A 250th GARLAND OF BRITISH LIGHT MUSIC COMPOSERS
These Garlands have discussed, or at any rate mentioned,
many figures, who have composed music for film, radio and TV. To add
to them we offer the name of the Hertfordshire resident Garry Judd,
who has also tried his hand at writing musicals.
Going back further in time, we may point to the Doncaster
man Frederick Row, who was appointed Organist at the New Victoria
Cinema in September 1934. He had begun his musical career at the town’s
Café Imperial and then was the pianist of the Doncaster Picture
House Orchestra for a number of years. He composed, too -several light/pieces
for piano including a Valse Caprice.
This series has included several who have made a speciality
of composing educational music – which is frequently "light",
as I define the term. We can add three names to the long list of those
we have mentioned in previous Garlands: Peter Lawrance, who published
two musical plays for young children, Billy Goats Gruff and The
Music Garden, both in 1988; Steve King, who lives in Fife,
Scotland (he has also composed for films and TV); and Pat Legg,
who arranges and composes music for cello(s) – one of Legg’s cello ensemble
pieces has the appealing title Cello Club Cakewalk. I heard this
recently and the music sounds well, too.
Finally a mention for John Reynders, who along
with Idris Lewis, previously noted, provided the
music for the film Flying Scotsman (1929), the first British,
or any, railway feature film with its own soundtrack. I am not aware
of anything else he composed, though.
Philip L Scowcroft
February 2002
Philip's book 'British Light Music Composers' (ISBN 0903413 88 4) is
currently out of print.
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