A 187th GARLAND OF BRITISH LIGHT MUSIC COMPOSERS
We begin with the film composer John Du Prez,
born in 1946 and active in writing for the large screen around 1980,
his titles including A Private Function, A Fish called Wanda,
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and, in 1966, The Wind in the Willows.
It is still possible to exhume composers for the British
Light musical theatre. John W Green, born in 1908, is known as
such primarily for his contributions to the Waller and Tunbridge show
of 1933, Mr Whittington. He does not quite have their fame on
the musical stage, but Green’s songs for that musical contributed materially
to its considerable success. Of his other songs, Body and Soul
was perhaps the best known.
To change the colour and move away, for a moment from
the theatre, Felix Harold White (1884-1945) was a pianist, mostly
self-taught and a prolific composer in all forms. Many of his piano
pieces were miniatures and doubtless fell within our Garlands' remit;
of his orchestral output we can mention a Shylock overture, premiered
at the Henry Wood Proms in 1907, La Charmante, for piano and
small orchestra, Serenade to Miranda and an Arietta for
strings.
John T Jones, a Welshman and active during the
1930s, is perhaps worth a mention for his March of the Sea King
for orchestra. So is Walter Tilbury, who composed the music for
the "fairy play" Alice Through the Looking Glass, which
had George Grossmith (junior) as its director when it was put on at
the New Theatre in 1903 but it did not achieve much success. Tilbury
had previously contributed songs, including "That’s Not the Sort
of Girl I Care About" to A Modern Don Quixote in 1893 (a
song kept in when the musical was revived in 1898).
And so finally to Mary Hicks, whose floreat
was the 1950s and 1960s, a prolific arranger who also composed:
unison songs for children, like The Hunting of the Hare, Duck’s Ditty
(from The Wind in the Willows), The Two Mice and The
Cloud House, and light piano pieces including the Reflections
of 1958.
Philip L Scowcroft
Philip's book 'British Light Music Composers' (ISBN 0903413 88 4) is
currently out of print.
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