Who is your favourite British film composer?

[pegastar]

I want to expand my breadth of knowledge so I have been asking everyone, who is your favorite film composer? What is your favorite score?

[batman]

John Barry and Patrick Doyle are the tops for me.



Favourite scores by them are ...



John Barry - Somewhere in Time

Patrick Doyle - Dead Again



... I also like Anne Dudley's music.



My all time favourite score is The Great Silence by Ennio Morricone.

[Nick Dando]

Sir William Walton (Henry V, The Foreman Went to France, Went the Day Well?)

Ralph Vaughan Williams (Scott of the Antarctic, The Flemish Flag)

Michael Nyman (The Draughtsman's Contract)

Adrian Johnston (Perfect Strangers, Shooting the Past)

Simon Fisher Turner (Blue)

Brian Easdale (Gone to Earth)

David Holmes (Ocean's Eleven)

Ron Goodwin (Battle of Britain, Where Eagles Dare)



Nick

[Bernardo]

For English film music it has to be Ralph Vaughan Williams without a doubt. I will not copy and paste the large list, which is still growing, have a look.



Ralph Vaughan Williams

[moonfleet]

Just coming to mind:



Ennio Morricone



Nino Rota



John Dankworth



François de Roubaix



George Delerue



Franz Waxman



Jerry Goldsmith



Henry Mancini

.......





Moon.

[moonfleet]

And adding a "forever theme":



Moon Music & Prelude from Alex North's Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf





(For Martha and George)

[Steve Crook]

name='pegastar']I want to expand my breadth of knowledge so I have been asking everyone, who is your favorite film composer? What is your favorite score?

Brian Easdale - The Red Shoes. He wrote a complete ballet in the middle of a film



Steve

[Gary D.]

I see no one's mentioned Richard Adinsell, who composed the Warsaw Concerto for some relatively obscure wartime film (Fighter Squad?), as well as the Marilyn Monroe/Laurence Olivier The Prince and the Showgirl. Aside from Marilyn, Adinsell's music has caused me to watch this 1957 film over and over.

[Steve Crook]

name='Gary D.']I see no one's mentioned Richard Adinsell, who composed the Warsaw Concerto for some relatively obscure wartime film (Fighter Squad?), as well as the Marilyn Monroe/Laurence Olivier The Prince and the Showgirl. Aside from Marilyn, Adinsell's music has caused me to watch this 1957 film over and over.

He also wrote (or co-wrote with William Blezard) a lot of the music for Joyce Grenfell's sketches



Steve

[vincenzo]

John Barry is my fave British composer. Henry Mancini is my top U.S one.

[Geoffers]

name='vincenzo']John Barry is my fave British composer. Henry Mancini is my top U.S one.

Good choices! Barry on top of his game (mostly 60s & 70s for me) is hard to beat. I know he also won Oscars in the 80s and 90s, but I preferred it when he was writing for smaller films like The Knack, The Ipcress File, Lion in Winter and almost any Bryan Forbes film he scored. Moving to the USA in the mid-70s may have brought him financial security but I feel his style became much more rigid from that time onwards.



I cannot imagine a Bond film today being scored the way he did OHMSS - just full of wonderful memorable cues and themes. Even The Living Daylights, a film he didn't enjoy working on, is top-notch. With all due respect to his Bond successors, I don't hear many memorable cues in their scores ...



He had a gift for melody that few composers appear to have today.

[Reeldigger]

Confining myself to British composers, I would have to say that William Walton is way ahead of the pack. His score for Henry V may be his best and, judging from the number of times it has been recorded, best remembered.



Let's not forget Miklos Rozsa who had a brief career in the British films before settling down in Hollywood.

[CliveT]

Although Miklos Rosza was not British-his score for "The Private Life of S.Holmes" is really good. Ron Goodwin & John Barry are the two other composers who seem to have the talent for British film scores-especially in the 60s.



CliveT

[vincenzo]

Hard to pick a fave Barry score though OHMSS and The Knack are right up at the top. Of his later work I find his King Kong score hugely underrated (unlike the ape-alling film).



Ditto for Mancini. Two For The Road is a particular favourite of mine.

[SirOllyBolly]

Does Vangelis count?

[darrenburnfan]

All Equally Loved:



Sir Malcolm Arnold for

THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI

THE INN OF THE SIXTH HAPPINESS

WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND

THE INSPECTOR

THE LION

THE HEROES OF TELEMARK

DAVID COPPERFIELD (1969 version)



Sir Richard Rodney Bennett for

NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA



John Barry for

ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE



John Williams for

JANE EYRE (1970 version)



Miklos Rozsa for

THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (1940 version)

IVANHOE (1952 version)

KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE



Clifton Parker for

TREASURE ISLAND (1950 version)

NIGHT OF THE DEMON

SEA OF SAND

H.M.S. DEFIANT



Tristram Cary for

THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER (1961 version)

SAMMY GOING SOUTH

QUATERMASS AND THE PIT (1967 version)



Elmer Bernstein for

THE MIRACLE (1959 version)



Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter for

A DOG OF FLANDERS (1959 version)



and, last but not least:



Maurice Le Roux for

THE RED BALLOON (1956)

[batman]

Re Vangelis.



Depends if the original poster meant Brit Film Composer or Brit Film Composer.



He did COF so I reckon he does.

[moonfleet]

name='CliveT']Although Miklos Rosza was not British-his score for "The Private Life of S.Holmes" is really good. Ron Goodwin & John Barry are the two other composers who seem to have the talent for British film scores-especially in the 60s.



CliveT

Yes, Miklos Rozsa



....Who scored the Moonfleet theme(tatata !!), and the beautiful Valse Crépusculaire for Providence



Moon.

[Steve Crook]

name='moonfleet']Yes, Miklos Rozsa



....Who scored the Moonfleet theme(tatata !!), and the beautiful Valse Crépusculaire for Providence



Moon.

And don't forget The Thief of Bagdad (1940) with the song with the most cringe inducing rhyme



I want to be a sailor,

Sailing out to sea.

No plowboy, tinker, tailor's,

Any fun to be.

Aunts and cousins,

By the baker's dozens,

Drive their men to sea,

Or highway robbery.

I want to be a bandit,

Can't you understand it?

Sailing to sea is life for me,

Is life for me.



"I want to be a bandit,

Can't you understand it?"

What an amazing rhyme



Actually, although Miklós Rózsa wrote the music for that and for the other music in the film, the lyrics for that song were credited to "Robert Denham" - a pseudonym for Sir Robert Vansittart, chief diplomatic adviser to the British Foreign Office in 1939. Brought in by his friend Miklós Rózsa to write the lyrics for one of the songs in The Thief of Bagdad (1940). Sir Robert had had much experience serving in the Middle East. He spoke various languages of the area and was well versed in the old stories and mythology. So when Korda wanted to put together a film that was an amalgam of various stories from the Middle East, Sir Robert was willing and able to help them. However, he was still serving in the diplomatic corps and didn't want to use his own name in the on-screen credits for such a light-hearted film (he had previously contributed to Sixty Glorious Years (1938), but that was a worthy film about Queen Victoria). So it was agreed that he would take the name of the studio (Denham) as his on-screen surname.



Steve

[moonfleet]

Dear Mr Guardian of P&P Temple



Thank you for so much precise informations. I think (heard about) that M.R was friend with compatiot Alexander (the great) Korda. So, maybe this leads him to compose for The Thief of Bagdad.





Moon.