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Concerts

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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.

1942

Concert

27th MayBrookhill Hall

Performers
Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano) Alan Morton (cello) Alice de Belleroche (guitar) Barbara Welby (soprano)
Programme
Coke
Cello Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 44 (Premiere)
Borodin
Russian Serenade
Pujol
The bumblebee
Malat
Spanish Serenade
Coke
Vocal Concerto No. 2, Op. 47
Coke
24 Preludes for piano, Op. 33/34
Rachmaninoff
Three Preludes
Notes
In aid of the village comforts fund, and the first concert Coke had given in his music room at Brookhill for over a year. The Nottingham Journal's review of 28 May 1942 records the first performance of the Cello Sonata No. 3, op. 44, with Alan Morton, and makes 'a special feature' of the Vocal Concerto No. 2, op. 47, set to Barbara Welby's own poem 'A Winter's Dawn' and sung by her. Alice de Belleroche, described as 'a brilliant young guitarist', played Borodin's 'Russian Serenade', Pujol's 'The Bumble Bee' and Malats's 'Spanish Serenade'; Coke also played preludes of his own and three by Rachmaninoff. The Derbyshire Times advertisement of 22 May 1942 had announced three first performances, the third being the second book of Preludes; the review names only 'preludes of his own composition', so whether Book 2 was in fact given is not certain.
Source
Nottingham Journal, 28 May 1942 — Coke0532 Derbyshire Times, 22 May 1942 — Coke0466 Coke Cello Sonata No. 3 score
Provenance
British Newspaper Archive (Coke0409–Coke0586), Chesterfield Library

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