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Concerts

© Kaupo Kikkas

This is every performance of Coke's music that has so far been traced, from his schooldays at Eton in 1929 to the present, assembled from printed programmes, press notices, Radio Times billings, his mother's household accounts and the composer's own annotations. It is not a complete record and it cannot be: he was played most often in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, sometimes in a converted stable at his own house, and much of that went unreported. There is a gap of twenty-five years between 1987 and 2012 in which exactly one performance has been found. If you know of a concert that is missing, or have a programme, a cutting or a memory of hearing this music, please do get in touch.

1941

Concert

22nd NovemberBlue Triangle Hall, Nottingham

Performers
Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano) Alan Morton (cello) Barbara Welby (soprano) Raymond Mosley (violin)
Programme
Coke
15 Variations and Finale for piano in C minor, Op. 37
Coke
Eight Songs for soprano or tenor, Op. 43 (Premiere)
Coke
Cello Sonata No. 2 in C, Op. 29
Coke
24 Preludes for piano, Op. 33/34
Coke
Elegiac Trio for piano, violin and cello in C minor, Op. 32
Coke
Three Songs (from Humbert Wolfe)
Notes
The Nottingham Journal report appears to be that of 24 November 1941. Also recorded in Coke's own performance lists, in the front cover of the manuscript of the Variations op. 37 and in the cover of the manuscript of the Preludes opp. 33/34. Coke gave his own account of the recital in a letter to Myles Hildyard of 7 January 1942: "I gave a Nottingham recital in November with the premiere of my 8 new Beaumont and Fletcher songs, beautifully sung by Welby with me accompanying, Attendance was very poor but interest seemed high." He names the month and not the day, so the identification with this concert rests on its being the only Nottingham recital so far recorded for November 1941 (Roger Sacheverell Coke to Myles Hildyard, 7 January 1942, University of Nottingham, Manuscripts and Special Collections, Hildyard of Flintham family archive, THF/C/3/4/1).
Source
Nottingham Journal, 24 November 1941; Roger Sacheverell Coke to Myles Hildyard, 7 January 1942 (University of Nottingham, Manuscripts and Special Collections, Hildyard of Flintham family archive, THF/C/3/4/1)
Provenance
Manuscript front cover, British Newspaper Archive (Coke0409–Coke0586)

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