A 223rd GARLAND OF BRITISH LIGHT MUSIC COMPOSERS
To begin with, here are a few more mentions of composers
for the musical stage in the 1960s and 1970s: Alan Haines, for
Pretty as Paint, produced in Leicester in 1960 (he also conducted
it); David Anderson, also a conductor, for His Master’s Voice
(1977, revived 1983); Annette Battam for The Little Giant
(words by John Pudney: Greenwich Theatre, 1972); Max Boylett,
For the Tigers Are Coming (also dating from 1972, words by Alan
Plater); Stephen Boxer, whose Francis was produced at
the Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton in 1974; and Peter Uppard, a
Piano Professor at the Royal Academy of Music, who wrote the book, lyrics
and music for the musical play Katerina, produced in Exeter
in 1984.
Our present day composer for film/TV is David Mitchem,
most recently (2001) for the enjoyable BBC2 documentary What The
Victorians Did For Us. And in this paragraph we can also mention
Terry Davies who composed incidental music and especially for
the Royal Shakespeare Company and most recently (2001) and jointly with
Stephen Warbeck, previously discussed, for Adrian Mitchell’s
adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s classic Alice in Wonderland and
Through the Looking Glass.
The Doncaster teacher and pianist Allan Laughton
is still active in the concert-hall at 80 years plus; in his younger
days he tried his hand at composition, his Waltz and Minuet
for piano duet being played in concert in 1947.
Harold Rawlinson I discussed in an early Garland.
I am not sure whether Bertha Rawlinson was related to him but
some of her songs, published in the 1960s, e.g. Chimes (words
Alice Meynell), Poem of the Air (Longfellow) and Tarantella
(Belloc) are lightish in character.
Philip L Scowcroft
September 2001
Philip's book 'British Light Music Composers' (ISBN 0903413 88 4) is
currently out of print.
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