In 1943, Sir Arnold wrote his first film music for a documentary picture entitled MALTA G.C., a production of the Army, R.A.F. and Crown Film Units. The recording was made by the R.A.F. Orchestra conducted by Muir Mathieson and the commentary to the film was spoken by Laurence Olivier. The music was afterwards performed as a 'suite and was recorded by the B.B.C., the score itself was formally presented to the George Cross Island at a ceremony in London...

By popular convention, a composer is a long-haired, badly-dressed, hungry-looking, lean-faced, wild-in-the-eye aesthete. Oddly enough, some of them fit the description perfectly. But not Arthur Bliss. This London-born composer is a neatly-groomed, smartly-attired, prosperous-looking, well-built, down-to-earth gentleman of the type associated with the Stock Exchange. He speaks a precise but not pedantic King's English, acquired as a result of a schooling ...

Benjamin Frankel was born in 1906 and came to music following a year's apprenticeship to a London watchmaker. He studied with Victor Benham, an American pianist, in England and Germany. He embarked on his career in 1923 playing violin and arranging for various bands on London's burgeoning jazz scene, all the while continuing his formal education at the Guildhall School of Music. He later joined the BBC Dance Orchestra and became the assistant ...

Edward John Clifton Parker was born on 5 February 1905 in London, the youngest son of a bank manager. He was encouraged by his father to go into commerce but studied music privately and composed his first published work, Romance for violin and piano, when aged sixteen. In 1924, he decided to divide his names—to use 'Edward John' for lighter compositions and 'Clifton Parker' for more serious compositions. However, he never used the former. 

On leaving the Royal Air Force after the war, Wooldridge devoted himself chiefly to the composition of film music where Dr Edward Waters of the Library of Congress described that ‘he invariably reflected skilled and resourceful musicianship whilst meeting the needs of this medium’. He was much associated with films by John and Roy Boulting (the Boulting Brothers), who put him under contract to write the music for FAME IS THE SPUR ...

While on a 10-day visit to Scotland as Composer-in-residence at the Perth Festival of the Arts, Malcolm Arnold talked to me about his work as a composer of film music. Between 1948 and 1969 he wrote the music for over 70 feature films as well as many short documentaries and some television programs. One must not forget that he has written extensively for the concert hall (this includes 9 symphonies) as well as music for ballet and the theatre.

Muir Mathieson - without a shadow of doubt the greatest name in the history of British film music, and arguably one of the most significant people in all film music - died on August 2nd 1975, aged only 64. His terminal illness was mercifully short. I had the pleasure of lunching with him and his charming wife Hermione at their lovely old house at Frieth very shortly before he died. I believe I knew him as well as any technician in this country; certainly our friendship had lasted ...

Philip Sainton comes of a family well-known in English music for the past hundred years. He himself has had a distinguished career as a performer and composer. He was born in Arques-la-Bataille, in Seine-Maritime, France, grandson to violinist Prosper Sainton and contralto Charlotte Helen Sainton-Dolby. He started his music studies learning the violin. At some point he entered the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he studied composition under Frederick Corder...

“William Alwyn's music would probably be meaningless if taken out of its film context.” This was my remark that started it all; other people before me had made the same observation. William Alwyn, perhaps to a greater extent than any other composer in this country, has embraced the art of film background music. With him, the picture on the screen is the master, and he writes his music so that it becomes not just “incidental” but a real, living, vital part of the film.

The first showing in this country of Sir Laurence Olivier's production of RICHARD III attracted a great deal of attention, and with justification. It is an impressive spectacle in whatever form it is experienced: on television, on the theater screen in Vistavision and Technicolor, or listening to the soundtrack released by RCA Victor. Sir William Walton wrote the score, as he had for Sir Laurence's previous Shakespearean productions of HENRY V and HAMLET.