Chandos finally salutes a great British composer who was far more prolific than most of his admirers realise

The Film Music of CLIFTON PARKER

Chandos CHAN 10279 featuring music from Treasure Island, Western Approaches, The Sword and the Rose, Sea of Sand, The Blue Lagoon, Night of the Demon, Virgin Island – a Caribbean Rhapsody, Sink the Bismarck and Blue Pullman. BBC Concert Orchestra Conducted by Rumon Gamba

The excellent CD booklet notes by James Marshall give us some welcome biographical details of this slightly elusive composer, whose work seems to have been largely ignored by many reference books. He was born Edward John Clifton Parker on 5 February 1905 in London, the third and youngest son of bank manager Theophilus Parker.

The three boys were encouraged by their father to go into commerce, but Edward (who later dropped his first two names) studied music privately and composed his first recognised work Romance for violin and piano when aged sixteen. This was published, and led to Clifton Parker obtaining an ARCM diploma in piano teaching at the Royal Academy of Music in 1926. A little later, he abandoned his career in commerce, and became a music copyist.

By the mid-1930s he was achieving success with some of his classical pieces, and managed to get his work accepted for broadcasts on the BBC. He came to the attention of Muir Mathieson, one of the music pioneers of the British film industry. Like so many fellow composers at the time, his early contributions went uncredited (including the 1942 Noel Coward film "In Which We Serve"), but in 1944 his name finally attracted attention following his superb score for "Western Approaches". Muir Mathieson recorded the film’s main theme Seascape on a Decca 12" 78 (now reissued on Guild GLCD5109), and Stanley Black later conducted it in stereo.

In the world of Light Music, Clifton Parker’s Overture – The Glass Slipper has long been a favourite, although it was many years before it became available on a commercial recording. Originally it was performed by Charles Williams and the Queen’s Hall Light Orchestra for the Chappell Recorded Music Library in 1945, and this is also on a recent Guild CD – GLCD5107.

RFS member Alan Willmott has assisted with the production of this new Chandos CD, and he was at the recording sessions in Walthamstow Town Hall last March. It is due to Alan’s influence that the final track is a suite from the British Transport Films 1960 production "Blue Pullman" – probably the finest of Parker’s scores for BTF documentaries. Some of these famous shorts have already appeared on video, and there are plans for further releases on DVD in the near future. As well as providing a fascinating glimpse of an era that now seems so distant, these films benefited from specially commissioned scores from leading composers of the day.

It is to be hoped that this new CD will stimulate fresh interest in the music of Clifton Parker, leading to more recordings of his compositions and film scores. He also composed over 100 songs, and wrote for a number of theatrical productions, so there must be a wealth of ‘undiscovered’ material available. Sadly his last years were spoilt by ill health, and he died on 2 September 1989 aged 84. David Ades