Albert Coates

Albert Coates (1882-1953). Russian-born conductor, composer.

Biography

Albert Coates was born in St Peterburg, Russia, on 23 April 1882.

He studied the cello, violin and organ as a child and received composition lessons from Rimsky-Korsakov; when he was six he unknowingly encountered Tchaikovsky while improvising on the piano at a party to which his mother had taken him and in 1893 he travelled through thick snow to attend Tchaikovsky’s funeral. After these early years in Russia, when Coates was twelve he was sent to school in England, where his first music teacher, Henry Riding, encouraged composition as well as a general love of music. After a year Coates was transferred to another school where one of his brothers was also studying, and where his subjects included the organ, harmony and composition; but when his brother died unexpectedly, the shock was so great that Coates gave up music temporarily and studied science at Liverpool University.

At the age of twenty Coates returned to his family in Russia, with the intention of working in his father’s business. However this was not to his liking and music was more attractive. In 1902 he entered the Leipzig Conservatory where he studied piano and cello. Coates made his conducting debut in 1904 with Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the Leipzig Opera. He was appointed as conductor of the opera house at Elberfeld in 1906 and held this position until 1908. He then conducted in Dresden and Mannheim, Germany, and the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, the last-mentioned for five years until 1918. His London debut was in 1910 with the London Symphony Orchestra after which regular invitations followed. His American debut followed in 1920 where he was the musical director of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, New York, from 1923 to 1935.

In 1936 he formed the short-lived British Drama Opera Company to perform his opera Pickwick, which was the first opera to be shown on television. During World War II, Coates was based in the USA, where as well as conducting he wrote the music for several films. After returning to England in 1944 he made several distinguished recordings during 1945 for Decca with the LSO and the National Symphony Orchestra, which contained a high proportion of musicians from the armed forces.

He married the opera singer, Vera de Villiers, in 1945. In 1946 they moved to South Africa and he became conductor of the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra. Three months after their arrival, they had to leave Johannesburg for Cape Town on account of Albert Coates's health. In Cape Town, Coates both composed and conducted the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra.

Coates died in Milnerton, Cape Town, on 11 December 1953.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

Coates founded the South African Opera and Ballet Company with his wife, and presented various opera productions: Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice (1947), Wagner’s Die Walküre (1948), and Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel (1951).

He composed the Afrikaans opera, Tafelberg se Kleed (also known as Van Hunks and the Devil), performed by the UCT Opera Company in the Cape Town City Hall in 1952.

He also composed the operas Asshurbanipal (1915); The Myth Beautiful (1917); Samuel Pepys (1929); Pickwick (1936; this was the first opera ever to be televised); Gainsborough (1939); The Boy David (1948); The Duel (1950); and Thro’ the magic eye (1952).

Sources

Sjoerd Alkema. 2012. "Conductors of the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra, 1914-1965: a historical perspective". University of Cape Town. Unpublished PhD thesis.

Hilde Roos. 2012. 'Indigenisation and history: how opera in South Africa became South African opera'. Acta Academica Supplementum. 2012(1).

http://www.domus.ac.za/afrikaans/images/file/documents/PDV2%20COATES.pdf

https://www.naxos.com/Bio/Person/Albert_Coates/32333

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