A 259th GARLAND OF BRITISH LIGHT MUSIC COMPOSERS
David A Lane is a Lecturer in Music at the Doncaster
College, specialising in piano and keyboard playing. But he also has
a considerable reputation as a composer. As far back as 1975 he provided
original music for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Much
more recently (2000) he wrote music for the Mystery Plays at the Malvern
(Worcs) Festival, to considerable acclaim. More recently still, in 2002,
he began composing, as part of a portfolio for a Master’s Degree in
Composition at Salford University. A series of nine piano pieces is
collectively entitled the Three Times Suite, and each movement
is a pastiche in one of three specific periods in musical history: baroque,
romantic and ragtime. Three of the pieces (Prelude, Nocturne, Drag Rag,
obviously one from each of Mr Lane's "periods", were performed
in a public recital at Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery in March 2002.
In the same year Dave won the first ever Salford University Kirklees
Music Publishing Prize for his brass band composition entitled A
Winter Suite. He tells me that the three movements of this will
form part of Three Times.
Two more TV composers to mention: Al Lethbridge,
most recently for the Channel 4 documentary series World in Arms
(2002); and Rolfe Kent for the ITV drama feature The Jury
(also 2002). And Stephen Reynolds (no relation of Alfred)
had a modest but real reputation for tuneful piano miniatures, examples
of which are Le Printemps and Chanson d’Automne.
Finally for three names from the English musical stage
in the 1980s. Andrew Schofield and Tony Naughton combined
to write the music for Eppingham Camp, produced at Liverpool
Playhouse in 1982; and Shirie Roden obliged for Paddington
Bear’s Magical Musical, which was toured widely through the provinces
in 1982-3. (I find it surprising that this did not reach the West End,
considering the wide popularity of the main character). All three names
seem to be "singletons", at any rate as far as theatre work
is concerned.
Philip L Scowcroft
March 2002
Philip's book 'British Light Music Composers' (ISBN 0903413 88 4) is
currently out of print.
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