Messages

Your post is the only account I have found anywhere by somebody who was actually at the Brookhill sale in 1974. The local papers reported it lot by lot with the prices, but they don't name a single buyer, so you are the only person I can put in that room.

Do you still have the outfit? Did you keep anything else from the sale, or remember what else went and to whom? And do you remember Coke himself beyond the bicycle, what he looked like, what people in the village said about him, whether anyone in Pinxton knew he was a composer?

I'm writing his biography and anything at all would be useful. I'd credit you however you'd like, or not at all if you'd rather.

Simon Callaghan

0177lizzie, I hope this reaches you after all this time.

Your post about your father has stayed with me since I read it. Nearly everything known about the players Coke brought up from London comes from printed programmes, and nobody who was in that room has ever described what it was like. Your father filling in at the piano for the instruments that hadn't turned up is the only account I have of how those sessions actually worked, and "bring in the bloody oboe" is the only line of Coke's speech that anybody has written down.

Would you tell me his name? If he was there often enough he may be printed in one of the programmes, and I could look for him. Do you know roughly which years he went, or how it came about that he was asked in the first place? And did he ever say anything else about Coke, or about the house?

I'm sorry he isn't here to ask. Anything you remember of what he told you would be valuable for the biography I'm writing, and I'd credit you and him however you'd prefer.

Simon Callaghan

Dear all,

Very pleased to formally announce this:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9827033--william-sterndale-bennett-piano-concertos-nos-4-6

Lyrita will also be releasing a box set of all the Bennett concerti - we recorded the 4th as they hadn't previously done this, although Hyperion had.

Very happy with the result.  Martin Yates' completion of no.6 is wonderful, and the two-piano concerto was a delight to play!