Ruben Stam <[log in to unmask]>

>Vaughan Williams and Walton have been mentioned by another lister.  This
>seems to have been a traditional endeavour for British composers as the
>last episode of the BBC 'Masterworks' series showed that Britten composed
>scores for documentaries at the beginning of his career.

I think British composers are stripped of their passports if they don't
write at least one filmscore: the only major British figures not to have
scored movies seem to be Tippett, Holst (?), Brian & Elgar...  & had Elgar
been in better health late in his life, i have no doubt the old boffin
would have revelled in the possibilities of this new musical toy (noone was
a more joyous tinkerer than Edoo).  Reasons they tended to be hird aren't
hard to find: film production was always heavy in the UK; there was a long
traditional of theatrical composing which had taught British composers to
work fast & cheap; & (unlike US-American scorers) there were no union
regulations preventing the composer from orchestrating his or her own
shortscore.

(Mind you, Searle once wondered whether it was his scores which were
incidental; or just him)

Malcolm Arnold won an Oscar for _The Bridge on the River Kwai_
(rescreening on FX Movies Australia this Saturday, for those with access
to that network) though his best scores may be for _Inn of the Sixth
Happiness_ or _Whistle Down the Wind_...  in all, MA wrote more than
100 filmscores; & of those few he didn't get around to, Ben Frankel (_The
Importance of Being Ernest_, _Battle of the Bulge_, a swag of Ealing
comedies & the 12 tone _Curse of the Werewolf_) wrote the music for another
ton.  Bliss (_Things to Come_ & _Men of Two Worlds_...  the tabloid
concerto from this score is an undiscovered classic), Alwyn (_No Way Out_),
Searle (the real _The Haunting_) & Rawsthorne (_The Man Who Never Was_) all
turned out some classic scores; while Luytens & the current Master of the
Queen's Music, Williamson, got their hands particularly bloody writing
music for Hammer's horror studio.  Bax's filmmusic (specifically _Oliver
Twist_) plays a starring role in Ken Russell's oddball documentary on
the composer (its hard to explain if you haven't seen the film); & even
Fanshawe has gotten into the act: he penned the charming score for
_Tarka the Otter_.

More recently, Howard Goodall has become the master of the Bean's music,
writing the score for the Rowan Atkinson TV series & feature film of the
same name; & the astonishingly adaptable melody which recurs (in different
garb for each timeframe - the final, piano solo version to close the
carnage of _Blackadder Goes Forth_ coming as close to a total fusion
of music & image as mianstream TV is ever likely to get) throughout the
Blackadder series....

All the best,

Robert Clements <[log in to unmask]>
<http://www.ausnet.net.au/~clemensr/welcome.htm>