For a change we begin well into the 20th
Century with (Robert) NORMAN FULTON (1909-80) who studied at the Royal
Academy of Music, whether he returned in 1966 to be Professor of Harmony
and Composition. In 1936 he joined the BBC and eventually became Head
of its West Regional music from 1953-1960. His compositions, in a mildly
astringent idiom, included symphonies and in lighter vein a 15 minute
Serenade for Strings, Five Entertainment's and Curtain Walls
Sketches, both for small orchestra, the Waltz Rhapsody for
piano and orchestra, a ballet Augury, the Scottish Suite for
recorder and piano, Little Suite and Dance Miniatures,
both for piano duet, and music for radio features (eg for Shakespeare's
A Winter's Tale, 1949, Ara's Xmas Play, 1946, An Englishman
Looks at Norway and Aaron's Field) and for films.
ROGER HAINES, who had a brief floreat in the 1970s
as conductor and composer in the light musical theatre, composed the
musicals, Shylock, produced in 1974, revived as Fire Angel
in 1977 and revived in its original form, in 1981-2 and jointly
with IAN ARMIT, The Three Musketeers (1978).
Back now to the Victorian dance composers and here
again I can offer just surnames: one ANDREWS, composer of the waltz
Glove de Dijon, one SEDDON, composer of a schottische Prince
Charles, and one SHAW, producer of the galop, The First Shot.
These three were active during the 1880s and from the same period a
dance programme yielded the name PROUT and, attributed to him, a valse
Dream of the Past; this surely could not be Ebenezer (1835-1909),
of the musical treatises and the Handel editions, not to mention a most
attractive Clarinet Sonata I reviewed recently for BMS News - or could
it?
Finally a group of present-day figures bound together
by their contributions to a recording dating from 1977 but later re-issued
on CD, commissioned by VIC LEWIS, on which he conducted the RPO in short
movements depicting various colours. The composers include MALCOLM WILLIAMSON
(Ochre and Azure) and ROBERT FARNON (Mauve)
whom I need not perhaps discuss, film/TV composer JOHN CAMERON,
who contributes Yellow and at least one American RANDY EDELMAN
(Grey). Lewis himself, born in 1919, was a jazz musician, playing
banjo, then guitar, in clubs and later on the BBC, subsequently progressing
to conduct big bands and orchestras. He contributed Red, a take-off
of Shostakovich, to the disc. KEN THORNE, long a Lewis associate, provided
Green, a dreamy pastoral number; KENNY CLAYTON's piece was Sienna,
with Italian overtones - Clayton also published The Secret Garden,
a suite for piano based on Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel. JOHN SCOTT
(1930), composer of the brilliant Gold and a jazz saxophonist
and flautist, is remembered particularly for Tarzan's Theme from
the film Greystoke, through he wrote for dozens of other films
from 1965 onwards, notably Doctor in Clover and Anthony and
Cleopatra (1972), also TV.
DAVID MORGAN, born in 1932, is a more classical "figure",
composer of symphonies and also, in lighter vein, a Partita and
Music for Children (a suite comprising Out For a Stroll, Pony
Trap, Sweet Dreams and Rustic Dance), both for orchestra, he contributed
the Black movement to the record.
© Philip L. Scowcroft
August 1999
Philip's book 'British Light Music Composers' (ISBN 0903413 88 4) is
currently out of print.
Return to: