Roger Sacheverell Coke ( ("cook"); 20 October 1912,

Pinxton Pinxton is a village and civil parish in Derbyshire on the eastern boundary of Nottinghamshire, England, just south of the Pinxton Interchange at Junction 28 of the M1 motorway where the A38 road meets the M1. Pinxton is part of the Bolsover ...

,House and Heritage. Brookhill Hall, Derbyshire
/ref> nr Alfreton,

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

– 23 October 1972) was an English

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

and pianist.

Life

Roger Sacheverell Coke was from a wealthy family. He inherited the family estate of Brookhill Hall,

at the age of two, when his father, Lieutenant Langton Sacheverell Coke, died at the

Battle of Ypres The Battle of Ypres was a series of engagements during the First World War, near the Belgian city of Ypres, between the German and the Allied armies (Belgian, French, British Expeditionary Force and Canadian Expeditionary Force). During the five ...

in October 1914. Coke began composing when he was at

Eton College Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, C ...

, where he was taught by

Henry Ley Henry George Ley (30 December 188724 August 1962) was an English organist, composer and music teacher.Benno Moiseiwitsch Benno Moiseiwitsch CBE (22 February 18909 April 1963) was a Russian-born British pianist. Biography Moiseiwitsch was born to Jewish parents in Odessa, Russian Empire (today part of Ukraine), and began his studies at age seven with Dmitry Klimo ...

. Coke's musical interests were strongly supported by his mother and for his 21st birthday, she had outbuildings on the family estate converted to a large music studio and performance space, equipped with a

Steinway Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway (), is a German-American piano company, founded in 1853 in Manhattan by German piano builder Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (later known as Henry E. Steinway). The company's growth led to the opening of a ...

piano, and with capacity for an audience of several hundred. He pursued his study of composition and the piano seriously. He took piano lessons in London with

Mabel Lander __NOTOC__ Mabel Lander (1882 – 19 May 1955) was British pianist and teacher, mostly remembered today as piano tutor to the Royal Family in the 1930s and 1940s, though her real legacy comes from her teaching several generations of prominent ...

(herself a pupil of

Theodor Leschetizky Theodor Leschetizky (sometimes spelled Leschetitzky, pl, Teodor Leszetycki; 22 June 1830 – 14 November 1915 was an Austrian-Polish pianist, professor, and composer born in Landshut in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, then a crown land of ...

and teacher of Princesses

Elizabeth Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to: People * Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name) * Elizabeth (biblical figure), mother of John the Baptist Ships * HMS ''Elizabeth'', several ships * ''Elisabeth'' (sch ...

and

Margaret Margaret is a female first name, derived via French () and Latin () from grc, μαργαρίτης () meaning "pearl". The Greek is borrowed from Persian. Margaret has been an English name since the 11th century, and remained popular througho ...

) and was later a pupil of

Alan Bush Alan Dudley Bush (22 December 1900 – 31 October 1995) was a British composer, pianist, conductor, teacher and political activist. A committed communist, his uncompromising political beliefs were often reflected in his music. He composed pro ...

. He made his debut as a composer-pianist in 1932 with his first piano concerto, and formed the Brookhill Symphony Orchestra in 1940 to play his own and other neglected works. Coke was homosexual, and a heavy cigarette smoker. Despite his freedom from financial concerns, he suffered from depression. However, in the safe isolation of his studio he composed a large corpus of works, with a strong emphasis on his own instrument, the piano. For the orchestra he wrote three symphonies, six piano concertos, two "vocal concertos" for soprano and orchestra and four symphonic poems. In the chamber music field there are sonatas for cello and for violin, as well as extended works for piano solo, notably the ''24 Preludes'' and ''15 Variations and Finale'', and around 100 songs. Despite the failure of any publisher to take up his works, some were performed around Britain, and occasionally broadcast. Coke bore the cost of those of his compositions that were published, and often also the costs of performance. Some works were taken up by leading musicians, including pianists Charles Lynch and

Moura Lympany Dame Moura Lympany DBE (18 August 191628 March 2005) was an English concert pianist. Biography She was born as Mary Gertrude Johnstone at Saltash, Cornwall. Her father was an army officer who had served in World War I and her mother original ...

, and he counted Moiseiwitsch and

Sergei Rachmaninoff Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one o ...

amongst his friends. In November 1959, Coke's three-act opera ''The Cenci'', to his own libretto based on Shelley's

verse drama Verse drama is any drama written significantly in verse (that is: with line endings) to be performed by an actor before an audience. Although verse drama does not need to be ''primarily'' in verse to be considered verse drama, significant portion ...

, was given a single performance at the

Scala Theatre The Scala Theatre was a theatre in Charlotte Street, London, off Tottenham Court Road. The first theatre on the site opened in 1772, and the theatre was demolished in 1969, after being destroyed by fire. From 1865 to 1882, the theatre was kn ...

in London, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Eugene Goossens. The critics were unanimously hostile and dismissive and Coke became seriously depressed. Coke died of a heart attack in 1972. A revival of interest in his work began in 2012 with a performance of his first violin sonata at the English Music Festival in

Dorchester Abbey The Abbey Church of St Peter and St Paul, more usually called Dorchester Abbey, is a Church of England parish church in Dorchester on Thames, Oxfordshire, about southeast of Oxford. It was formerly a Norman abbey church and was built on the s ...

on 2 June 2012. Many of his unpublished manuscripts are held at Chesterfield Library.Derbyshire County Council: Special Local Studies Collections, Coke-Steel Collection
/ref>

Works

Recordings

*Violin Sonata No 1 –

Rupert Marshall-Luck Rupert Marshall-Luck (born Rupert Luck) is a British violinist and musicologist. After reading Music at Cambridge University, he was awarded a postgraduate scholarship to continue his studies with the eminent pedagogue Simon Fischer and thereafte ...

(violin) and Matthew Rickard (piano)
EM Records, EMRCD018, 2013
*24 Preludes and 15 Variations and Finale for piano – Simon Callaghan
Somm Recordings, SOMMCD 0147, 2015
*Piano Concertos No 3, No 4 and No 5 (surviving slow movement) – Simon Callaghan (piano),

Martyn Brabbins Martyn Charles Brabbins (born 13 August 1959) is a British conductor. The fourth of five children in his family, he learned to play the euphonium, and then the trombone during his youth at Towcester Studio Brass Band. He later studied compositi ...

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (BBC SSO) is a Scottish broadcasting symphony orchestra based in Glasgow. One of five full-time orchestras maintained by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), it is the oldest full-time professional rad ...

Hyperion Records, CDA68173, 2017
* Cello Sonatas,

Raphael Wallfisch Raphael Wallfisch (born 15 June 1953 in London) is a British cellist and professor of cello. As a soloist he performs regularly with leading orchestras around the world, as well as together with duo partner John York (piano), or as member of the ...

(cello), Simon Callaghan (piano)
Lyrita SRCD.384, 2020

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coke, Roger Sacheverell 1912 births 1972 deaths 20th-century British male musicians 20th-century classical composers 20th-century classical pianists 20th-century English composers 20th-century English LGBT people English classical composers English classical pianists English male classical composers English LGBT composers LGBT classical composers English male classical pianists People from Alfreton People from Pinxton