Thanks to the tireless advocacy of the pianist Simon Callaghan, the music of the Derbyshire-born Roger Sacheverell Coke has started to emerge from the obscurity in which it has languished since the composer’s death in 1972. Despite showing considerable early promise, Coke remained an outsider in British musical life. Following studies at Eton (until 1931), he took private lessons with Mabel Lander (piano) and Alan Bush (composition) rather than attending university or music college. Coke credited Bush for helping him to find his musical voice, and cited Arnold Bax as a major influence, but his musical sympathies also extended to Bruckner, Mahler and Rachmaninoff at a time when all three were deeply unfashionable among musical cognoscenti. The three cello sonatas featuring on this disc frame the years 1936 to 1941, a very productive period in Coke’s life. It is a measure of Coke’s confidence in the cello sonatas that he programmed them all in a single concert at the Wigmore in London on 6 October 1951, with the cellist Sela Trau, and invited critics from several of the major broadsheets.
Please login to post a review
Reviews
“…These works have highly accomplished and persuasive advocates in Wallfisch and Callaghan, who give the works the best possible performances…”
Em Marshall-Luck – Spirited Magazine 2023 (Issue 23) – June 2023
Choc de Classica
Michel Fleury - Classica (France) – March 2021
“… I happily recommend the disc. Mr. Callaghan is a fine pianist, who sounds better with every new release and who is completely in tune with the music, while Mr. Wallfisch plays this unfamiliar repertoire with tremendous musicality.”
Paul R W Jackson – British Music Society – March 2020
"... No lost masterpieces, then, but a thoughtful, quietly individual voice does emerge with repeated hearings. Inquisitive readers can rest assured that Callaghan and the admirable Raphael Wallfisch strain every sinew in their passionate advocacy of Roger Sacheverell Coke. First-rate sound and expert balance, too."
Andrew Achenbach - Gramophone magazine - February 2020
“… I can’t imagine greater advocates than the Wallfisch-Callaghan team. The duo explores every facet of Coke’s music …”
Jonathan Woolf - MusicWeb-International.com – 6 January 2020
Media Downloads
Whenever possible we provide a high resolution CD cover image and a PDF version of the CD booklet for you to download and keep. These are found in your history if purchased and once you have logged in.