The Classics for Pleasure two-LP compilation of Eric Coates pieces must represent one of the light-music bargains of this and any other year. They have taken four stereo LP issues, eliminated a few duplications and managed to get almost all the different items on to these two well-filled records. The Miniature Suite is perhaps the only major omission from the four records as originally issued. The result is a veritable feast of stylish, tuneful light music representing all sides of Coates's orchestral output. Here are the suites and the isolated numbers, the stirring marches, swinging waltzes and delicate pastoral movements, the descriptive fairy-tale phantasies and the more serious Saxo-Rhapsody—all showing how much more Coates was than just the composer of the Dam Busters march and the theme tunes for ''In Town Tonight'', ''Music while you work'' and ''Desert Island Discs'' that the general public grew to know so well. Considering that the Mackerras items date back to the 1950s, the sound quality on these two records is quite astonishingly good throughout, and the works are beautifully played—if with Groves, I fell, just a little less successful than Mackerras and Kilbey in bringing out the full vigour and excitement of Coates's music.
This last point is most forcibly made if one turns to the Golden Age collection of some of Coates's own 78rpm recordings from the 1930s and 1940s. Most of the items on it are included also in the Classics for Pleasure compilation, though the Television March and the London Calling march are not. What makes the issue of especial interest, though, is the opportunity it provides to hear the extra point that Coates was able to give to his own music. The Three Bears phantasy especially is startling in its orchestral effects in a way that no LP version quite manages, and likewise the lower brass contribution in the final section of the Knightsbridge March achieves an effect that is not achieved by Groves. Throughout one notices, too, the no-nonsense brisk tempos that Coates favoured, perhaps modestly suggesting that his music was not to be lingered over and thereby taken too seriously. It is interesting also to hear By the Sleepy Lagoon played in a different and, I think, preferable orchestration using piano and aimed, presumably, more at light orchestras than the more familiar orchestration for conventional symphony orchestra. Though most collectors will doubtless be very well satisfied with the Classics for Pleasure compilation, the true Coates enthusiast will certainly not want to be without the Golden Age issue too.'