Ivor Slaney

Last updated

Composer Ivor Slaney.jpg

Ivor Ernst Slaney (born 27 May 1921 in West Bromwich, d. 20 March 1998, Southampton) was a British composer and conductor, notable for his work in film, television and radio. [1]

Contents

Slaney's father Ernst Wallace Slaney was the principal 'cellist in the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra in the 1920s and 1930s under Sir Dan Godfrey. His mother was Grace Elizabeth Arney (b 22 April 1893, died July 1988). She married Ernst in Bristol in 1920. As a youngster Ivor joined the choir of St Stephen's Church, Bournemouth where he was also taught by Percy Whitlock, the church's Director of Music and a colleague of Ernst Slaney at the Bournemouth Pavilion. According to Whitlock's diary, Ivor was known as 'Tiny'.

In 1935, aged 14, Ivor entered the Royal Artillery in Woolwich and gained a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, where he studied oboe with Léon Goossens and made friends with Malcolm Arnold. [2] During the war he joined up as a musician in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, and afterwards worked for a time as an orchestral player with the London Philharmonic, the Covent Garden Opera House Orchestra and the Boyd Neel Orchestra. He married pianist Mary D Ludlow (known by her stage name Dolores Ventura) in 1948, divorcing her in 1969 and remarrying in 1974. [3]

In later life Ivor Slaney lived in Milford on Sea, Hampshire. Ivor Slaney's son, Adrian E Slaney, was born in 1950. A daughter was born in 1979.

Composition and arrangements

Slaney was the uncredited arranger for many recordings by the 101 Strings in the early 1960s, and was a prolific contributor to the recorded music libraries, particularly DeWolfe. [2] His best-known works include Top Dog, which was used as the theme music for the BBC radio comedy series The Men from the Ministry and Carlos' Theme (from The Sentimental Agent ) for which he won an Ivor Novello award. [3] But there are also numerous short orchestral light music pieces, such as the suite Three Village Greens, the Sighing Waltz" and Window Gazing. [4]

He also wrote the music for several Hammer Films, including 36 Hours (1953), The Gambler and the Lady (1953), Spaceways (1953), and The House Across the Lake (1954), as well as the scores to The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It (1977), Prey (1977), Terror (1978), and Death Ship (1980).

Slaney arranged 'Non Stop', the theme tune for Independent Television News by John Malcolm, used from 1955 to 1982. He was also composer and musical director for the British Children's Film Foundation cinema movie series The Magnificent Six and 1/2 from 1968–69, as well as the TV series Here Come the Double Deckers (1970–71) which followed it. He also composed the theme to the "Harry Worth" TV show which showed the famous "window routine". Some of his Dramatic Impacts were featured in The Simpsons , The Ren and Stimpy Show , Bill Nye the Science Guy , SpongeBob SquarePants , Beavis and Butt-head , and Camp Lazlo .

Related Research Articles

Ronald Binge was a British composer and arranger of light music. He arranged many of Mantovani's most famous pieces before composing his own music, which included Elizabethan Serenade and "Sailing By".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ron Goodwin</span> English composer and conductor

Ronald Alfred Goodwin was an English composer and conductor known for his film music. He scored over 70 films in a career lasting over fifty years. His most famous works included Where Eagles Dare, Battle of Britain, 633 Squadron, Margaret Rutherford's Miss Marple films, and Frenzy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Dudley</span> British classical and popular composer

Anne Jennifer Dudley is a British composer, keyboardist, conductor and pop musician. She was the first BBC Concert Orchestra's Composer in Association in 2001. She has worked in the classical and pop genres, as a film composer, and was one of the core members of the synth-pop band Art of Noise. In 1998, Dudley won an Oscar for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score for The Full Monty. In addition to over twenty other film scores, in 2012 she served as music producer for the film version of Les Misérables, also acting as arranger and composing some new additional music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malcolm Arnold</span> English composer (1921–2006)

Sir Malcolm Henry Arnold was an English composer. His works feature music in many genres, including a cycle of nine symphonies, numerous concertos, concert works, chamber music, choral music and music for brass band and wind band. His style is tonal and rejoices in lively rhythms, brilliant orchestration, and an unabashed tunefulness. He wrote extensively for the theatre, with five ballets specially commissioned by the Royal Ballet, as well as two operas and a musical. He also produced scores for more than a hundred films, among these The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he won an Oscar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Kamen</span> American composer (1948–2003)

Michael Arnold Kamen was an American composer, orchestral arranger, orchestral conductor, songwriter, record producer and musician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Arnold</span> British film composer

David Arnold is an English film composer whose credits include scoring five James Bond films, as well as Stargate (1994), Independence Day (1996), Godzilla (1998) and the television series Little Britain and Sherlock. For Independence Day, he received a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture or for Television, and for Sherlock, he and co-composer Michael Price won a Creative Arts Emmy for the score of "His Last Vow", the final episode in the third series. Arnold scored the BBC / Amazon Prime series Good Omens (2019) adapted by Neil Gaiman from his book Good Omens, written with Terry Pratchett. Arnold is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric Coates</span> English composer (1886–1957)

Eric Francis Harrison Coates was an English composer of light music and, early in his career, a leading violist.

Robert Joseph FarnonCM was a Canadian-born composer, conductor, musical arranger and trumpet player. As well as being a composer of original works, he was commissioned by film and television producers for theme and incidental music. In later life he composed a number of more serious orchestral works, including three symphonies, and was recognised with four Ivor Novello awards and the Order of Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Addison</span> English composer

John Mervyn Addison was a British composer best known for his film scores.

Joseph Horovitz was an Austrian-born British composer and conductor best known for his 1970 pop cantata Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo, which achieved widespread popularity in schools. Horovitz also composed music for television, including the theme music for the Thames Television series Rumpole of the Bailey, and was a prolific composer of ballet, orchestral, brass band, wind band and chamber music. He considered his fifth string quartet (1969) to be his best work.

John Valmore Pearson was a British composer, orchestra leader and pianist. He led the Top of the Pops orchestra for sixteen years, wrote a catalogue of library music, and had many of his pieces used as the theme music to television series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Light music</span> British musical style of "light" orchestral music

Light music is a less-serious form of Western classical music, which originated in the 18th and 19th centuries and continues today. Its heyday was in the mid‑20th century. The style is through-composed, usually shorter orchestral pieces and suites designed to appeal to a wider context and audience than more sophisticated forms such as the concerto, the symphony and the opera.

Laurence Reginald Ward Johnson was an English composer and bandleader who wrote scores for dozens of film and television series, described as "one of the most highly regarded arrangers of big-band swing and pop music" in England. Much of Johnson's music was written for the KPM music library, for which he composed and conducted between 1960 and 1965.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Harvey (composer)</span> British composer and musician

Richard Allen Harvey is an English composer and musician. Originally of the mediaevalist progressive rock group Gryphon, he is best known now for his film and television soundtracks. He is also known for his guitar concerto Concerto Antico, which was composed for the guitarist John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra.

Gavin Sutherland is a conductor, composer/arranger, pianist and musicologist. He is currently Principal Guest Conductor for English National Ballet.

De Wolfe Limited is a British music production company, recognised as the originator of what has become known as library music. De Wolfe Music was established by Meyer de Wolfe in 1909 and began its recorded library in 1927 with the advent of 'Talkies'.

Sea Songs is an arrangement of three British sea-songs by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. It is based on the songs "Princess Royal", "Admiral Benbow" and "Portsmouth". The work is a march of roughly four minutes duration. It follows a ternary structure, with opening material based on "Princess Royal" and "Admiral Benbow", with "Portsmouth" forming the central section before a return to the opening material featuring the first two songs.

Philip Green, sometimes credited as Harry Philip Green or Phil Green, was a British film and television composer and conductor, and also a pianist and accordion player. He made his name in the 1930s playing in and conducting dance bands, performed with leading classical musicians, scored up to 150 films, wrote radio and television theme tunes and library music, and finally turned to church music at the end of his life in Ireland, a song from which period proved so popular that it reached No 3 in the Irish charts in 1973.

Jan Stoeckart was a Dutch composer, conductor, trombonist and former radio producer, who often worked under various pseudonyms such as Willy Faust, Peter Milray, Julius Steffaro and Jack Trombey. In the UK he is best known for his composition Eye Level, the theme tune to the ITV series Van der Valk, which was a number one on the UK singles chart in 1973. He also composed "Homeward Bound", a theme from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975).

Reginald Longueville Tilsley was a British composer, arranger, and conductor born at Croydon. He was a prolific composer of library music, whose work has been featured in various films and television programmes.

References

  1. "Ivor Slaney". BFI. Archived from the original on 22 July 2012.
  2. 1 2 Biography, Naxos Records
  3. 1 2 'Ivor Slaney', biography at Movie Music International, 15 February 2015
  4. Philip. L Scowcroft. British Light Music (1997), p. 158