Richard Addinsell

Richard Addinsell,(January 13, 1904 - November 14, 1977) was a British composer, best known for his Warsaw Concerto and film music.

He didn't attend school, being taught at home. Later, after studying at Hertford College, Oxford, he made incomplete attempts at studying Law, and then Music (at The Royal College of Music, spending time in Berlin and Vienna) were both abandoned without formal qualifications. His style is very much what might be called "English Light Music."[1] Films for which he wrote the music include:

• The Amateur Gentleman (1936)
• Fire Over England (1937)
• Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939)
• Gaslight (1940)
• Blithe Spirit (1945)
• Scrooge (1951)
• Tom Brown's Schooldays (1951)
• The Prince and the Showgirl (1957)
• A Tale of Two Cities (1958)
• Beau Brummell (1955)
• The Waltz of the Toreadors (1962)

The Warsaw Concerto was written for the 1941 film, Dangerous Moonlight, and continues to be a popular piano piece. The film-makers wanted something in the style of Sergei Rachmaninoff, but were unable to persuade Rachmaninoff himself to write a piece. Although Addinsell created the melodic material, the job of producing a concerto in the style of Rachmaninoff fell to Roy Douglas. The piece has been recorded over one hundred times and has sold in excess of three million copies.

Addinsell also wrote the short orchestral piece "Southern Rhapsody", which was played every morning at the start of TV broadcasts by the former Southern Television company in south of England from 1958 to 1981. Like much of his film music, it has been heard by millions of people who do not know either its title or the composer's name, and is still fondly remembered even today.

Addinsell also collaborated from 1942 with Joyce Grenfell, for both West End revues (including Tuppence Colored and Penny Plain) and Grenfell's one-woman shows.

In 1932 he wrote, with Clemence Dane, the incidental music for the Broadway adaptation of Alice in Wonderland by Eva LeGallienne, starring Josephine Hutchinson (prod. 1933). In 1947 it was revived, starring Bambi Linn.

During the Second World War, Addinsell, under his birth name, flew as a navigator with 619 Squadron, R.A.F. Bomber Command.^{[dubious – discuss]}

He lived in London and Chichester Terrace, Brighton with his close friend, the famous fashion designer Victor Stiebel.

Addinsell was known for his christmas parties and was part of a social circle that included many of the biggest british Arts/Entertainment/Royal celebrities of the 1930s and 40s.

External Links

• From MyFiles.com

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