Cecil Coles - Music from Behind the Lines

Cecil COLES (1888-1918)

Music from Behind the Lines

1 Overture 'The Comedy of Errors' 
2 Fra Giacomo 
Paul Whelan (baritone)
3 Scherzo in A minor

Four Verlaine Songs
4 No 1: Fantastic in appearance
Sarah Fox (soprano)
5 No 2: A slumber vast and black
Sarah Fox (soprano)
6 No 3: Pastoral 'The sky above the roof' 
Sarah Fox (soprano)
7 No 4: Let's dance the gig 
Sarah Fox (soprano)

From the Scottish Highlands
8 Movement 1: Prelude. Presto scherzoso – Allegro maestoso
9 Movement 2: Idyll 'Love scene'. Larghetto
10 Movement 3: Lament. Adagio non troppo e ben marcato 

Behind the lines
11 Movement 1: Estaminet de Carrefour 
Behind the lines arr. Martyn Brabbins (b1959)
12 Movement 3: Cortège 

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Martyn Brabbins 

Born in Scotland in 1888, Cecil Coles studied composition at Edinburgh

University, the London College of Music, and Morley College where he
befriended Gustav Holst. He furthered his studies in Stuttgart, and
was later appointed assistant conductor at the Stuttgart Royal Opera
House. Forced to return to England before the outbreak of the First
World War, he signed up for overseas service, and in 1915 was sent to
the trenches in France. He continued to compose, including the
particularly poignant work Behind the Lines (dated on the manuscript
'Feb 4th 1918, In the Field'). The first movement provides a sketch of
a northern French pastoral landscape, the second, a heroic picture of
a military funeral procession. Some two months later, aged just 29,
the life of this extraordinarily gifted young musician was
extinguished.

Cecil Coles (1888-1918)

Coles was killed near the Somme on 26th April 1918 during a heroic
attempt to rescue some wounded comrades. He was one of the most
talented of the composers who lost their lives in the First World War,
yet few remember him now. Thanks to the persistence and research of
his daughter Penny Catherine Coles, his manuscripts, some still
embedded with shrapnel, have been painstakingly pieced together
helping to create this first commercial recording of these, indeed any
of his compositions. In the words of the conductor, "this is a most
exciting project, musically, socially and historically".

Travelling on a journey somewhere between Mendelssohn and Bruckner or
Richard Strauss via Brahms, the music is powerful, beautiful, and full
of pathos and emotional intensity, performed here by the BBCSSO under
Martyn Brabbins as expressively and passionately as it was composed.



Thanks Mel!