Cinderella - a Phantasy

The one piece by Eric Coates that we all know - even if we are not all aware of its title or of the name of the composer - is By the Sleepy Lagoon, which is and always has been the signature tune for the BBC’s long-running “Desert Island Discs.” Other familiar, or once familiar, Coates pieces include The Damnbusters March, the recording of which sold a quarter of a million copies in the first two years after “The Damnbusters” film was first screened in 1954, Calling All Workers, which became the signature tune for “Music while You Work” in 1940, and the Knighstbridge March , which was adopted for another popular BBC programme, “In Town Tonight,” in the 1930s.

Clearly Eric Coates was an expert composer of light music and, in fact, that is all he ever wanted to be. But that doesn’t mean that he was incapable of putting together an extended concert piece. Cinderella, one of three fairy-tale “phantasies” he wrote in the 1920s, is nothng less than a symphonic poem. Although its episodes are distinct and easily recognisable to anyone who knows the story, it is an entirely coherent and integrated construction. Most of its material derives from the slow introduction which offers a portrait of the lonely Cinderella but also anticipates, among other things, the waltz tune that is to dominate the central section of the score. The tempo changes as, against an impatiently tapping background, the ugly sisters rush about in preparation for the ball. At the ball itself there are three dances - all of them waltzes - the second of which, based on the melody anticipated in the introduction, is a romantic pas de deux for Cinderella and Prince Charming. The third waltz whirls the dancers into a brilliant climax just on the stroke of midnight…

So Cinderella is alone again, recalling the music from the introduction and the romantic waltz tune, until a fanfare signals the arrival of Prince Charming with the glass slipper. Their reunion is celebrated in a lively march and a last, triumphant recall of the waltz tune.