The Noël Coward Music Index

Description

The full NCMI document is some 300 pages, and will be supplied to purchasers as a PDF document via email.

It comprises an alphabetical MAIN INDEX of all known Coward compositions, and there are four subsidiary indices, one of which is a complete Discography of all known Coward recordings.  The Main Index contains information on the origin, use and publication of each composition, and is fully cross-referenced to further information held in the Subsidiary Indices.

The Noël Coward Music index was originally compiled over many years in a collaboration between Alan Farley (the discographical expert, a broadcaster and radio producer in San Francisco) and Dominic Vlasto (the musicological expert, who had studied Coward’s compositions and performances since his student days). Vlasto’s early work was much influenced by working with Norman Hackforth, who had been one of Coward’s principal accompanists and amanuenses,  Both Vlasto and Farley enjoyed close links with many people who had worked with Coward, and those who ran the Coward Estate, and they were able to get privileged access to private archives.

The NCMI was originally “fixed” in 2004 for The Noél Coward Society; but it remains in the control of Dominic Vlasto, and during 2023-24 the original version has been updated with newly-emergent data and details of many recent recordings.

Sample Pages

REMEMBER ME

See ALL MY LIFE AGO

REVE DE PIERROT, LA

See Appendix 1.b

 RIBBON IN HER HAIR, A

 ORIGIN: (1954?)

USE: Graham Payn, in cabaret at the Café de Paris, 1955

SOURCE: Unpubl. MS

  (Copyright registered at Chappell & Co. in 1955)

NOTES: Miscellaneous revue-type song. NCL gives it as “1950’s miscellaneous”, but as it is Norman Hackforth’s MS it must have been written down before 1955, by when his amanuensis work with NC had come to an end.  We have guessed the composition date to be 1954 when following After the Ball there was a small spurt of comedy compositions at around the time of the last season at the Café de Paris.

This is a well-worked Verse and Refrain, celebrating the appearance of a great-aunt in an old photograph from her schooldays. In keeping with the nostalgic sentiment, the piece is graceful and not fast, and has the benefit of a precise and pleasing harmonic setting.

The song is so little known and of so little direct relevance to anything else that there would seem little chance of it now emerging from obscurity; but it would certainly be a deserving contender to be rescued and aired.

 RIPPLE

See IN WHICH WE SERVE on Appendix 1.d

 ROOM WITH A VIEW, A

 ORIGIN: 1927, Honolulu [NCSB]  (Originally intended for inclusion in abortive 1927 musical, Star Dust )  

USE: This Year Of Grace, 1928 (Jessie Matthews & Sonnie Hale, and in US  production by NC/Billy Milton & Florence Desmond)

SOURCE: Sep. Publ. – also Sep. publ. as ‘Pianoforte Transcription’; AES; SA1; NCSB; NCG1; VS CC 

NOTES: And see ‘FINALE, This Year Of Grace‘ (London Production)

The song was parodied by Sandy Wilson in The Boy Friend – subtitled “an affectionate parody of the musicals of the 20’s” – in the number ‘Room in Bloomsbury’ 

“[It] was originally conceived on a lonely beach in Honolulu where I was convalescing after a nervous breakdown. The title, unblushingly pinched from E. M. Forster’s novel, came into my mind together with a musical phrase to fit it and I splashed up and down in the shallows, searching for shells and rhymes at the same time.  When I was singing it in the American production of This Year Of Grace the late Alexander Woollcott took a black hatred to it.  The last couplet … sent him into torrents of vituperation.  He implored me to banish the number from the show … when I refused to pander to his wicked prejudices he decided to make a more formal protest … one evening he sat in a stage box with a group of ramshackle companions, including Harpo Marx, and when I began to sing the verse they all, with one accord, ostentatiously opened newspapers and read them … with what I still consider to be great presence of mind, [I] sang the last couplet in baby talk, whereupon Woollcott gave a dreadful scream and, making sounds only too indicative of rising nausea, staggered from the box.” [NCSB]

It is a sign of NC’s extraordinary range as a composer that this sunny, apparently artless song could have been penned by the same person who also gives us the sophisticated dexterity of ‘Mad Dogs’ or ‘Mrs Worthington’.   The whole has a touching openness of phrase, cadence and lyric rhyming which manages to add up to considerably more than the sum of its parts.  The rhyming is well structured, with internal rhymes as well as line-end rhymes on the larger scale, and internal rhymes are well-matched with melodic patterns which exist within larger melodic phrases, and the lyric and melodic lines often overlap or extend themselves to accommodate their partners.  This is a lyric which looks disjointed when written out on its own, but which makes perfect sense when married with its music.  

This song displays one of the most obvious uses in NC’s music of his “favourite” dominant chord with a sharpened fifth note, used at the cadence into the Refrain.

The sheet-music edition was “improved” for its inclusion in NCSB in 1954 by Norman Hackforth, where the accompaniment shows less “bounce” and slightly richer harmonisation at certain points, and some of the original accompaniment figurations were dropped. 

There are many recent recordings, but not many of which find their way on to the “recommendations” below.  It’s an easy song to over-sing, which perhaps Ian Bostridge does (on ONR 42, not listed below) while proving at the same time that it can be a song with considerable mileage for trained singers.  Paul McCartney’s recent recording (ONR 35) is one of the better ones – surprisingly reminiscent of the Beatles in Honey Pie, but none the worse for that, and you hear the words clearly and he sings beautifully in tune. A recently-re-released 1960 recording by Jessie Matthews herself is of significant historical interest from the point of view of getting an idea of the original style of delivery (ONR 136).

This song ranks about eighth in the list of top Coward royalty earners today (see Appendix 3).

DISCOGRAPHY:

NCR 01:  acc. orch. cond. Carroll Gibbons (Apr.1928)

ONR 01:  (concert arrgt.) Jack Jackson orch. (Sept 1928)

OCR 04:  (in medley) orch.cond. Ernest Irving (1928)

ONR134: Dick Maxwell + Fred Elizalde orch. (1928)

NCR 09:  (in medley) acc. Ray Noble (1932)

ONR135: Hildegarde + Ray Sinatra orch. (1939)

ONR 02:  Graham Payn & Joyce Grenfell + orch. (1947)

NCR 34:  (in medley) pno.acc. Norman Hackforth (1951)

ONR 04:  Dick Hyman (piano) (1952)

ONR 05:  Harry Noble acc. Stuart Ross (1954)

NCR 37:  Wally Stott Orch. acc. Hackforth (1954)

NCR 38:  acc. Peter Matz (Las Vegas1955) (& in medley)

NCR 39:  (in medley) acc. Norman Hackforth (1958)

ONR 136: Jessie Matthews acc. Al Simon (1960)

ONR 23:  Laurel Ford & Geoffrey Burridge (C Custard 1972)

ONR 22:  Cheryl Kennedy & David Kernan (A Talent To Amuse 1973)

ONR137: Irene Kral + Loonis McGlohon Trio (1977)

ONR 35:  Paul McCartney (1998)

ONR 36:  Barbara Lea acc. Keith Ingham (1999)

ONR 47:  Simon Green acc. David Shrubsole (2009)

ONR 49:  Christine Ebersole & Howard McGillin acc. Larry Yurman (2010)

ONR 50: arr.& acc. Doug Peck (Writers’ Theatre, 2010)

ONR 52: Michael Law (2013)

ROSES HAVE MADE ME REMEMBER, THE

 ORIGIN: (1924)

USE: Charlot’s Revue, 1924 (Maisie Gay); Charlot’s Revue of 1926 (New York) (Beatrice Lillie)

SOURCE: MUSIC LOST

NOTES: part of  AFTER DINNER MUSIC (q.v.). A pastiche whose model was a 1916 love song by Herman Darewski, of the same title; but Darewski’s second line ran “All that I tried to forget”, while the flavour of Coward’s version may be implied from his second line, “What any nice girl should forget”.  Maisie Gay presented a trio of songs in this sketch in which she impersonated the stage performances of Norah Bayes.

RUG OF PERSIA

 ORIGIN: (1938)

USE: Set To Music 1939 (USA) (Beatrice Lillie)

SOURCE: MUSIC LOST

NOTES: This is a typical Lillie-esque comedy number – see the lyrics at BD p.194.   The scene is a Persian harem, where a courtesan is found working at and singing about a large tapestry.  At the end, and still singing madly, she catches her foot in a thread and the whole thing unravels behind her as she goes off.  It is lyrically something of a direct ancestor of the deliberately silly number ‘Spinning Song’ which came into the Café de Paris cabaret shows in 1954

RUSSIAN BLUES

 ORIGIN: 1922

USE: London Calling! 1923, (NC); Charlot’s 1926 Revue (Gertrude Lawrence & chorus)

SOURCE: Sep.Publ. 1923 and 1926

NOTES: The song’s Refrain “middle 8” section is a direct quote of music taken from Borodin’s ‘Polovtsian Dances’.  NC was doing this sort of thing a good deal at the time, and there are other obvious passages in other songs from the same show, e.g. designed to impart Spanish or French flavour with quotes from a Habanera and The Marseillaise.  The presence of Russian refugees was still a strong and recent feature of life in 1922 London.  The song is well-worked, with good clear structure and melodic lines of pleasing openness.   The contemporaneous sheet-music was the first music publication to bear the words “written and composed by Noël Coward” on the cover, and also has his picture on the front since it was himself who sang the piece in the revue.  Most of this early published work also shows signs of the amanuensis’s input, and this piece in particular seems to bear some of Elsie April’s hallmarks, particularly in the little 4-bar introduction and her voicing of the dominant chord with a sharpened fifth, Coward’s most noticeable compositional hallmark, which makes an early and obvious appearance in this song.  The Verse section would have been fine at half its length, but is in effect completely repeated musically; the Refrain shows development of the melody throughout its four phrases and is not always set to entirely predictable harmonies.  The “bluesiness” of the piece is provided by the melody’s final phrase, which passes through the Gb of the minor third on its way back to resting in Eb major.

DISCOGRAPHY: ONR 01:  Jack Hylton + orch. (1923);  ONR138: Gertrude Lawrence acc. R. H. Bowers (1925) 

 *   *   *   *

 ONR ALBUMS

(listed in date order)

ONR 01 The Dance Bands Play Noël Coward  [1923-36]  

Ambrose and the Mayfair Orchestra (AMO), Debroy Somers and the Savoy Orpheans (DSSO), Jack Hylton and his Orchestra (JHO), Jack Payne and BBC Dance Orchestra (JPDO), Ray Noble and his Mayfair Orchestra (RNMO), Jack Jackson and his Dorchester Orchestra (JJDO), Ray Noble and his New Mayfair Orchestra (RNNMO), Al Starita and the Piccadilly Dance Band (ASPDB), Carroll Gibbons and the Savoy Hotel Orpheans (CGSO), Henry Hall and the BBC Dance Orchestra (HHBDO), Ray Starita and his Ambassadors (RSA)   

      Pearl Flapper PAST CD 9758

 (A must for anyone interested in how Coward’s 1920’s and 1930’s music would have sounded to contemporary audiences.)

*Asterisked items were not included in the earlier Lp release EMI SH 278 which did, however, include ‘Specially For You’ (ONR 149)  and ‘Teach Me To Dance Like Grandma’ (ONR 151), and a different recording of ‘Mad About The Boy’ (ONR 105).

 Children of the Ritz (in medley RNNMO), Dance, Little lady (AMO), Dear Little Café (in medley JHO), Half-Caste Woman, (Sam Browne & AMO), If Love Were All (Sam Browne & JHO), I Travel Alone* (Alberta Hunter & JJDO), I’ll Follow My Secret Heart (HHBDO), I’ll See You Again (in medley, Sam Browne & JHO), I’m Mad About You (Eddie Grossbart & ASPDB), Kiss Me (in medley, JHO), Let’s Live Dangerously (in medley, RNNMO), Let’s Say Goodbye (in medley, RNNMO), Lover Of My Dreams (JPDO), Mad About The Boy* (Elsie Carlisle & RSA), Maggie (in medley, RNNMO), Most Of Ev’ry Day (Fred Latham & JJDO), The Party’s Over Now (in medley RNNMO), Play, Orchestra, Play (Robert Ashley & CGSO), Poor Little Rich Girl (DSSO), Regency Rakes* (includes Dancer, Dancer) (HHBDO), A Room with a View (Sam Browne, Noël ‘Chappie’ D’Amato, Jack Jackson & JHO), Russian Blues (JHO), Something To Do With Spring (in medley, RNNMO), Try To Learn To Love (AMO), You Were There* (Robert Ashley & CGSO), The Younger Generation (Al Bowlly & RNNMO), Zigeuner (in medley, JHO).

ONR 01(b) A recording was made on 29 May 1939 by Decca in New York of Hildegarde with the Ray Sinatra Orchestra singing 6 Noël Coward numbers.  3 of these have subsequently been commercially re-released (see ONRs 61, 81 and 135); but the tracks Someday I’ll Find You, I’ll Follow My Secret Heart and Zigeuner exist only on a YouTube video

ONR 02: Noël Coward Vocal Gems

Joyce Grenfell (JG), Graham Payn (GP), Anne Ziegler (AZ) with Harry Acres & Orchestra (HAO).

HMV Plum Label 12″ 78 rpm C3635/36 (11 March 1947)

 Two of the four sides were released on EMI Lp SH 507, including the songs marked with *.  No individual song is separately tracked, as they are arranged in sequences.

 Bright Was the Day (AZ), *Dance, Little lady (GP), Dearest Love (AZ), *I’ll Follow My Secret Heart (AZ), *I’ll See You Again (AZ), Ladies of the Town (HAO), London Pride (JG), *Mad About the Boy (JG), *Matelot (GP), One, Two, Three (JG), *Parisian Pierrot (JG), Poor Little Rich Girl (GP), A Room With a View (GP & JG), *Sigh No More (GP), *Someday I’ll Find You (HAO), The Stately Homes of England (HAO), *Zigeuner (HAO)

ONR 03: Conversation Piece

Lily Pons (LP), Noël Coward (NC), Richard Burton (RB), Ellen Faul (EF), Dorothy Johnson (DJ), Rosalind Nadell (RN).  Arrangements by Carol Huxley, Orchestra conducted by Lehman Engel (LEO).                       

Studio recording 26 January 1951, Columbia Records, New York                      

Lp CBS ASL 163 (Coward’s own tracks are listed at NCR 32)

Overture (LEO), Prologue, Charming, Charming (LP, EF, DJ, RN), Dear Little Soldiers (LP, EF, DJ, RN), English Lesson (LP), I’ll Follow My Secret Heart (LP, NC), Melanie’s Aria (LP, RB), Nevermore (LP), Public Gardens

ONR 04 Noël Coward – Mad About the Boy – Dick Hyman plays the Music of Noël Coward

Dick Hyman (piano)                          

Proscenium (New York) CE 4003, 1953; re-released on CD Apr. 2009:

(Dick Hyman, born in New York in 1927, is an American jazz pianist/keyboardist and com – poser best known for his versatility with jazz piano styles. His classical training and superb stylistic sense allows him to “dress” his interpretations in a bewildering array of musical “costumes”.  Different tracks ape the performance styles of (among others) Gershwin, Billy Mayerl, Scott Joplin, Duke Ellington and Fats Waller.  Not one of these tracks could ever be accused of being a mere lampoon; they are more ‘reinterpretive homages’.  The most tightly-controlled lampoon of all is that for ‘Mad About the Boy’, which is not in imitation of one of the light-hearted, deft twentieth-century jazz pianists, but in the guise of Chopin’s deeply serious Prelude No.4 in E Minor!)

Dance, Little Lady,  A Room With a View, I’ll Follow My Secret Heart, Any Little Fish,  Play, Orchestra, Play,  Nevermore, Mad About the Boy, Poor Little Rich Girl, Zigeuner, Polka, World Weary, We Were Dancing, You Were There, Ladies of the Town, Twentieth Century Blues  

 ONR 05 ‘World Weary’ – the Songs of Noël Coward

Harry Noble (vocal) with Stuart Ross at the Piano (New York, 1954)   

 CD MCSR 3030 (2005)

(We think this is a very worthwhile collection with nothing that jars too much, and there are some interesting rarities.  Noble & Ross’s interpretations are often explicitly based on existing ones by NC and Carroll Gibbons, e.g. ‘World Weary’ (NCR 04) and ‘Duchess’ (NCR 23).  The tracks Parisian Pierrot and Poor Little Rich Girl both feature rarely-heard additional lyrics for their second Verse sections.  Comes with astonishingly good sleeve notes.  The other re-release on this CD was NCR 37.)

 Nina, I’ll Follow My Secret Heart, Imagine the Duchess’s Feelings, Poor Little Rich Girl, Something To Do With Spring, Parisian Pierrot, Where Are The Songs We Sung, A Room With A View, World Weary