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.