Works

Premiere (probable): Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Pump Room Orchestra, Pump Room, Bath, 26 October 1932

Premiere: Brookhill Hall, Pinxton, 20 October 1933 First public performance: Pump Room, Bath, 9 November 1933

Dorothy Coke (1880-1957) was Coke's mother.

Premiere: Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Brookhill Hall, Pinxton, 20 October 1933 First public performance: Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Pump Room, Bath, 9 November 1933

Premiere: Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Bath Pump Room Orchestra, Edward Dunn (conductor), Bath Pump Room, 8 November 1933

Broadcast by the BBC, from the Pavilion, Bournemouth, on 14 March 1934, with the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra under Sir Dan Godfrey and the composer as soloist.

The Radio Times billing for that broadcast (Coke0043) carries the only description anywhere of how any of Coke's withdrawn music was put together. The concerto 'was written in 1933, when the composer was twenty years of age, and has so far received four performances, the first being at the Pump Room, Bath'. Its three movements are bound together by a motive heard in the opening introduction which 'makes an appearance both in the "Romance" and the "Caprice". Thus, the whole work is imbued with a feeling of continuity.'

Mabel Lander (1882-1955) was Coke's piano teacher.

Premiere: Mr W. Wigley (violin), Mrs Wigley (violin), C Brooks (viola), C Wilson (cello), Brookhill Hall, 20 October 1933 First public performance: Pump Room Orchestra, Edward Dunn (conductor), Pump Room, Bath, 8 November 1933

John Frederick Staton (1883-1961) was Coke's theory teacher.

It was not destroyed with the other early works, and the autograph full score is the proof. The cover carries a pasted label reading 'THREE STRING PIECES / R. S. COKE Op. 5 / (Composed Summer 1933)', a record of twelve parts, the words 'ONLY SCORE at all' in pencil, Coke's signature and the year 1940, and a boxed instruction: 'please return this valuable MS to R. S. Coke, Brookhill Hall, Pinxton, Notts, England'. A score he was lending out and expecting back in 1940 is not one he burned in 1938 (Coke0810).

His own printed catalogues say the same. The lists complete to January 1958 and to January 1959 both give '3 Pieces, op. 5 (1933)' under String Orchestra, with a duration of six minutes and a footnote that Chappell published it in 1936; and the 1959 list distinguishes, in one sentence, between 'the withdrawn 2nd Piano Concerto and First Symphony' and '3 String Pieces, op. 5'. He was still listing it as extant, published and broadcast twenty-one years after he is supposed to have destroyed it.

It is scored for string orchestra rather than for a quartet: the staves are labelled 'Vio 1', 'Vio 2', 'Viola', 'V.Cello' and 'C.B.'. The four players at Brookhill on 20 October 1933 presumably gave a reduced reading. The manuscript times it at five and three quarter minutes, broken down as two and a half, two and one and a quarter for the three movements, with a separate note on the cover reading six minutes overall.

The cover records the dedication as 'apparently dedicated to Dr. Frederic Staton', hedged and with the name misspelt, and a performance history: a Bournemouth broadcast on 14 March 1934, apparently under Sir Dan Godfrey, and performances in London and Oxford that May. The same broadcast is recorded here for the Second Piano Concerto, and whether the two works shared it is not known (Coke0810).

Premiere: Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), A Winfield (oboe), L Winfield (bassoon), Brookhill Hall, 20 October 1933 First public performance: Pump Room, Bath, 9 November 1933

Premiere: Gilbert Inglefield (flute), A Winfield (oboe), G Parker (clarinet), L Winfield (bassoon), Brookhill Hall, 20 October 1933 First public performance: Pump Room, Bath, 9 November 1933

Gilbert Inglefield (1909-91) was a Coke family friend and was Lord Mayor of London from 1967-68.

Premiere: Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Mr W. Wigley (violin), Mrs Wigley (violin), C Brooks (viola), C Wilson (cello), Brookhill Hall, 20 October 1933 First public performance: Pump Room, Bath, 9 November 1933

Ethel Boileau was an English novelist and friend of Coke's mother.

Premiere: Roger Sacheverell Coke and (?), Blue Triangle Hall, Nottingham (YWCA), 12 January 1934

Premiere: Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Bradbury Hall, Brampton, Chesterfield, 27 January 1935

Broadcast by the BBC.

Premiere: Chesterfield Symphony Orchestra, John Frederick Staton (conductor), Bradbury Hall, Brampton, Chesterfield, 27 January 1935

Broadcast by the BBC.

This is the same music as opus 21, under the number it carried at its first performance. The autograph settles it: the score is headed 'Op. 21' twice, on the cover label and in the composer's hand over the music, is dated 1935, and is annotated 'Revised in 1938' three times over. The number 15 appears nowhere on it (Coke0757). The programme for the Brookhill performance of 14 January 1936 prints opus 15, and the entry is kept here because that is what the source says.

Callaghan, 'Performing the Music of Roger Sacheverell Coke' (2019), Appendix 1, pp. 101-102, gives opus 15 and opus 21 as the same music, and the manuscript bears that out.

Premiere (piano version): Margaret Balfour (contralto), Leslie Huckerby (violin), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Grand Theatre, Derby, 19 April 1935 Premiere (orchestral version): Bridget Tallents (contralto), Dettmar Dressel (violin), Pump Room Orchestra, Edward Dunn (conductor), Pump Room, Bath, 1 May 1935

Broadcast by the BBC. The score (in a copyist's hand) held at the Coke-Steel Archive bears a footnote: 'The Elegy was played for Rachmaninoff at his home in Switzerland (Villa Senar) in August 1935, by the composer, on the piano. So was the First Piano Sonata (on the same occasion)'.

The violinist's surname is spelt two ways in the sources and neither can be preferred. The advance notices of the Derby concert give Huckaby, one of them noting that the reading is not secure; the review of the concert and Coke's own listing on the score give Huckerby (Coke0433, Coke0438, Coke0444, Coke0631, Coke0786).

Published by Chappell in 1936.

Three of the six songs were broadcast by the BBC on 1 April 1936, sung by Barbara Welby with the composer at the piano. Coke's own printed list of works (Coke0063) names 'three songs from op. 19' among the BBC broadcasts but not which; the Radio Times billing does (Coke0043): 'No longer mourn for me', 'The Daffodils' and 'When the lamp is shattered'.

'The Daffodils' is not otherwise a title in this set, and the works list carries a separate entry for a song of that name. Wordsworth's 'I wandered lonely as a cloud', no. 5 here, is commonly called 'Daffodils', so the two may well be one song under two names. The manuscript has not been checked against the point.

Written in 1935 in twenty-four hours, while Coke was staying with friends in Lincolnshire. Rachmaninoff, who was his friend, liked the fifth and sixth songs, and the soprano Maggie Teyte admired the sixth, Shelley's 'When the Lamp is Shattered'. Both are recorded in the programmes for the Alfreton Hall concerts of 11 April 1970 and 5 May 1973, whose notes were written by Coke's friend Clive Jones.

There is some confusion over Coke's allocation of opus 21. His works list, complete to 1950 (held at the Coke-Steel Archive) gives the work It is a Beauteous Evening opus 21 no. 1, incorrectly. The manuscript of the song gives the correct details: opus 20 no. 1.

The set is probably larger than two songs. The University of Nottingham holds a volume of 1935 catalogued 'Twelve songs op. 19 and 20 for soprano or tenor voice', in Manuscripts and Special Collections. Opus 19 is six songs, so twelve across the two numbers would give opus 20 six as well, and five of them would be titles this list does not have. The volume has not been examined and nothing here has been changed on the strength of the catalogue entry alone (Coke0821).

Premiere: Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Brookhill Hall, Pinxton, 14 January 1936

The autograph is headed 'Variations and Fugue on an Original Theme (for Piano) in D minor', dated 1935, and annotated 'Revised in 1938' on the cover label, again in pencil beneath it, and once more over the music. It carries the opus number 21 in the composer's hand, and the dedication in the same hand reads 'for Mr. Alan Bush'. This is the only work Coke dedicated to his composition teacher (Coke0757).

The score prints its own duration at the foot of the first page: 'TIME, 9 minutes approx'. The cover is inscribed 'ONLY COPY' twice, once ringed and once boxed, and carries a return address in case it went astray: 'return to R. S. Coke, Brookhill Hall, Pinxton, Notts'. Brookhill is in Derbyshire, on the county boundary, but the postal address ran through Nottinghamshire.

A later hand has written '(Oldest Variations)' at the head of the cover and '(earlier variations)' over the music, distinguishing this set from the Fifteen Variations and Finale, opus 37, of 1939. The work is also listed here at opus 15, the number printed in the programme for its first performance.

Premiere: Brookhill Symphony Orchestra, Roger Sacheverell Coke (conductor), the Music Room, Brookhill Hall, Pinxton, Derbyshire, 22 September 1940

Broadcast by the BBC.

Also arranged by the composer for solo piano.

It has been performed once, at its first performance. Loudon Merry, writing two years afterwards, called it 'long and heavily-scored, which is an extremely interesting work and one which deserves close study. In it the composer makes no concession to the hearer, and it contains some of his boldest dissonances and most advanced part-writing, as well as some extremely beautiful melodies given to the wood-wind at various points in the work.' Of the scherzo: 'with its pizzicato strings, has a delicate but definite aura of the English countryside, a melancholy pastoral beauty which is most attractive to hear' (Coke0068).

Premiere: Alan Morton (cello), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Brookhill Hall, Pinxton, 21 June 1936

London Premiere: Alan Morton (cello), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Aeolian Hall, London, 10 December 1936

In a number of sources, the First Cello Sonata is referred to as 'Sonatina', although on the manuscript (held at the Coke-Steel Archive), the title 'Sonata' is clearly given.

Dorothy Coke (1880-1957) was Coke's mother.

Published in 1972, thirty-five pages, in the last year of Coke's life, and one of the seven works he printed at his own expense (listed under the Second Cello Sonata). No source in the archive records this printing: Robert Innes-Smith names the second cello sonata and not this one, though both were printed and both in 1972. Copies are in the British Library (g.510.t.4), the National Library of Scotland, Oxford and Trinity College Dublin, catalogued variously to the composer and to Chappell (Coke0753).

Premiere (piano version): Barbara Welby (soprano), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Brookhill Hall, Pinxton, Derbyshire, 21 June 1936 Premiere (orchestral version): Cecile Lanyon (soprano), Brookhill Symphony Orchestra, the Music Room, Brookhill Hall, Pinxton, Derbyshire, 22 September 1940

Published in 1970, at Coke's own expense, and one of two he printed that year, the other being the Poem op. 36. The catalogue of the Coke-Steel Collection (Coke0096) lists a 'bound copy of published vocal and orchestral or piano parts, 1970', with a note on the cover recording that Coke donated it to Matlock Library in that year, and the programme note for the Abbotsholme concert of September 1970 says the same. Neither names the publisher. The library catalogues do: the copies at the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, Oxford and Trinity College Dublin are entered to the composer himself (Coke0753). Robert Innes-Smith names it among the works Coke had printed himself (Coke0111, Coke0101).

It sets three excerpts from Tennyson's 'The Princess'. Writing in 1942, Loudon Merry singled out the slow movement, to the lyric 'Tears, idle tears', as 'notably fine', and found 'an Italian warmth' about the work (Coke0068).

Premiere: Charles Lynch (piano), Brookhill Hall, Pinxton, Derbyshire, 3 October 1936

Published by Chappell in 1936.

The three piano sonatas were written in consecutive years from 1935, and Coke is said to have thought most highly of this one. The programme for the memorial concert at Alfreton Hall on 14 March 1981 calls it his first published work; his own catalogue shows that the Six Songs Op. 19 were published by Chappell in the same year.

The pianist and broadcaster Sidney Harrison wrote to Coke about it in 1963: 'I am delighted to have your Sonata in G with its remarkable exploration of the falling minor third... It appears in an unsympathetic world in which a great deal of music seems to me to be completely neurotic' (Coke0086). With his letter of 1969 about the Preludes, it is one of only two analytical remarks on Coke's music by a contemporary musician that the archive holds.

Premiere: Charles Lynch (piano), Aeolian Hall, London, 10 December 1936

Griselda Gould (1914-1995) was married to the pianist, Louis Kentner (1905-87).

The dedication is stated in print, in Coke's lifetime: writing in The Gong at Christmas 1942, Loudon Merry noted that 'the third piano sonata is dedicated to Moisiewitsch' (Coke0068).

Moiseiwitsch made Coke a musician. Three published accounts, in 1942, 1957 and 1973, say that he determined on a musical career at eighteen after hearing a Moiseiwitsch recording, that the pianist encouraged him and became his friend, and that it was on his advice that Coke went to study with Mabel Lander (Coke0068, Coke0089, Coke0086, Coke0039).

Premiere: Alan Morton (cello), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Brookhill Hall, 5 January 1939

London Premiere: Sela Trau (cello), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Wigmore Hall, 3 October 1950

Broadcast by the BBC, according to Coke's own printed list of works of January 1958 (Coke0063).

The Radio Times, however, billed the Baillie and Lane broadcast as the sonata's 'first broadcast performance'. It was announced for 20 October 1987 and went out on 14 November, 'postponed from 20 October' (Coke0043). Both statements cannot be right. The likeliest reconciliation is the broadcast recital of 27 May 1939, billed only as 'A Recital' and given by Coke with Alan Morton, this sonata's dedicatee, who had given its first performance four months earlier; but that billing names no works and the point is unresolved.

Printed at Coke's own expense in 1972, the year he died, and family possessions were sold to help pay for it. Robert Innes-Smith, writing in The Morning Telegraph, Sheffield, shortly after his death: 'At his own expense the composer had various of his works printed and became his own publisher. These include the Third Piano Concerto (Opus 30), the First Vocal Concerto (Opus 25), Sonata No 2 in C Major (Opus 29) and a book of preludes for the piano. At considerable expense he had these beautifully produced works sent out to people he hoped might take notice, but with little result' (Coke0111, Coke0101). The library catalogues show that his four were seven: the Fifteen Variations op. 37 of 1959, the Poem op. 36 of 1970 and the First Cello Sonata op. 24 of 1972 were printed as well, the last in the same year as this one (Coke0753). The British Library holds a copy of this edition.

Premiere: Charles Lynch (piano), Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra, Richard Austin (conductor), the Pavilion, Bournemouth, 3 August 1939

Broadcast by the BBC. Coke's own printed list of works, complete to January 1958 (Coke0063), names it among the works the BBC had broadcast by that date.

Two separately annotated copies of that list (Coke0063 and Coke0312) each carry a hand-drawn mark against this concerto, keyed on the same sheet to the words 'Published 1960'. The score confirms the year in roman numerals: '© Copyright MCMLX by R. Sacheverell Coke' (Coke0754). Eight libraries hold the printed two-piano score, among them the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, Sheffield, Oxford, Trinity College Dublin and both London conservatoires, and several enter the place of publication as Pinxton (Coke0753).

What was printed was the two-piano reduction, and Coke published it himself: it is the first of the seven works he printed at his own expense (listed under the Second Cello Sonata). Every surviving copy is that arrangement and none is a full score, which bears out Gareth Vaughan's account of 'the 2-piano score, which the composer had printed at his own expense by Chappell' (Coke0017). The copyright is Coke's own and no publisher's name appears; the printer's line reads 'PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY LOWE AND BRYDONE (PRINTERS) LIMITED LONDON NW10', and the plate number is 45070 (Coke0754). One British Library record dates a copy to about 1940 rather than 1960; whether that means an earlier printing or a cataloguing slip has not been established.

The full score was presumed lost for forty years. It was found on 22 March 2012, inside a photocopy of the full score of The Cenci, in a parcel of such copies given to Gareth Vaughan by Coke's nephew Christopher Darwin. It is probably the only copy in existence, and the modern recording and everything that has followed rest on it (Coke0017).

It was the work Coke thought his best, and he tried to have it recorded. The Sunday Express of 18 December 1966 reported that he was offering more than a thousand pounds of his own money to get one of his concertos on record, with himself as soloist (Coke0035): 'although I wrote this piece way back in 1938 I still think it is my best'. A company had agreed about two years earlier and then went bankrupt. 'I am prepared to have to pay as I'm not well known enough for them to do it for nothing. I always have to pay for things, probably because I live in a hall.' No record was made in his lifetime.

Premiere: Barbara Welby (soprano), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Mansfield, 6 December 1939

Ralf Allsebrook (1920-1943) was a family friend and brother of Peter Allsebrook, godfather to Coke's nephew Christopher Darwin. Coke's niece Griselda Brook has spoken of how much Allsebrook meant to him. Ralf was killed in the Second World War.

Premiere: Garth Gainsford (violin), Alan Morton (cello), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Borough Court, Winchfield, 1 August 1939

London Premiere: Harold Fairhurst (violin), Sela Trau (cello), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Queen Mary Hall, London, 8 July 1943

Elizabeth Bridget Jackson (1909-91) was Godmother to Coke's niece Griselda Brook and a family friend.

The Trio drew the most specific musical defence Coke received in his lifetime. Writing in Derbyshire Countryside in 1957 (Coke0089), a year after The Times had accused him of writing music in which 'nearly every movement of each work had the same kind of flaccid effect on the listener', Hugo Meynell answered on this work: the first movement 'is very skilfully derived from one single phrase (as should be observed by those critics who accuse this composer of excessive rhapsodising!) and the scherzo is a movement of immense passion and forcefulness'. Meynell was a friend of Coke's and the dedicatee of two of his late song sets.

Dorothy Coke (1880-1957) was Coke's mother. The printed score does not name her: the dedication there reads 'dedicated to the Composer's mother' (Coke0754).

Book 1 is opus 33, nos. 1-11; Book 2 is opus 34, nos. 12-24.

The pianist and broadcaster Sidney Harrison wrote to Coke in 1969: 'I am very glad to have your preludes, real music. One hears so many extraordinary humourless noises... music is full of solemn absurdity... Nobody seeks to compose anything captivating, like your No. 8, so thoroughly pianistic like all of them.' It is quoted in the programme for the Alfreton Hall memorial concert of 15 June 1974, at which Allan Schiller played the eleven preludes of Op. 33.

Two of the preludes reached the BBC in Coke's lifetime, and they are the only music of his the corporation is known to have broadcast after 1939. Nos. 2 in A minor and 11 in B were played by Moura Lympany in a recital of Debussy, Ravel and Chopin, recorded at an Abbotsholme School concert in September 1970 and broadcast on Radio 3 on 26 August 1971 (Coke0043, Coke0086), fourteen months before his death.

Published as one volume in 1969, at the composer's own expense, and one of the seven works he printed himself (listed under the Second Cello Sonata). The score carries the line 'Copyright MCMLXIX by R. Sacheverell Coke' and no other publisher's name, which settles a point the library catalogues leave open: several enter Chappell as publisher, and they are wrong. It was printed by Lowe and Brydone (Printers) Limited of London NW10, plate number 48313 (Coke0754), sixty-four pages, with a printed duration of thirty-five minutes for the twenty-four. The British Library copy is at g.352.p.8, and the Royal College of Music, the Royal Academy of Music, Nottingham and Birmingham City University each hold one (Coke0753).

That dates a remark. Roy Christian, who interviewed Coke at Brookhill for a county magazine some time after 1965, wrote that 'he is now back in harness, for my arrival interrupted his completion of the last of 24 preludes for the piano, which he hopes will shortly be published' (Coke0090). The music had been composed by 1941, so what he was finishing was not the music, and the publication he was hoping for came in 1969. The article carries no date and the issue has not been identified.

The printed set was reviewed in Music and Letters by E.P., in vol. 51 no. 1 (January 1970), page 98. The reviewer calls the twenty-four preludes in all keys a most singular production, says their expressive intent was 'so strong that it persuaded the composer to publish the work himself', names Brahms and Rachmaninoff as the company the music keeps, and settles on amiability as the impression the whole leaves. The reference has been checked against the journal's contents (Coke0752); the wording comes from Simon Callaghan's research compilation of March 2015 (Coke0094) and has not been collated with the review itself.

A holograph of two of the preludes survives at the Royal Academy of Music as MS1303, and the scan of it arrived on 19 October 2026. The two are nos. 8 and 13, one from each book and both in F sharp: no. 8 in F sharp minor from Book 1, headed on the page 'op 33, No 8 (1938)', and no. 13 in F sharp major from Book 2, headed '(1941)' and dated at the end of the music 'May 15 1941'. That is the only exact date the archive holds for any of the twenty-four, and it dates the gift as well, since the foot of the first page is inscribed 'For Harry from Roger - May 1941'. The identification of Harry as Harry Isaacs, a student and professor of the Academy, is the catalogue's and not Coke's. At the head of each prelude, in a ruled box, stands a dedication, and on the no. 13 page it reads in full 'The 24 dedicated to the Composer's Mother'. The Academy's catalogue reads that word as 'Master'. The object, the printed score's 'dedicated to the Composer's mother' and the dedication of the set to Dorothy Coke all point the other way. It is ink on twelve-stave paper, 31cm, with some performance markings in purple ink and blue crayon markings (Coke0831, Coke0841).

Premiere (piano version): Barbara Welby (soprano) Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano) A L Winfield (oboe) Alan Morton (cello), Southwell Minster, Nottingham, 23 April 1939

Princess Marina Chavchavadze (1905-94) was the sister of Prince George Chavchavadze (1904-52), dedicatee of Coke's Fifteen Variations & Finale in C minor opus 37.

The scoring given here may not be Coke's own description of it. The binding of the manuscript is blocked 'FOR FEMALE VOICE AND PIANO, WITH OBOE AND CELLO OBBLIGATI', and the University of Nottingham copy is catalogued 'for female voice and organ, with cello and oboe obbligati'. Two sources say female voice rather than soprano, and one of the two says organ rather than piano. Neither has been adopted here (Coke0797, Coke0821).

It was performed with orchestra once, and the composer wrote the details on his own full score: the Pavilion Gardens at Buxton, on 18 September 1942, with Norina Semino as cellist and Coke himself at the piano, conducted by Kenneth Kelly. The folder that held the orchestral parts repeats it and gives the forces: fourteen string parts, four first violins, four seconds, two violas, two cellos and two basses, with seven further wind and brass parts (Coke0793, Coke0797).

The same score records a premiere on 1 December 1940, with the word 'encored' beside it, and a later performance which the pencil appears to date to April 1961. Both readings need checking against the original.

At the Brookhill concert of 10 April 1965 the printed programme describes it as 'Poem for piano and cello solo, with orchestral accompaniment played on the piano' (Coke0014), so on that occasion the orchestral part was taken at the keyboard.

Published in 1970 in the composer's own arrangement for two pianos, sixteen pages, and printed at his own expense: the score reads 'Copyright MCMLXX by R. Sacheverell Coke', names no publisher and carries no price, and the printing was by Lowe and Brydone of London NW10 (Coke0754, Coke0794). The first page of music gives the dedication to Alan Morton, dates the work 1939 to 1941 and prints a duration of about eight and a half minutes, which the autograph full score repeats in pencil, so the printed figure is the composer's own. No source in the Coke archive records the printing, and Robert Innes-Smith's list of the works Coke printed himself does not name it. Copies are in the British Library (g.1067.ff.4), the National Library of Scotland, Oxford, Nottingham and Trinity College Dublin (Coke0753). It appeared in the same year as the First Vocal Concerto, two years before Coke died.

The dedication is written on the full score as 'For my friend Alan Morton' (Coke0793).

Prince George Chavchavadze (1904-52) was a Russian concert pianist and brother of Princess Marina Chavchavadze (1905-94), dedicatee of Coke's Sacred Concerto opus 35. The printed score gives the dedication without his title, and with a word the other dedications do not use: 'For my friend George Chavchavadze' (Coke0754).

Written between 4 and 17 February 1939. Coke's diary for that year, quoted by his friend Clive Jones in 1973, records that he finished variations 4 to 8 on the 9th, heard on the 10th that Richard Austin had accepted the Third Piano Concerto for Bournemouth and for broadcasting, heard on the 16th that the BBC had accepted another concert at Manchester, and finished the variations the day after, 'delighted with it'.

Clive Jones, who knew Coke well in his last years, counted this among 'the most approachable of his music' with the Second Piano Sonata, the Second Cello Sonata, the Preludes and the Six Songs op. 19, and wrote that Coke was never more himself than when playing it.

Published by the composer in 1959: 'Copyright MCMLIX by R. Sacheverell Coke', with no other publisher named. The printed title is fuller than the one used here, 'Fifteen Variations and Finale in C minor for piano, on an original theme, opus 37'. Thirty-one pages, plate number 44612, a printed duration of eighteen minutes and no price, the printer's line reading only 'Made in England' (Coke0754). Six libraries hold it: the British Library (g.1128.hh.9), Cambridge University Library (M340.a.95.72), the National Library of Scotland (Mus.Box.253.11), the Denis Arnold Music Library at Nottingham, the Western Bank Library at Sheffield (BEECHAM PAM1223) and Trinity College Dublin (M4-59-562), with further copies at the Royal College of Music, the Royal Academy of Music and Oxford (Coke0753).

That settles a mark on Coke's own list. Two separately annotated copies of his printed list of January 1958 (Coke0063 and Coke0312) each carry a hand-drawn cross at the end of this entry, keyed on the same sheet to the words 'Published 1960'. The same mark stands against the Third Piano Concerto, which was published in 1960; for the Variations the year is 1959.

It was reviewed in Music and Letters by P.A.E., in vol. 42 no. 4 (October 1961), pp. 392-393, in a composite review of eight piano publications. The reviewer found in Coke 'a composer who knows what sort of music he wants to write', unembarrassed by writing music of a kind already written before he began, and thought that players able to echo his optimistic rhetoric would enjoy the textural fluency of the variations. The reference has been checked against the journal's contents (Coke0752); the wording comes from Simon Callaghan's research compilation of March 2015 (Coke0094) and has not been collated with the review itself.

Premiere: Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Trevor Harvey (conductor), Brookhill Symphony Orchestra, Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, 9 December 1941

Although she was the dedicatee of the Fourth Piano Concerto, there is no evidence that Eileen Joyce (1908-91) ever performed it.

Coke recorded the premiere on the index page of his own full score, and gave the size of the orchestra: 'Premiere: Dec. 9th 1941, the Composer & Brookhill Symphony Orchestra, conductor Trevor Harvey, at Sutton in Ashfield (Notts.), 66 players.' Sixty-six is the largest force any source attributes to the Brookhill orchestra (Coke0775).

Writing to Myles Hildyard on 7 January 1942, four weeks after the premiere, Coke gave the orchestra as fifty-five: 'introduced my new Fourth Concerto at my Orchestra's Third Concert near here. 500 people came to that and it was a great success, with 55 playing.' That is eleven fewer than the sixty-six on his own score, and the two figures are not reconciled. The letter also makes this the Brookhill Symphony Orchestra's third concert and puts the audience at five hundred (University of Nottingham, Manuscripts and Special Collections, Hildyard of Flintham family archive, THF/C/3/4/1).

Premiere: Barbara Welby (soprano), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Brookhill Hall, Pinxton, Derbyshire, 18 June 1939

London Premiere (nos. 1 & 3): Barbara Welby (soprano), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Dorchester Hotel, London, 31 January 1943

Coke arranged the third of these songs for viola and piano. He lists it himself, in a ruled box up the margin of the first page of the viola sonata's manuscript, among the works to look at beside that sonata: 'song op. 39 No. 3, Love is a plant, arr. for viola & piano' (Coke0842). Neither the arrangement nor the title appears on any works list, and no copy of it is known.

Premiere (no. 1): Bridget Tallents (contralto), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Winchfield, 1 August 1939

Premiere (complete set): Will Taylor (tenor), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Brookhill Hall, Pinxton, Derbyshire, 23 October 1939

London Premiere: Marianne Mislap-Kapper (voice), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Queen Mary Hall, London, 3 April 1943

Vera St John was a family friend of long standing rather than a musician, which makes her unusual among Coke's dedicatees. Recollections gathered from his family in 2017 describe her as about Coke's own age, unmarried, and living alone but for a resident cook-housekeeper in a large house at Hartley Wintney in Hampshire; she stood proxy godmother at a Darwin confirmation, spent Christmas 1962 with the family, and took Coke's sister and brother-in-law to Glyndebourne. No musical activity of her own has been traced.

Premiere: Brookhill Symphony Orchestra, Richard Austin (conductor), Southwell Minster, Nottinghamshire, 22 February 1941

Also arranged by the composer for solo piano. The register entry for 22 February 1941, "Prelude from Act 1 of unfinished opera", is this work.

The dedication belongs to the opera rather than to the Prelude. Coke wrote it out carefully on his piano arrangement, in brackets: 'The Opera is dedicated to Richard Austin' (Coke0796).

That arrangement also gives a duration, boxed at the foot of the first page: six minutes. And bound in with it is a typed 'Composer's Note, written for the premiere of the PRELUDE TO THE CENCI, op. 41 (1940)', a paragraph in Coke's own words describing the opera, its three acts and his own libretto after Shelley. It is one of only two programme notes by him that the archive holds, the other being for The Lotos Eaters (Coke0796, Coke0809).

The University of Sheffield Library holds a manuscript of the Prelude, catalogued under the opera's full title and annotated 'completed 1950' (Coke0753). It has not been examined. The University of Nottingham holds a copy of the whole opera, and both are outside the Coke-Steel Archive and the Derbyshire Record Office.

Premiere (two scenes from Act 2): Marianne Mislap-Kapper and Barbara Welby (voices), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Wigmore Hall, London, 10 October 1950

Premiere (complete): Scala Theatre, London, Eugene Goossens (conductor), 5 November 1959

The scenes given at the Wigmore Hall in 1950 were Act 2 Scene I and the first part of Scene III, the music for Beatrice and Lucretia. Coke's typescript programme names two singers but does not say which took which part.

A staging at the Bournemouth Winter Garden was announced for 10 April 1959, with Sir Eugene Goossens hoping to conduct, and came to nothing. The opera reached the stage seven months later in London, at Coke's own expense.

The second act was not finished in time, and Goossens orchestrated it himself in the week before the performance. On 22 October 1959 Coke's solicitor, John Ballachey, drove to Brookhill with the copyist and wrote to Goossens the same day that they had 'managed to get it across to Roger Coke that the Opera was going on and that he was not to worry'. Goossens found that the first and third acts were complete and the second was not: 'The orchestral score and unfinished parts of Act 2 presented a frightening spectacle. It took all my expertness to piece the unfinished fragment of this act together before I could get any true conception of how much there remained to be done.' There followed, he wrote, 'literally, days and nights of orchestrating, recopying, and piecing together Scenes 3, 4 and 5'. He charged 92 pounds 17 shillings for the six days and nights, on top of his agreed fee of a hundred guineas, adding that 'had Roger Coke not been a personal friend of mine, I would have been compelled to claim a much higher remuneration' (Coke0094).

A recording was wanted and could not be arranged. Ballachey asked Goossens whether, a proper session being impossible, he would accept a recording taken from one of the boxes on the night. Nothing in the surviving correspondence says whether one was made. The budget for the Scala Theatre performance was 1,800 pounds. The producer was Vere Laurie and the copyist Mr Copestake; Blanche Turner was among the cast (Coke0094).

The cast can be reconstructed from the surviving vocal solo parts, catalogued in eleven parcels at Chesterfield Library, where the manuscript archive is held pending its transfer to the Derbyshire Record Office at Matlock (Coke0096). The roles and their voice types are Count Cenci (bass baritone), Beatrice (soprano), Lucretia (soprano), Bernardo (tenor), Cardinal Camillo (tenor), Marzio (tenor), Olimpio (baritone), Savella (baritone), the Judge (baritone) and the First Guard (baritone), with twenty-one chorus parts of which one is lost. The orchestral material survives for the Prelude and all three acts, a few string parts short.

A second copy of the opera is at the University of Nottingham, in Manuscripts and Special Collections, catalogued as 'The Cenci: opera in 3 acts, op. 41' and dated 1940 to 1955, which spans the whole period he worked on it. Act 2 Scene 1, the scene given at the Wigmore Hall in 1950, is held separately in the music library there and catalogued as an arrangement. The copy carries the bookplate of the Barbara Welby bequest of 1984 and is inscribed to her, so it was almost certainly Coke's own gift to the singer who did most for his music. Neither item was known to this archive before September 2026 and neither has been examined. The library does not supply copies of material in Special Collections, and what the score physically is, whether autograph, a copyist's hand or a reproduction, and whether vocal score or full score, has still to be established (Coke0821, Coke0824).

Premiere: Bridget Tallents (contralto), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Brookhill Hall, Pinxton, Derbyshire, 27 April 1941

The set is a memorial to the poet. The printed programme for the first performance, in the Music Room at Brookhill on Sunday 27 April 1941, gives the work as 'Six Songs, op. 42 (Humbert Wolfe) ... (In memory of Humbert Wolfe). First performance (dedicated to and sung by Bridget Tallents, accompanied by the composer)' (Coke0002). Wolfe had died in January 1940.

The set is dated song by song in the manuscripts and was written in a fortnight: I Let Not Your Heart; II Two Obols, 28 to 29 March 1941; III The Launch, 30 March to 1 April; IV Spring, 3 to 4 April; V Quiet, 6 and 8 April; VI The Donkey Who Would Not Go, 12 to 13 April. Each song is inscribed by hand to its dedicatee, 'For Bridget with love from Roger, 1941'.

Premiere: Barbara Welby (soprano), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Blue Triangle Hall, Nottingham, 22 November 1941

London Premiere: Barbara Welby (soprano), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Wigmore Hall, 10 October 1950

Coke described the first performance 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 (University of Nottingham, Manuscripts and Special Collections, Hildyard of Flintham family archive, THF/C/3/4/1).

Premiere: Alan Morton (cello), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Brookhill Hall, 27 May 1942

London Premiere: Sela Trau (cello), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Wigmore Hall, 6 October 1951

Premiere: Brookhill Symphony Orchestra, Roger Sacheverell Coke (conductor), 25 October 1942

Also arranged by the composer for solo piano.

Coke wrote the orchestral premiere on his own manuscript of the piano version: 'Orchestral premiere: Nottingham, 25 Oct. 1942, conducted by the Composer, with orchestra of 60'. Sixty players, against the sixty-six he recorded for the Fourth Concerto premiere ten months earlier (Coke0809).

Loudon Merry heard the first performance and wrote about it that Christmas: the work 'is brilliantly successful in doing this, both in the introduction representing Ulysses and his companions voyaging towards a land where it was always afternoon, and in the main body of the work itself, the Choric Song, whose two memorable themes, the first lightly picked out by the harp and later strings, the second lazily passionate, may be said amply to illustrate Tennyson's lines'. He thought it 'a symphonic poem which, given an adequate number of performances, should become popular in the best sense of the word' (Coke0068).

Premiere: Raymond Mosley (violin), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Dorchester Hotel, London, 31 January 1943

Premiere (piano version): Barbara Welby (soprano), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), the Music Room, Brookhill Hall, Pinxton, 27 May 1942

Premiere (orchestral version): Barbara Welby (soprano), Brookhill Symphony Orchestra, Roger Sacheverell Coke (conductor), Nottingham, 25 October 1942

Barbara Welby wrote the poem 'A Winter's Dawn' and sang the first performance at Brookhill on 27 May 1942. She was the wife of the dedicatee, Sir Oliver Welby (Coke0021), a great-granddaughter of Jenny Lind, and appeared professionally as Barbara Lind, which is why both names occur in the sources.

There were two first performances, five months apart. The Brookhill recital of 27 May 1942 gave the work with piano (Coke0466, Coke0532). The first with orchestra was at Nottingham on Sunday 25 October 1942, sung by Barbara Welby with the Brookhill Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer, at a concert for his thirtieth birthday which also gave the first performance of The Lotos Eaters, op. 45. Coke recorded it on the wrapper of the piano score: 'premiere with Orchestra: Oct 25/42, at Nottingham, by Barbara Welby & the Brookhill S.O. (cond. by the Composer)' (Coke0037).

Coke regarded the two vocal concertos as his own invention, and the claim goes back to Loudon Merry in 1942: 'a very important innovation which he has made. This is his creation of a new genre, the vocal concerto. In this he gives one voice a part equivalent to the solo part in a piano or violin concerto.' Merry thought this the more accomplished of the two, 'although heavily scored and demanding a dramatic soprano to do it justice', and called its climax 'perhaps the most thrilling page this composer has yet written' (Coke0068). Hinrichsen repeated the claim in 1946, Hugo Meynell in 1957 and Clive Jones in 1973, all echoing that sentence. No performance since 1942 is recorded.

Premiere: Marianne Mislap-Kapper (contralto), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Nottingham Music Club, 9 January 1943

London Premiere (nos. 2, 3 & 4): Marianne Mislap-Kapper (contralto), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Queen Mary Hall, London, 3 April 1943

Coke may have written twelve of these, not six. Writing to his friend Myles Hildyard on 17 March 1943 he says: 'I set 12 Wilde poems recently and they had their premiere at Nottingham Music Club, not understood.' The set has always been recorded as six songs, which is how his own printed works list has it, and the title here is unchanged for that reason. But the Chesterfield survey sheet describes the manuscript as 'Settings for Low voice of Oscar Wilde's poems', with the figure 6 followed by a word struck through, and that struck-through word is worth another look (Coke0840; the letter is at the University of Nottingham, THF/C/3/5/20).

Premiere: Barbara Welby (soprano), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Brookhill Hall, Pinxton, 21 January 1951

Also arranged by the composer for solo piano.

Coke was asked to write it. Loudon Merry, writing in The Gong at Christmas 1942 while the work was in progress, reported that he was 'engaged in writing an Elegiac Ballade for orchestra in memory of fallen airmen, which he has been asked to write' (Coke0068). Who asked him is not stated, and this is the only work of his that any source describes as commissioned.

The dedication is taken from the first page of the autograph full score, where it reads 'dedicated affectionately to the pilots of the Royal Air Force, & the pilots of the Fleet Air Arm' (Coke0036). Printed sources give the Royal Air Force alone. The manuscript also dates the work more closely than the composer's own catalogues do, giving November for the composition and March to June of the following year for the orchestration.

In October 1962, twenty years after he had been asked for it, Coke added a pencil note below the title of the score: 'Not yet performed' (Coke0036).

Also arranged by the composer for solo piano.

The dedication to Bax was not a courtesy. Writing to The Gramophone in January 1956, answering a contributor who had said Bax had had no influence on contemporary British composers, Coke replied: 'This is quite untrue. I know many pages in my own work of the last 15 years that would be quite different had I known no Bax' (Coke0040). It is the only place in the surviving papers where Coke names an influence on his own music. Fifteen years back from 1956 is 1941.

The same letter reports something that can only have come from Coke's own conversations with Rachmaninoff, who had been dead thirteen years when it was printed, and it is uncorroborated: 'Rachmaninov considered Bax the greatest composer we here in England have had for a very long time, being particularly struck by the 3rd Symphony' (Coke0040).

Premiere (four songs, which the sources do not identify): Barbara Welby (soprano), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Wigmore Hall, London, 3 October 1950

Premiere (nos. 7 & 8): Brian Suter (tenor), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Pinxton, 10 April 1965

Six of the songs were sung at the Wigmore Hall on 3 October 1950: The Awakening Year, The Summer, Sweet Spring, June, Little Streams, and Shepherds All, the last with a flute obbligato played by John Francis. The printed flyer for the concert says that four of the six were first performances, but does not say which.

Premiere (first movement): Jan Sedivka (violin), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Brookhill Hall, Pinxton, 20 September 1958

Czech violinist Jan Boleslav Sedivka (1917-2009) was 'widely regarded as one of Australia's leading violinists and string teachers' (Marina Robinson, "The Left Hand Pedagogy of Violinist Jan Sedivka," String Praxis, 2, no. 1 (2013): 15.) Sedivka himself studied in England with Max Rostal (1905-91). See Philippe Borer, "Aspects of European Influences on Violin Playing and Teaching in Australia" (Master of Music University of Tasmania, 1988), 16 for further information.

Two separate sketches exist for Coke's Third Symphony (both are held at the Coke-Steel Archive). One lists William Leak as the dedicatee, while the other gives Eugene Goossens.

Also arranged by the composer for solo piano.

The dedicatee is given on both manuscripts as 'for F. Orton', with the initial only. It may be Freda Orton, dedicatee of the Fourteen Songs from Rhymes and Roundelayes opus 54, whose name is blocked in full on the binding of that volume; the two manuscripts sit in the same collection. It has not been proved (Coke0777, Coke0778, Coke0787).

Two timings survive, and they measure different things. Coke's manuscript gives thirty minutes as the total for the concerto as he intended it, of which only one movement was written. Both scores of that movement, the full score and the two-piano reduction, carry a boxed 'DURATION: 9 MINUTES', which is what is heard on the recording, at 8:56 (Coke0777, Coke0778).

It was never played in his lifetime, and he said so. In pencil on the cover of the two-piano reduction: 'Unperformed - 1968'. And on the printed works list pasted inside that same cover, the entry '5th Piano Concerto in D minor, op. 57, (The "Orton" Concerto) (1947-50)' is struck through in ink with a cross at each end. He crossed his own concerto out of his own catalogue. The manuscript itself is dated 1948, where that printed list says 1947-50 (Coke0778).

Premiere (eight songs, including nos. 1, 18 and 19): Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Wigmore Hall, London, 10 October 1950

Premiere (no. 29): Barbara Welby (soprano), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Brookhill Hall, Pinxton, 21 January 1951

Although the set is referred to as 'Thirty Songs' in Coke's own works list, only ten songs survive, and the score held in the Coke-Steel Archive (in a copyist's hand) is entitled '10 Burns Songs (from 30 short Burns songs, opus 58)'. Coke appears to have made the same correction himself: on the annotated copy of his printed list of January 1958 (Coke0312) the word 'Ten' is written by hand over the printed 'Thirty', and the duration is altered with it.

Coke's typescript programme for the Wigmore Hall on 10 October 1950 names the eight songs sung there and adds two that appear on no other list: 'Though Fickle Fortune' and 'Thou whom chance may hither lead'. Neither carries a number.

One song of the set was dedicated separately. In September 1958 the Derbyshire journalist Rosemary Meynell wrote that Coke had dedicated 'The Charming Month of May' to her and had given her the manuscript.

Premiere: John Francis (flute), Bernard Davis (viola), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Wigmore Hall, London, 3 October 1950

The programme for the Brookhill concert of 3 February 1952 records that the Trio was composed at Nottingham. Who or what 'Ortina' was has not been established; the manuscript gives the dedication in quotation marks, as 'for Ortina', which suggests a nickname rather than a name.

It is not, as was once thought, the only work he wrote away from Brookhill. The Fourteen Songs opus 54 and the Burns settings opus 58 are both inscribed 'Composed at Nottingham'; the Variations on 'Drink to me only' opus 61 was written at Nottingham in the autumn; the Moment Musical was composed at Mickleover on 13 November 1954; and the Eight Songs opus 43 carry the words 'Composed at Brow Mill' (Coke0790, Coke0787, Coke0767, Coke0814, Coke0788, Coke0784).

The manuscript carries a duration of thirty-two minutes, written twice, against the thirty-six minutes in his printed catalogue of 1958. It also carries its own list of performances in the composer's hand: the Wigmore Hall on 3 October 1950 with John Francis and Bernard Davis; Nottingham on 13 December 1951 with John Francis and, apparently, Watson Forbes; and Brookhill on 3 February 1952 with the same players. The Nottingham performance had stood in this archive as an event nobody could source, and this manuscript is its source (Coke0790, Coke0628).

Coke numbered it on the first page of music as '(4) TRIO'. If that is a count of his own trios, at least three preceded it, and only the Elegiac Trio opus 32 and the unfinished Second Trio opus 83 are otherwise known.

Premiere: Watson Forbes (viola), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Wigmore Hall, 10 October 1950

Coke called this the First Viola Sonata, both on his typescript programme for the premiere and in his own printed works list of 1958. The binding of the manuscript says so too, blocked in gold: 'FIRST VIOLA SONATA, OP. 60'. No second viola sonata is known.

The premiere went well, on the evidence of the man who played it. Writing to Coke's mother on 18 October 1950, eight days afterwards, Watson Forbes thanked her for 'the generous cheque' and added: 'I enjoyed the concert very much and I was so glad that the viola sonata went so well. I can quite understand Roger being so tired after two such concerts; it takes a lot out of one!' He offered to play it again and advised the family to try for a broadcast from Manchester or Birmingham (Coke0065). Nothing came of that.

He afterwards withdrew it, and the instruction is typed on the manuscript: 'This work NOT to be played again till the Scherzo is shortened and revised.' Beneath it he has written his initials in ink, and the same page carries the word 'ONLY' above 'SCORE', in pencil, with an exclamation mark (Coke0817). It is the only instruction of the kind he is known to have left on any of his scores, and the revision does not appear to have been made. What he meant by 'ONLY SCORE' is not explained. A second manuscript does survive, the Royal Academy of Music's MS1325, and it has now been seen: it is the score, for viola and piano, in his own hand (Coke0842).

There are two manuscripts of this sonata in Coke's hand, and they carry different dedications. One is inscribed twice, in the same words each time, on the binding and again on the title leaf: 'for my friend Gordon Fox'. It is a form Coke used sparingly, and the others who got it were George Chavchavadze, Charles Lynch and Alan Morton (Coke0817). The Royal Academy of Music's manuscript, MS1325, is dedicated 'For Walter Kramer', and the scan of it received on 19 October 2026 shows that dedication twice as well, boxed at the head of the first page of music and quoted again on the title page (Coke0842). Neither reading displaces the other, and both are given here as possible.

A second manuscript came to light at the Royal Academy of Music on 1 October 2026, catalogued as MS1325, and the scan of it arrived on 19 October. It is a holograph score for viola and piano, written into a bound manuscript music book, marked 'CORRECTED COPY' at the head of both the title page and the first page of music, and 'SCORE COPY' at the foot of the title page. Across the wrapper, in his large hand, he has written 'LETTER FOLLOWS R.'. He wrote this copy out to send to somebody, and wrote separately as well; no letter has been found. He dates the work twice and not identically: the title page gives 'opus 60 (1948-9)' and adds '(completed Jan. 1948)', while the first page of music gives '(Oct./47 - Jan./48)' and the end of the music is dated '(January 1948)'. Three of the four point to a completion in January 1948, a year before his own printed works lists allow (Coke0842).

The same manuscript gives the shape of the piece in Coke's own words. Four movements: Allegro agitato; II, Andante semplice; III, Scherzo, Presto scherzando, which runs into the finale attacca; and IV, Finale, quasi una Fantasia, marked Moderato (rubato). He put a timing at the end of each and a total on the title page and at the foot of the first page of music: 'Overall Duration: about 1/2 hour. (9 - 7 1/2 - 5 1/2 - 7 mins.)'. He also ruled a page at the front headed PERFORMANCES and wrote 'Premiere :' beneath it. The line is blank, although Watson Forbes and the composer gave the work at the Wigmore Hall on 10 October 1950, so he either never went back to the page or had stopped counting this sonata by then (Coke0842).

The autograph score dates the work three times over. The cover reads '4th Cello Sonata (1966)', the first page of music is headed 'R. Sacheverell Coke (1966)', and a note on the index leaf gives the day: 'The Sonata, written at Brookhill, was begun on October 28th 1966, & finished', with the finishing date left blank (Coke0761).

It was abandoned rather than lost, and the manuscript shows it. Coke ruled a box for the duration at the foot of the first page and never filled it in, the index provides for a second and a third movement with the page numbers left blank, and the last leaf breaks off with one system crossed out and two more in faint pencil (Coke0761).

The dedication is written at the head of the music, boxed: 'For Richard Webb'. Webb was the cellist who played for Coke at Brookhill and in Chesterfield on 13 June 1964, 2 September 1964 and 10 April 1965, and who is photographed beside him at the piano in the Derbyshire Times of June 1964. Coke began this sonata eighteen months after Webb last played for him (Coke0761, Coke0012, Coke0013, Coke0014, Coke0108).

The opus number is not settled and is carried here from elsewhere. No opus number appears anywhere on the manuscript, but Coke's own printed works list of 1950 already gives a Fourth Cello Sonata as opus 62, sixteen years before this one was begun. Either he started a fourth sonata about 1949, abandoned it, and began again in 1966 under the same number, or the 1950 entry is for a work that was never written. Nothing yet decides between them.

Also listed as opus 79.

Coke's own printed list of works, complete to January 1958 (Coke0063), already carries the entry '6th Piano Concerto in C minor, op. 63 (1951) (unfin.)', which places the beginning of the work seven years earlier than the dates recorded here. On that copy somebody has afterwards drawn a line through the whole entry by hand.

The Piano Quintet is listed variously as opus 65 and opus 82 on the sketches (held at the Coke-Steel Archive). Various dates are given, including 1964 and 1970.

The sketches of Coke's String Quartet opus 66 (held at the Coke-Steel Archive) each give a different dedicatee.

This is very probably the quartet two published accounts describe as a commission. Robert Innes-Smith in 1972 and Rob Barnett in 1992 both state that the BBC commissioned a quartet from Coke in his last years and that it was left unfinished because of his health (Coke0111, Coke0015). Behind that lies a paragraph by David Graham, a producer at BBC Radio Derby, published in February 1972: after making a programme about Coke he wrote that 'we have commissioned the newly formed Alfreton Hall String Quartet to rehearse and record one of Coke's chamber works... The work should be ready to be broadcast early in the New Year' (Coke0018). Whether Coke was asked to compose for those players, or the two later writers compressed Graham's sentence, the archive cannot say; but the players, the year and the dedication line up.

The same quartet was engaged for the first memorial concert: in November 1972 the Derbyshire Times reported that the concert then being planned for early 1973 would include works by Coke and one by Rachmaninoff, and that 'the Alfreton Hall String Quartet will be taking part' (Coke0104).

Whether the recording was ever made or broadcast is not known. If a tape survives in the BBC's regional archive it would be the earliest recording of any music by Coke by forty years.

Two manuscripts in the composer's hand read Cormack Shannon: the autograph of two of the songs, and the cover of the Tagore book that also contains opus 70. Nothing further about him has been traced (Coke0806, Coke0808).

The numbering of the set is not settled. The manuscript puts 'Tell me if this be all true, my lover' first, with its number cut off at the page edge, and a different song second; this list gives it as no. 2. The cover of the Tagore book dates these songs 1958, where the manuscript of the songs themselves says 1956 (Coke0806, Coke0808).

A third song survives. The University of Nottingham holds the set as 'Songs, op. 71, nos. 2-4', dated 1956, so no. 3 exists although its title is not known here. The copy has not been examined (Coke0821).

Julie Marie Baud (1891-1965) was Coke's governess and remained at Brookhill Hall until her death.

Like 'Peace, my heart', this song survives only as a catalogue record at the University of Nottingham, made in September 1987, which describes it as 'For voice and piano. Composer's MS'. Nobody working on Coke has seen it, and the library cannot at present locate it (Coke0837, Coke0821).

The opus number is given here exactly as the record gives it, and it does not fit. Op. 73 is the Variations in C sharp minor for piano of 1957 to 1958, and the de la Mare settings are op. 72, also of 1957. Either Coke used the number twice, or one of the two numbers is wrong, or the song was numbered before the Variations took the number. The manuscript itself would settle it.

Premiere: June Chambers (soprano), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Nottingham Tuesday Music Club, 4 February 1958

This work appears on none of Coke's own lists and on no published account of his music. It is here on the evidence of a single catalogue record at the University of Nottingham, made in September 1987, which describes the item as 'Composer's MS copy' and gives the title, the voice, the poet and the year. The manuscript is part of the Denis Arnold Music Library and has not been examined by anybody working on Coke. At the time of writing the library cannot locate it (Coke0837, Coke0821).

If the record is right, this is a third Tagore setting, four years after the two sets of 1956, and the only work of Coke's known to carry an opus number in the seventies apart from the Variations. The poem is from Tagore's The Gardener.

Coke's manuscripts (held at the Coke-Steel Archive) assign opus number 81 to two different sets of songs.

The Coke-Steel Archive also holds sketches for a 'Second Trio for piano, violin & 'cello', dated 1969. The first movement headed 'Risoluto' is in the 1969 sketch.

Callaghan, 'Performing the Music of Roger Sacheverell Coke' (2019), Appendix 1, p. 116, gives this as one work in two parts. Concert programmes list Polichinelle and the Two Inventions as separate items.

Griselda Brook (née Darwin) is Coke's niece.

Callaghan, 'Performing the Music of Roger Sacheverell Coke' (2019), Appendix 1, lists a Third Violin Sonata twice, dated 1953–1968 at p. 116 and undated at p. 117.

Premiere: Eunice Timms, Nottingham Music Festival, 18 November 1956

The manuscript dates it to the day and places it away from home: 'Composed November 13th 1954', and, written round a curve at the head of the title leaf, 'Composed at Mickleover'. It carries no opus number and says so, '(without opus)', and gives its own duration of two and a half minutes (Coke0788).

The same leaf records the first performance, ringed in a hand-drawn balloon reading 'FIRST PERFORMANCE ANYWHERE': 18 November 1956, at the Nottingham Music Festival. It also names the adjudicator, Sidney Harrison, whose letters of 1963 and 1969 are the only analytical remarks on Coke's music by a contemporary musician that this archive holds. They had been in the same room seven years before the first of them (Coke0788).

A third song known only from the Denis Arnold Music Library at Nottingham, catalogued in September 1987 as 'MS copy'. The record gives no poet and no opus number, and the work appears on no list of Coke's music. It has not been examined and the library cannot at present locate it (Coke0837, Coke0821).

Note that the two records beside it say 'Composer's MS' where this one says only 'MS copy', which may mean the cataloguer was distinguishing an autograph from a copy in another hand. It shares a year with the three Lawrence songs of op. 81, and is none of those three.

Premiere: Brian Suter (tenor), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Brookhill Hall, Pinxton, 10 April 1965

One of two 1964 songs listed under the same title in Callaghan, 'Performing the Music of Roger Sacheverell Coke' (2019), Appendix 1, p. 117. This is the entry whose song list matches the programme of 10 April 1965, 'Two New Songs: The Moon (Shelley); The Rose of the Year (Yeats)'.

The song is given here under the title of the Yeats poem, 'The Rose of the World'. The printed programme for the first performance (Coke0014) reads 'The Rose of the Year', which appears to be a slip: Yeats wrote no poem of that name. The manuscript catalogue of the Coke-Steel Collection (Coke0096) lists it among the songs without opus number, filed with op. 81, as 'The Rose of the World'.

Premiere: Brian Suter (tenor), Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano), Brookhill Hall, Pinxton, 10 April 1965

The second of two 1964 songs listed under the same title in Callaghan, 'Performing the Music of Roger Sacheverell Coke' (2019), Appendix 1, p. 117.

Callaghan, 'Performing the Music of Roger Sacheverell Coke' (2019), Appendix 1, lists a Third Violin Sonata twice, dated 1953–1968 at p. 116 and undated at p. 117.

Listed as part of opus 19 in several concert programmes, this song does not appear in the score of the work.

It may not be a separate song at all. The Radio Times billing for the broadcast of 1 April 1936 (Coke0043) places 'The Daffodils (Wordsworth)' inside a group headed 'Three Songs (from Six Songs, Op. 19)'. Op. 19 no. 5 is 'I Wandered Lonely', also Wordsworth, and Wordsworth's 'I wandered lonely as a cloud' is commonly known as 'Daffodils'. The entry is kept separate here until the manuscript or a programme listing both titles as distinct items settles it.

This song is given on concert programmes as opus 43, but does not appear in the manuscript of this opus.

'Isles of Greece' was reportedly written especially for the concert Coke gave at the Dorchester Hotel on 31 January 1943, but features on none of Coke's works lists or in any of his manuscripts. See Callaghan, 'Performing the Music of Roger Sacheverell Coke' (2019), Appendix 4, Performances of Coke's Music 1929–2019, pp. 146–172, for more information.

Not a separate entry in the works list of Callaghan, 'Performing the Music of Roger Sacheverell Coke' (2019), Appendix 1, but that list gives exactly these three titles at p. 100 as the movements of opus 7, '3 Small Pieces for wind quartet'. This is very probably that work under the name the programme of 20 October 1933 used.

Not in the works list of Callaghan, 'Performing the Music of Roger Sacheverell Coke' (2019), Appendix 1, pp. 99–117, and nothing in that list matches. Known only from the programme of 14 January 1936 at Brookhill Hall.