Richard Stewart Addinsell (13 January 1904 – 14 November 1977) was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
composer, best known for film music, primarily his
Warsaw ConcertoThe Warsaw Concerto is a single-movement piano concerto written for the 1941 film, Dangerous Moonlight . It was written by British composer Richard Addinsell...
, composed for the 1941 film
Dangerous MoonlightDangerous Moonlight was a 1941 British film, starring Anton Walbrook, and best known for its score written by Richard Addinsell with orchestrations by Roy Douglas, which includes the Warsaw Concerto...
(also known under the later title
Suicide Squadron).
Addinsell was taught at home. After studying at
Hertford College, OxfordHertford College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is located in Catte Street, directly opposite the main entrance of the original Bodleian Library. As of 2006, the college had a financial endowment of £52m....
, he made incomplete attempts at studying Law, and then Music (at the
Royal College of MusicThe Royal College of Music is a conservatoire located in the South Kensington district of London, England.-Background:The Royal College of Music's building, designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield, is situated on Prince Consort Road in the district of South Kensington, next to Imperial College, directly...
, spending time in Berlin and Vienna).
Richard Stewart Addinsell (13 January 1904 – 14 November 1977) was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
composer, best known for film music, primarily his
Warsaw ConcertoThe Warsaw Concerto is a single-movement piano concerto written for the 1941 film, Dangerous Moonlight . It was written by British composer Richard Addinsell...
, composed for the 1941 film
Dangerous MoonlightDangerous Moonlight was a 1941 British film, starring Anton Walbrook, and best known for its score written by Richard Addinsell with orchestrations by Roy Douglas, which includes the Warsaw Concerto...
(also known under the later title
Suicide Squadron).
Life
Addinsell was taught at home. After studying at
Hertford College, OxfordHertford College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is located in Catte Street, directly opposite the main entrance of the original Bodleian Library. As of 2006, the college had a financial endowment of £52m....
, he made incomplete attempts at studying Law, and then Music (at the
Royal College of MusicThe Royal College of Music is a conservatoire located in the South Kensington district of London, England.-Background:The Royal College of Music's building, designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield, is situated on Prince Consort Road in the district of South Kensington, next to Imperial College, directly...
, spending time in Berlin and Vienna). However, both were abandoned without him obtaining formal qualifications. His style is very much of the "English
Light musicLight music is a generic term applied to a mainly British musical style of "light" orchestral music, which originated in the 19th century and had its heyday during the early to mid part of the 20th century, although arguably lasts to the present day....
" style.
In 1932, with
Clemence DaneClemence Dane was the pseudonym of Winifred Ashton , an English novelist and playwright.-Life and career:...
, he wrote the
incidental musicIncidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack."...
for the Broadway adaptation of
Alice in Wonderland by
Eva Le GallienneEva Le Gallienne was a well-known actress, producer, and director, during the first half of the 20th century.-Early life and early career:...
, starring
Josephine HutchinsonJosephine Hutchinson was an American actress.She was born in Seattle, Washington. Her mother was the actress Leona Roberts, who is best known for her role as Mrs Meade in Gone with the Wind. Through her mother's connections, Hutchinson made her film debut at the age of thirteen in The Little...
(produced 1933). In 1947 it was revived, starring Bambi Linn.
Addinsell was known for his Christmas parties and was part of a social circle that included many British show business and Royal celebrities of the 1930s and '40s. He collaborated from 1942 with
Joyce GrenfellJoyce Irene Grenfell, OBE was an English actress, comedienne and singer-songwriter.-Early life:...
, for her West End revues (including
Tuppence Coloured and
Penny Plain) and her one-woman shows.
The
Warsaw ConcertoThe Warsaw Concerto is a single-movement piano concerto written for the 1941 film, Dangerous Moonlight . It was written by British composer Richard Addinsell...
was written for the 1941 film
Dangerous MoonlightDangerous Moonlight was a 1941 British film, starring Anton Walbrook, and best known for its score written by Richard Addinsell with orchestrations by Roy Douglas, which includes the Warsaw Concerto...
, and continues to be a popular concert and recording piece. The film-makers wanted something in the style of
Sergei RachmaninoffSergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. He was one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, the last great representative of Russian late Romanticism in classical music...
, but were unable to persuade Rachmaninoff himself to write a piece.
Roy DouglasRoy Douglas is a British composer and arranger.-Biography:He was born Richard Roy Douglas in Tunbridge Wells. He started to play the piano when he was five, and at ten he was composing little piano pieces...
orchestrated the concerto. It 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 TelevisionSouthern Television was the first ITV broadcasting licence holder for the south and south-east of England from 30 August 1958 until 1 January 1982. It also used the name Southern Independent Television, on-air, from 1964 until its demise...
company in south of England from 1958 to 1981.
Addinsell retired from public life in the 1960s, gradually becoming estranged from his close friends. He was for many years the companion of the fashion designer
Victor StiebelVictor Frank Stiebel was a South African-born British couturier.Born at Durban he arrived in Britain in 1924 to study at Cambridge. Having designed for theatre wardrobe at university, he opened his own fashion house in Brunton Street in 1932...
, who died a year before Addinsell in 1976.
As was common with film music until the 1950s, many of Addinsell's scores were destroyed by the studios as it was assumed there would be no further interest in them. However recordings of his film music have been issued since his death, reconstructed by musicologist and composer
Philip LanePhilip Lane is an English composer and musicologist.Lane read music at Birmingham University. Whilst at University he developed a deep interest in Lord Berners, about whom he wrote a thesis and ultimately became a trustee of the Berners Estate, overseeing the completion of all Berners’ music on to...
from the soundtracks of the films themselves.
Film Credits
- The Amateur Gentleman (1936)
- Fire Over England
Fire Over England is a 1937 London Film Productions film drama, notable for providing the first pairing of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. It was directed by William K. Howard and written by Clemence Dane from a novel by A. E. W...
(1937)
- Goodbye Mr. Chips
Goodbye, Mr. Chips is a British film based on the novel of the same name by James Hilton. It was directed by Sam Wood, and starred Robert Donat, Greer Garson, Terry Kilburn, John Mills and Paul Henreid. The screenplay was adapted from the novel by R. C...
(1939)
- Gaslight
Gaslight is a 1940 film based on Patrick Hamilton's play Gas Light . It was released in the United States under the title Angel Street so that audiences would not confuse it with MGM's 1944 version starring Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman, though both had essentially the same plot...
(1940)
- Dangerous Moonlight
Dangerous Moonlight was a 1941 British film, starring Anton Walbrook, and best known for its score written by Richard Addinsell with orchestrations by Roy Douglas, which includes the Warsaw Concerto...
(1941; containing the Warsaw ConcertoThe Warsaw Concerto is a single-movement piano concerto written for the 1941 film, Dangerous Moonlight . It was written by British composer Richard Addinsell...
)
- Blithe Spirit
Blithe Spirit is a British fantasy comedy film directed by David Lean. The screenplay by Lean, Anthony Havelock-Allan, Ronald Neame, and Noël Coward is based on Coward's 1941 play of the same name...
(1945)
- Scrooge
Scrooge , released as A Christmas Carol in the U.S., is one of the best-known film adaptations of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. It starred Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge and was directed by Brian Desmond Hurst, with a screenplay by Noel Langley.The film also features Kathleen Harrison in...
(1951)
- Tom Brown's Schooldays
The Thomas Hughes novel Tom Brown's Schooldays has been adapted to film several times:*Tom Brown's School Days *Tom Brown's Schooldays *Tom Brown's Schooldays *Tom Brown's Schooldays...
(1951)
- The Prince and the Showgirl
The Prince and the Showgirl is a 1957 film produced at Pinewood Studios starring Marilyn Monroe and co-starring Laurence Olivier who also directed and produced it. The film was released on 13 June 1957....
(1957)
- A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities is a 1958 film of the Charles Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities. It starred Dirk Bogarde and Dorothy Tutin, and was directed by Ralph Thomas....
(1958)
- Beau Brummell
Beau Brummell is a historical film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed by Curtis Bernhardt and produced by Sam Zimbalist from a screenplay by Karl Tunberg, based on the play, Beau Brummell, by Clyde Fitch...
(1955)
- The Waltz of the Toreadors
The Waltz of the Toreadors is a play by Jean Anouilh.Written in 1952, the farcical comedy is set in 1910 France and centres on General Leon Saint-Pé and his infatuation with Ghislaine, a woman with whom he danced nearly two decades earlier. Because of the general's commitment to his marriage, the...
(1962)
External links