Garland 311 of British Light Music Composers
First for a handful of composers from the 1950s who are known
- to me at least by just one orchestral miniature: Frank
Wainwright for Idling, Owen Walters
for Poodle Polka; and Bernie Wayne for Port-au-Prince,
published by Bosworth.
During the 1930s Lionel Trent wrote a number
of music hall and other popular songs including June music and,
recorded by Gwen Farrar in 1935, MAYBE I'M WRONG AGAIN.
In Garland 87 I discussed Patrick Thayer and
said then that I might return to him later. His connections
with the light musical stage went back further than I suggested
there. He contributed a song, entitled Lingerie, for the 1916
musical Toto, but this was not in the event used, songs for
Flora (1918) and a cheerful number Merry Old King Canute for
C.B. Cochran's Revue Of 1926. Thayer wrote much of the score
for The Girl In The Bath (1918) and the whole of the music for
Our Liz (1923) and The White Camellia (1928) which, after a
successful provincial run, went to Daly’s early in 1929 but
did not take off there. He conducted a revival of Vivian Ellis’s
Jill Darling in 1944 but appears to have dropped out of the
picture thereafter. His date of death, indeed that of his birth,
remains unknown to me.
I previously mentioned The Silver Patrol briefly produced in
1940; there was a song title of this name, published in 1930,
and the whole show, or a version of it, achieved publication
in 1937 but his name primarily lives on with I Travel The Road.
Philip Scowcroft
September 2002:
Garland 312 of British Light Music
All our composers this time have a point of the compass included
in their names. A surprising number of the Wests are or were
connected with the music hall. We have previously discussed
Harris (or Harry) Weston, the Western brothers, George and Kenneth,
Leslie Weston and Alfred H West. Two more were RP Weston composer
of many songs, a considerable number of them incorporated into
revues of the 1920s, and Arthur West whose floreat was rather
earlier and his songs included Life in the East of London and
Rootity-Toot, She Plays The Flute.
J Ebenezer West (1863-1929), associated for
many years with the Novello publishing house, produced a large
number of arrangements and church music compositions, but pieces
like his Maypole Dance entitle us to include him in a light
music compendium. Monica West, active in the
early years of the 20th century, composed ballads, of which
output we may exemplify The Little Shepherdess, A Song Of Joy
and The Wedding Gown. Still alive is Mike Westbrook,
who has made noteworthy contributions in the field of jazz and
composition for TV, radio, theatre and the cinema.
Of Kenneth North’s songs we may mention one
which was particularly popular in the 1950s, The Green Glens
of Antrim. T Wallace Southern was also a songwriter;
many of his effusions being in a jazzy type idiom.
Finally for two Easts. Harold East's compositions
include a number in a lighter vein, the six pieces for piano
solo, Past And Present, and the brass band Americana and a Spanish-American
suite, and Thomas Eastwood, born in 1922, whose
works include Ballade-Phantasy and Romance et Plainte, both
for guitar solo and a considerable quantity of incidental music
radio, e.g. for King John, The Misanthrope, and The Reign Of
Edward III.
Garland 313
The otherwise obscure figure of Algernon Drummond is
known only for the tune of the Eton Boating Song, one of the
best known of all school songs. He was serving in India as an
officer in the Rifle Brigade when he had his inspiration (and
musical fellow officer had to take it down as Drummond could
not write music) sometime in the 1870s. The tune has been used
in the film North-West Frontier and in the TV series The Prisoner.
Drummond should not be confused with Frederick Drummond,
the composer of The Gay Highway and other ballads.
Alan Paul is usually reckoned a classical composer
on the strength of a Sonata for viola and piano (1948), but
many of his songs are lightish in character, Like Adoration
(1954), Dreams, Jenny Kissed Me (1948), and with Victor Snowden,
the music hall/variety number They're All Under The Counter,
an expression well known in 1942 when it came out. Snowden’s
music hall song ‘Alibut ‘Addick and ‘Ake (1941) was also quite
popular in its day. Two other Paul songs came from BBC productions:
If I Were Not In Pantomime from the 1956 feature entitled The
Trouper; and Love Must Be Free from a radio play. Paul wrote
much orchestral music for radio productions such as The Boy
And The Bus (1951), The Fabulous Vidocq (1955), The Life of
Leslie Stuart, Silver King (1954), Spinster Of This Parish (1951),
all in manuscript, and The Scarlet Pimpernel from which Bosworth
published a two minute Minuet in 1955.
Luisa Snodgrass sounds like a character from
Charles Dickens but she composed in the 1920s, I think, it was
a popular song, London Girl. Don Bowden arranged
many dance movements for Boosey drawn from the works of Charles
Ancliffe, Tchaikovsky, Scottish reels, etc. With one Douglas
Pond he composed an orchestral miniature, Sandstorm
and with Harry Leader he issued a number of
Eastern Dances.
Philip Scowcroft
Oct 2002
Garland 314 of British Light Music
Let us begin with Henry W Goodbanm composer
of Victorian dance music around the mid-19th-century such as
The Firefly, The Wood Nymphs Polka and the Mary Callinack Polka.
Callinack (pronounced in her native Cornwall as K’Lynack) was
a Cornish fisherman's wife who walked 300 miles from West Cornwall
to London to meet Queen Victoria at The Great Exhibition and
the Lord Mayor of London at The Mansion House in 1851. The most
remarkable aspect of this feat was that she was 84 years old
at the time.
Mark Ponsford, born in London and educated
at Hampshire, is actor, pianist, lyricist and composer, notably
of musicals, which include The Phantom of South Ruislip and,
after Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince.
James (or Jimmy) V Monaco (1885-1945) was an
American, notably involved with film music but was connected
with revue and music hall in England (for numbers like Masculine
Women! Feminine Men!), once recorded by Billy Mayerl and Gwen
Farrar, You Made Me Love You and Me and the Boyfriend.
David William Southgate (1941-?) was born in
New Zealand and, apart from his years (1967-71) at the Guildhall
School, educated there. He conducted in this country during
the 1970s especially for Phoenix Opera and the Royal Shakespeare
Company. He has composed quite widely, too, and merits mention
here for his children's opera Faery Tale which was in fact premiered
in New Zealand.
Philip L Scowcroft
Oct 2002
Garland 315
First of all, for two figures from the late 19th century. Harry
B Norris composed a number of music-hall type songs
including Algy, Or The Piccadilly Johanee With The Little Glass
Eye and The Bold Militiaman, both from 1895. And A N
Norman composed in the 1880s songs and also dance music
like the Evelyne Waltz and celebrating a famous cricket captain
of Lancashire and England, the Hornby Schottische.
Two other Normans may be cited from the first half of the 20th
century. Lorna Norman for her ballad-type songs,
He That Loves A Rosy Cheek, Pan Among The Daffodils, Song Of
The Morning-O, A Thrush At Dawn and When My Lady Goes Shopping;
and Phyllis Norman-Parker for rather similar
songs like All Along O’love, A Bee’s Way, Jack-O'-Lantern and
November's Thrush.
Four very diverse composers still living now briefly claim our
attention. Sir John Manduell (1928-), born
in Johannesburg and Principal of the Royal Northern College
of music (1971-1996) has sported a mainly serious compositional
portfolio but we can perhaps cite his overture Sunderland Point
(1969) as something a little lighter in touch. Liverpool-born
Malcolm Lipkin (1932-), educated at the Royal
College of Music, is similarly “serious" but we can mention
his Bagatelles for oboe and piano of 1983 and his Pierrot Dances
(1998) for viola and piano. The harpist Skaila Kanga,
born in Bombay in 1946 and educated at the Royal Academy of
Music, has composed such lightish accessible pieces Les Saisons
de la Harpe, for harp solo, British Folk Songs set for flute
and harp, and The American Sketches for clarinet (or flute)
and harp. And finally a mention for Huw Jones
for his settings of Welsh folk-tunes and his incidental music
for radio including, most recently (2002) that for Brave Swimmer.
Philip L Scowcroft
October 2002
Garland 316
All of our composers this time are still alive and active in
their respective fields. Ian Cameron appears
to specialising guitar music, arrangements (especially) and
compositions for young students; his original or more or less
original, pieces include La Castana, Cuatro Santos and Hunky-Dorian.
Simon Park who lives in the Cotswolds, is a
latter-day example of that one-time very numerous phenomenon,
the orchestral library composer, a sample of his work is the
lively High Spirits.
Peter Naylor born in 1933 and educated at Cambridge
University, has a mainly serious portfolio of compositions,
but less serious, perhaps, are his “workshop opera" The
Mountain People and, for symphonic band, Beowulf. He lives in
Kent.
Marisa Robles's (1937-) has long been one of
the most distinguished harpists in the concert world. She was
born and educated in Spain and then settled in the United Kingdom.
Her compositions, naturally enough, are for harp and are approachable
for the listener. Then we may exemplify the Narnia suite, Irish
suite and, for flute and harp, the Basque Suite.
Two figures who have recently (2002) furnished incidental music
for BBC radio are the pianist Orlando Gough,
for Shakespeare's Coriolanus and Max Harris’s
for Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector.
Finally Philip Selby, born in 1948, who studied
at the Royal Manchester College of Music, composed among more
serious works, a suite and The Portrait Of Django, both for
guitar solo and the Fountain of Youth for guitar and small orchestra.
He lives in Italy.
Philip L Scowcroft
Oct 2002
Garland 317
We start with a group who had associations with the BBC between
the wars. The violinist and bandleader Bert Ambrose
(1897-1973), born in Leeds (West Yorkshire) broadcast frequently
at that time and indeed after 1939. His arrangements and compositions
included When The Day Is Done (his signature tune) and the melodrama
Home James And Don't Spare The Horses. Ernest Friedman,
active in the 1930s, made many arrangements for his Ernest Friedman
Sextet, regular broadcasters at that time. Theo V Norman
was particularly noted for writing, with George Posford,
the music for a miniature revue for radio, The World We Listen
In (1929), not to mention songs like Me Love-E To You, composed
with HB Hedley. Edward Pola merits
a mention for Marching Along Together (1957), then a new signature
tune for Charles Shadwell's BBC Variety Orchestra, plus music
for a revue Here's How.
Julian Wright was a prolific song composer
his titles including You Are You, The Cricketers Song, Down
The River With You, Everything Seems To Whisper, I Hold You
In My Heart, I Know A Garden, Moonlight Nights, Old Man Cameron,
Something Happened In My Heart, When Love Is All, When The Sun
Bursts Thro’ and Whispering Voices, plus others jointly with
collaborators All Hands On Deck and Gunga Din And His Lute with
Carol Bourne and, from a film, Riding A Camel In The Desert
with Harold Flynn and Ralph Barker. Another song composer to
mention is Henry Parr (not, of course, Henry
Park-Davies, the musical comedy composer) for numbers like Is
It Done In Suburbia?, and I'm Wearing Sweet Violets.
Finally two composers who, largely jointly, wrote music for
student string players: Agnes Best and Edwina
Palmer - two Christmas Pieces (1953), Christmas Overture,
Rhymes And Rhythms, for violin and piano and Eight Melodic Pieces.
Philip L Scowcroft
Oct 2002
Garland 318
I begin with a father and son dynasty. Berthold Tours
(1838-97), organist, violinist and composer was born in Rotterdam
and studied first with his father Barthelemy Tours, then at
Leipzig. He came to London in 1861 when he played the violin
in various orchestras and in 1862 became organist of the Swiss
church, Holborn. He indeed composed a considerable amount in
the way of Anglican hymn tunes, anthems and services that, especially
after becoming musical advisor and editor to Novello’s publishing
house. He also produced songs like Our Enemies Have Fall’n and
instrumental items - Petit Duo Symphonique for two violins and
piano, a Romance for cello and piano, and short organ pieces,
including Allegretto grazioso, Fantasia in C and Menuetto in
G minor.
His son, Frank Edward Tours (1877-1963) was
more obviously a light music figure, for all that he studied
at the Royal College of Music with Stanford, Parry and (Frederick)
Bridge. From about 1900 onwards he was involved in conducting
and composing for the light music stage. His own scores included
Melnotte (1901), which did not make the West End, and Dashing
Little Duke (1899), plus contributions to Mr Wix of Wickham
(1892), The Little Cherub (1906), The New Aladdin (1896), the
successful The Dairymaids (1896 with Paul Rubens), The Gay Gordons
(1897 with Guy Jones) and Mr Manhattan (1916). His only instrumental
item I have found so far is the waltz Sweet Nell, but many of
his songs (include Mother O’ Mine to Kipling's words, Red Rose,
Beyond The Sunset, in Flanders Fields and The Naval and Military
Bazaar) acquired popularity. Sometime around 1910 he emigrated
to the United States where he became involved with Broadway
and later Hollywood; he died in Los Angeles.
Finally for two latter-day composers for young performers:
Jill Townsend, born in 1938 appears to specialise in
string music as The Circus Comes To Town, Czech Song And Dance,
Dance Suite, Fun And Games and Fridays, Saturdays are all for
string orchestra; and Norman Gilbert, active
in the 1950s and 1960s, a quite prolific writer of unison song
(e.g. Tractor Driver, The Aeronaut, Racing Cars, Weathers and
The Engine) and organ music like Pieces For Four Seasons.
Philip L Scowcroft
Oct 2002
Garland 319
First for two composers with the same surname but not, so far
as I am aware, related. Clarence Cox in 1957
published Preldue and Divertissement, both for a trio of clarinets,
while Heather Cox composed or compiled in the
1980s with Garth Rickard, a considerable series
of pieces entitled Single, Clap And Play or simply Sing!
Maria Bird was responsible for the music -
mainly songs - for long-running TV series Andy Pandy (from 1950
onwards) and The Wooden Tops. She also published a book of sea
shanties is entitled Songs Under Sail.
David Stoll is a prolific and varied freelance
composer of music ranging from serious (a Cello Concerto, a
Cello Sonata, a Piano Quartet, a Sonata for two pianos, at least
one String Quartet, an opera about William Byrd and much else)
to light. Compositions in the latter category include songs
for children, and a musical about Robert Louis Stevenson, Teller
of Tales, Shakespearean incidental music (notably for Pericles
and The Winter's Tale) and other music for theatre, signature
tunes for TV and radio features and some production library
music. He also writes on music and is involved with its administration.
Finally three composers of musicals and operettas for children,
a prolific area, Paul Field, whose Daybreak
(1983) was published by the Methodist Church; James
JH Edmunds, whose The Oatcake, The Pied Piper and The
Stolen Child were all published in 1965 and Muriel Herbert,
credited with operettas Christmas Eve’s Dream, Come to the Zoo
(1960) and Candy Floss (1964), not to mention many songs for
children.
Philip L Scowcroft
Oct 2002
Garland 320
First of all, a mentioned for Walter Trinder,
composer of the five little sketches for piano solo dating from
1964, A Day In The Country. As far as I'm aware these were not
orchestrated. Also for piano originally was the paso doble Conquistador
(1964) which was arranged for orchestra, published by Lawrence
Wright and composed by Tommy Watt. One Geoffrey
Wright published Seven Pastorals (1964, yet again)
and the suite Here And There (1967), both piano and also various
unison songs for young children. And Mary Webb's
compositions included the pictorial piano miniature, Twilight
Tapestry (1950).
Now for a few TV/film composers: Michael Collins,
for the signature tune for the BBC's coverage of the Sydney
Olympics 2000; Paul K Joyce, the music for
Bob The Builder; Hal Lindes, for the BBC1 programme
Airport; and Patrick John Scott, whose music
for the 1967 film Stranger In The House achieved publication
in an arrangement for piano solo.
The popular song composer Lee S Roberts, whose
titles included Shepherd, Show Me How To Go (1947), Oh Harold
and Smiles, was active during the 1940s. To conclude we have
two figures from the 1850s: W Jarratt Roberts,
purveyor of such popular dance numbers as the Capstan Polka
and John J Blockley, whose dances included
The Bloomer Polka, named after the ladies’ nether garment,
and the Oberon Polka, but who was better known for popular ballads
like The Englishman, The Charge Of The Light Brigade, List To
The Convent Bells and especially The Arab’s Farewell To
His Favourite Steed, Jessie's Dream and The Sands O’Dee.
Philip L Scowcroft
November 2002
