Frederick George Charrosin, who died in 1976, composed fairly prolifically – mainly orchestral miniatures, single movements rather than suites, many of them suitable for the shelves of the publishers’ recorded music libraries (Paxton, Boosey and, again, Bosworth were the publishers most favoured by him). They included Fireside Gypsies, Foreboding, Playbox (an intermezzo), Trickery (a caprice), the pasodoble Don Carlos, Busy Business, Keep Moving, Stealth, Hiker’s Highway, Scaramouche, Dive Bomber (an indication he was active during the Second War, in which he suffered the loss of a son killed in action), Mysterious March, Festival in Seville and two pieces for piano (or xylophone – and as such very popular at the time – or piccolo) with orchestra, Snowflakes and the waltz, Zita. It was, however, his colourful arrangements that were most in demand for orchestras performing on the "wireless", especially in the post Second War period. I well remember the frequency with which his name cropped up in the orchestral programmes listed in the "Radio Times", as the arranger both of popular classics (one popular example, of dozens, maybe hundreds, was of Brahms’ Hungarian Dances) and as the compiler of medleys like Juvenalia (a nursery rhyme selection), Anglia, an "English fantasia", Fantasie Slave, The Land of the Shamrock and Fantasie on Themes of Liszt. The many light orchestras of that rich era owed him a great deal.
© Philip Scowcroft
This profile first appeared in ‘Journal Into Melody’ September 2007
Frank Chacksfield is still remembered by many music lovers and record collectors for his numerous albums and appearances on radio and television during the era following the second world war.
FROM RUMANIA TO ENGLAND: The Musical Career of FRANCIS CHAGRIN (1905-1972)
By Philip L Scowcroft
Chagrin was born Alexander Paucker in Bucharest on 15 November 1905 and initially trained (in Switzerland) as an engineer, changing course to a musical career, despite family opposition, in the 1930s. He studied first in Paris (with Nadia Boulanger and Paul Dukas ofSorcerer’s Apprentice fame) while earning money playing the piano in night clubs and composing light music, and then in London with Matyas Seiber. He settled here in 1936 and married an English girl, by whom he had two sons. He died on 10 November 1972.
It was the sound of bustling Piccadilly Circus at the heart of Thirties’ London. Motor cars honked their horns, music played, and the voice of a flower-seller could be heard repeating her familiar street cry: "Violets, luvly sweet violets!" followed by a newsboy calling "In Town Tonight! In Town Tonight!" Then, above all the noise, a policeman’s voice suddenly shouted "Stop!", and, as if by magic, the traffic was brought to an immediate standstill. After a short pause, having captured everybody’s attention, the voice of authority continued: "Once again we silence the mighty roar of London’s traffic to bring to the microphone some of the interesting people who are In Town Tonight!"
CENTENARY MAN : A MEMOIR OF SAMUEL COLERIDGE-TAYLOR (1875-1912)
By Philip L Scowcroft
As I write in December 2012, it is still a hundred years since the death of Samuel Coleridge- Taylor, a composer of talent who, although he composed a Symphony, a Violin Concerto, a Ballade in A Minor, premiered at the Three Choirs Festival having been given the imprimatur of approval by Edward Elgar, no less, chamber music (a Nonet, a Clarinet Quintet and a String Quartet), mostly dating from his student days at the Royal College of Music where he studied with Stanford, and several cantatas. Of the latter we do not now hear Meg Blane, Kubla Khan and A Tale of Old Japan but for a long period choral societies in the North of England remained faithful to the trilogy, The Song of Hiawatha and during May 2013 the Doncaster Choral Society is to revive its most famous "third", (actually its first third), Hiawatha's Wedding Feast. However his memory is primarily kept green by performances of works which we can regard as diverse examples of light music, of which more in a moment.
"I can certainly subscribe to the suggestion that the marked degree of modesty shown by Frederic Curzon in respect of his own abilities and musicianship amounted to almost diffidence. Perhaps an innocence of the true value of one's abilities and skills, in any field of creative art, is an essential ingredient in the production of excellence".
Picture the scene outside London’s Winter Garden theatre in 1931. On one side of the stage door is a 17-year-old shy youth who has just bought a day-return rail ticket from Neath in South Wales, clutching a song he has specially written for the star of the show. Barring his way is a burly door-keeper who is determined to keep him out. A voice from within enquires what all the commotion is about.
Trevor Duncan (real name Leonard Charles Trebilco) was born in Camberwell, London, England, on 27th February 1924. I visited him at his Somerset home in April 1994 to discuss these new recordings of some of his best works, and he explained to me that his skills as a composer were almost totally self-taught.
Almost everybody has enjoyed the music of Vivian Ellis who created more than 60 English stage musicals and was behind many of the popular songs which thrilled listeners before and after the last war. Close your eyes and think back to the exciting tune that introduced the BBC Radio "Paul Temple" murder mysteries.
Joseph, born Josef, Engleman was a pianist. He was perhaps not quite the equal of his son, Harry, born in 1912, who was regarded by many as a successor to Billy Mayerl as a syncopated pianist-cum-composer (Harry’s compositions, on the Mayerl model, included Cannon off the Cushion, 1938, Snakes and Ladders, 1939, Chase the Ace, 1936, Skittles – he seems to have been keen on games titles, rather as Mayerl was on flower titles – plus Finger Prints, 1936, and Summer Rain, 1952, Harry also composed songs, notably Melody of Love, also arranged as a piano solo and, since then, for other instrumental combinations, and orchestral items including the twostep The Thoroughbred. Both Harry and Joseph had their own orchestras and bands in the Midlands. Harry was a dance band leader who often broadcast with his own Quintet and with the Aston Hippodrome Orchestra.
