Richard Stewart Addinsell (13 January 190414 November 1977) was an English composer, known early in his career for his music for the theatre in collaboration with Clemence Dane, later for his film music – including his best-known piece, the Warsaw Concerto, composed for the 1941 Dangerous Moonlight – and subsequently for his musical collaboration with the lyricist and performer Joyce Grenfell.

Life and career

Early years

Richard Addinsell was born in Woburn Square, London, on 13 January 1904, the younger son of William Arthur Addinsell, who was a chartered accountant, and his wife, Annie Beatrice Richards. Addinsell was educated at home before attending Hertford College, Oxford, to study law but going down after 18 months. He became interested in music as an alternative career. In 1925 he enrolled at the Royal College of Music (RCM) but lasted only two terms before leaving, again without obtaining any formal qualification. A revue for Fred Karno followed in 1927, again with Gay,

In 1928 Addinsell first collaborated with the author Clemence Dane. The work was Adam's Opera, described by the two collaborators as "a tragic pantomime, set to music and written in nursery rhyme". It was presented at The Old Vic in December 1928. The critics were equivocal about Dane's text, but Addinsell's music was described by several as "catchy", and the theatrical newspaper The Era called it "By far the best part of the entertainment":

In 1929 Addinsell completed his informal education by touring Europe to visit major theatrical and musical centres such as Berlin and Vienna. The following year, also for New York, Addinsell composed the music for another "play in words and music" with Dane – Come of Age – which opened at the Maxine Elliott Theatre in January 1934 with Judith Anderson in the lead.

Dane then wrote Moonlight is Silver for which Addinsell composed the music. The piece opened in the West End in September 1934 starring Gertrude Lawrence and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.; Lawrence and Fairbanks recorded a scene from the play for His Master's Voice, with Addinsell's music included in the background throughout, until at the end, Lawrence sings his setting of the title song. Next, Dane adapted Edmond Rostand's play for Le Gallienne; it opened at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York in November 1934, with music by Addinsell. By 1934 Addinsell was well enough known for the BBC to devote a whole programme to his music.

Addinsell's last theatre compositions of the 1930s were The Happy Hypocrite (1936, Dane's dramatisation of Max Beerbohm's short story of the same name) and incidental music for a 1938 production of The Taming of the Shrew starring Edith Evans and Leslie Banks at the New Theatre. His association with the cinema began in 1936, although he had been in Hollywood in 1933 in connection with a planned film starring Francis Lederer, but the film was never made. Addinsell's introduction to writing for films came in 1936 when his contacts with Fairbanks (who starred) and Dane (co-author) led to his being invited to compose the music for The Amateur Gentleman.

During the rest of the 1930s Addinsell provided film music for Fire Over England (1937), Farewell Again (1937), Vessel of Wrath (1938), South Riding (1938), The Lion Has Wings (1939) and Goodbye Mr Chips (1939). In the same year and 1941 he wrote the music for The Saviours, a sequence of radio plays by Dane, and when Priestley revived his Good Companions characters for a radio play in 1941, Addinsell wrote and played the music.

For the 1941 film Dangerous Moonlight the producers wanted a short romantic concertante piece for the hero to be seen and heard playing. Over a period of six months Addinsell worked out a pastiche lasting nine minutes, giving the effect of a concert pianist playing a concerto in the romantic style, such as that of Sergei Rachmaninoff. As was common practice for film composers, he wrote the piano score and delegated the task of orchestration to an assistant, in this case Roy Douglas. The result, which came to be known as the Warsaw Concerto was duly recorded by Louis Kentner and the London Symphony Orchestra and edited into the finished film. There have been more than a hundred different recordings of the work and by the start of the twenty-first century more than five million copies had been sold.

Between Dangerous Moonlight and a brief return to the theatre Addinsell composed four more film scores: The Big Blockade (1941), Love on the Dole (1941), This England (1941) and The Day Will Dawn (1942). "I'm Going to See You Today", "London Scottish", "Old Tyme Dancing (Stately as a Galleon)", "Picture-Postcard", "The Woman on the Bus", and "Time. In 1943 Addinsell again worked on a theatrical production with Dane – her adaptation of both the Lewis Carroll "Alice" books into a single play, produced in the West End with a cast headed by Sybil Thorndyke as the ferocious Queen of Hearts and the flustered White Queen.

Returning to film music, in 1945 Addinsell produced what some consider his finest film score for David Lean's adaptation of Noël Coward's play Blithe Spirit. The composer's last three film scores of the 1940s were A Diary for Timothy (1946), The Passionate Friends (1948) and Under Capricorn (1949). or Rumon Gamba.

Orchestral works composed (or adapted) for the concert hall include The Invitation Waltz (1950), the Smokey Mountains Concerto (1950) and The Isle of Apples (1965).

Film credits

  • His Lordship (1932)
  • The Amateur Gentleman (1936)
  • Fire Over England (1937)
  • Dark Journey (1937)
  • Farewell Again (1937)
  • South Riding (1938)
  • Vessel of Wrath (1938)
  • Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939)
  • The Lion Has Wings (1940)
  • Men of the Lightship (1940; documentary)
  • Britain at Bay (1940; documentary)
  • Contraband (1940)
  • Gaslight (1940)
  • W.R.N.S. (1941)
  • Old Bill and Son (1941)
  • Dangerous Moonlight (1941; containing the Warsaw Concerto)
  • This England (1941)
  • Love on the Dole (1941)
  • This Is Colour (1942; documentary)
  • The Big Blockade (1942)
  • The Day Will Dawn (1942)
  • The Siege of Tobruk (1942; documentary)
  • Troop Ship (1942; documentary—music for song Hold your hats on)
  • The New Lot (1943)
  • We Sail at Midnight (1943; documentary)
  • A Diary for Timothy (1945; documentary)
  • Blithe Spirit (1945)
  • Soldier Sailor (1945; documentary—music for song I'm going to see you today)
  • The Passionate Friends (1949)
  • Under Capricorn (1949)
  • The Black Rose (1950)
  • Highly Dangerous (1950)
  • Scrooge (1951)
  • Tom Brown's Schooldays (1951)
  • Encore (1951)
  • The Secret Cave (1953)
  • Sea Devils (1953)
  • Beau Brummell (1954)
  • Out of the Clouds (1955)
  • The Prince and the Showgirl (1957)
  • The Admirable Crichton (1957; uncredited)
  • A Tale of Two Cities (1958)
  • The Greengage Summer (1961)
  • The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961)
  • Waltz of the Toreadors (1962)
  • The War Lover (1962)
  • Life at the Top (1965)

:Note<nowiki>:</nowiki> The source for the television and film appearances is the British Film Institute.

References

Sources

  • Richard Addinsell at the British Film Institute website