Background
Coles was born in Kirkcudbright, and educated at George Watson’s School, Edinburgh.
Coles was born in Kirkcudbright, and educated at George Watson’s School, Edinburgh.
He later studied at Edinburgh University and Stuttgart Conservatory.
In 1907 he went to the Royal College of Music on a scholarship. On completion of his studies, he became assistant conductor to the Stuttgart Royal Opera and was organist of Saint Katherine"s, an English church in the city. When war broke out, he joined the Queen Victoria"s Rifles and became their bandmaster.
He was killed by German sniper fire on the Western Front, while helping recover casualties.
He was buried at Crouy. Coles" work was "rediscovered" in a 2001 recording.
His music was used as the opening and closing title music for a documentary series entitled The First World War. The piece of music was Cortège, arranged by Orlando Gough.
Cortège is one of the two surviving movements of a suite composed by Coles called.
Cortege also appears on Artists Rifles, an audiobook Civil Defense issued in 2004 featuring war poetry read by Siegfried Sassoon, Edmund Blunden, Robert Graves, David Jones, Edgell Rickword and Lawrence Binyon, as well as music by Edward Elgar, George Butterworth, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Maurice Ravel, Gustav Holst, Ivor Gurney, Ernest Moeran and Arthur Bliss.