Entertainment

Chris Martin composition from when Coldplay star was 12 sold for £1,700

The recording had been expected to fetch between £400 and £600.
The recording had been expected to fetch between £400 and £600. The recording had been expected to fetch between £400 and £600.

A composition by Coldplay frontman Chris Martin which was recorded when he was 12 has been sold for £1,700.

The tape contained a three-minute track titled Electric Thunder, which was composed by the star when he was a pupil at Exeter Cathedral School, and features him on the keyboard.

The composition won a music competition at the school.

Chris Martin recording to go up for auction
Chris Martin recording to go up for auction (Omega Auctions/PA)

The tape, which was estimated to fetch around £400 to £600, was sold to a UK collector, according to Omega Auctions of Merseyside.

It was sold by Simon Corser, now 40, who also entered the 1989 competition but lost out to his schoolmate.

He previously told the PA news agency that he was “really amazed” by the composition, saying that it was “not only well played but original. We didn’t have a chance!”

He added: “The whole school were humming it after he played it. You’d walk down the corridor and people were humming it.

Chris Martin recording to go up for auction
Chris Martin recording to go up for auction (Omega Auctions/PA)

“It was quite good and very catchy. That was the first time I realised he was a very accomplished musician.

“Chris wasn’t in the orchestra and wasn’t in the choir but then out of the blue, he composed this winning piece.”

Martin composed the work and played the keyboard with other pupils in a group which they called Grandisson Ensemble.

Brit Awards 2017 – Show – London
Brit Awards 2017 – Show – London (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

Another keyboard, trumpet, drums and bass guitar can also be heard.

Corser, who is a school bus driver, discovered that his mother “had the cassette in a pile of tapes in her stereo cupboard”.

She had bought the recording, which was being sold to raise money for the school, as it featured her son’s flute performance.

Auctioneer Paul Fairweather previously said that he believed the tape “is almost certainly Chris Martin’s first published recording”.