonic works by Copland with the BBC Philharmonic, described by Gramophone as “outstanding”, and two volumes of works by Richard Rodney Bennett with the BBC Scottish Symphony.

Born in Gateshead, England, John Wilson studied composition and conducting at the Royal College of Music where he was taught by Joseph Horovitz and Neil Thomson and where he won all the major conducting prizes and, in 2011, was made a Fellow.

Booklet for Coates: Orchestral Works, Vol. 2