Born: August 27, 1886; Hucknall, Nottingham, England Died:
December 21, 1957; Chichester, England Eric Coates was perhaps
the most important composer of symphonic light music in the
first half of the twentieth century outside the Viennese sphere.
He took the music genre and made it into as bona fide and
influential an art form as that created by any member of the
Strauss family. He is often regarded as the Mozart of a music
world whose generally light emotional expression is colored by
splashy orchestration and perky rhythms. Yet, his musicRead more
featured an elegance and aristocratic air and could capture
moods and, in stage works, story lines with deftly vivid
imagery. Among his important compositions are the 1930 ballet
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, revised eight years later and
re-titled The Enchanted Garden; and Springtime Suite from 1937.
Even though Coates composed music in a less serious genre, he
must be regarded nearly as highly as England's other important
figures from his time, Vaughan Willia