"Sailing By" is a short piece of light music composed by Ronald Binge in 1963, which is used before the late Shipping Forecast on BBC Radio 4. A slow waltz, the piece uses a repetitive ABCAB structure and a distinctive rising and falling woodwind arpeggio.
"Sailing By" is played every night on BBC Radio 4 at around 00:45hrs before the late Shipping Forecast. Its tune is repetitive, assisting in its role of serving as a signal for sailors tuning in to be able to easily identify the radio station. It also functions as a buffer: depending on when the final programme before closedown finishes, "Sailing By" (or part of it) is played as a "filler" as the forecast starts at 00:48hrs precisely.
In the 1990s the tune was also adopted for the weekly maritime programme Seascapes on Ireland's RTÉ Radio 1, ceasing at the end of 2009. [1] It has since been reinstated.
Besides its intended function, "Sailing By" is thought of affectionately by many British radio listeners, as it is considered a soothing accompaniment to bedtime. The lead singer of the Britpop band Pulp, Jarvis Cocker, chose "Sailing By" as one of his Desert Island Discs , saying for many years he had used it "as an aid to restful sleep". [2] [3]
A version was released in 1965 by John Scott and his Orchestra on the Parlophone label (R 5333). The BBC issued it as a single in 1973 on its own BBC Records label, played by the John Fox Orchestra. [4]
The piece appeared on a single recorded by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia in a quest to save the "Radio 4 UK Theme". In 1993 there was a similar reaction by BBC listeners when "Sailing By" was temporarily taken off the air on weekday schedules, leading to it being re-instated in 1995. [5]
The recording used by the BBC, performed by the Alan Perry/William Gardner Orchestra, was originally only available as library music, but has since 1997 been available commercially as track 11 on the second disc of the EMI CD set titled The Great British Experience (EMI Classics CDGB50). [6] It is also available as track 8 on the CD Elizabethan Serenade: The Best of British Light Music, produced by Naxos and performed by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. The unexplained crediting of the BBC recording to the "Perry Gardner Orchestra", suggesting the existence of a conductor or arranger by that name, is apt to be confusing; indeed, "Alan Perry" and "William Gardner" are pseudonyms for composers Ernest Tomlinson and Peter Hope. The BBC broadcast the original stereo version for a few weeks in the late 1980s, but soon reverted to a mono version.
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".
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasting House, London. Since 2019, the station controller has been Mohit Bakaya. He replaced Gwyneth Williams, who had been the station controller since 2010.
The Shipping Forecast is a BBC Radio broadcast of weather reports and forecasts for the seas around the British Isles. It is produced by the Met Office and broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. The forecast dates back over 150 years. There are currently two or three broadcasts per day, at 00:48, 05:20, and 17:54 UK local time.
Leif Ove Andsnes is a Norwegian pianist and chamber musician. Andsnes has made several recordings for Virgin and EMI. In 2012, Andsnes signed with Sony Classical, and recorded for the label the "Beethoven Journey" project, which included the five piano concertos with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. The works were recorded over three years, beginning with Nos. 1 and 3 in 2012, followed by Nos. 2 and 4 in 2013 and the Fifth Piano Concerto and Choral Fantasy in 2014. He is represented by IMG.
Dame Olga Maria Elisabeth Friederike Schwarzkopf, was a German-born Austro-British lyric soprano. She was among the foremost singers of lieder, and is renowned for her performances of Viennese operetta, as well as the operas of Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss. After retiring from the stage, she was a voice teacher internationally. She is considered one of the greatest sopranos of the 20th century.
PM, sometimes referred to as the PM programme to avoid ambiguity, is BBC Radio 4's long-running early evening news and current affairs programme. It is currently presented by Evan Davis and produced by BBC News.
Natalie Clein is a British classical cellist. Her mother is a professional violinist. Her sister is the actress Louisa Clein.
The BBC Radio 4 UK Theme is an orchestral arrangement of traditional British and Irish airs compiled by Fritz Spiegl and arranged by Manfred Arlan. It was played every morning on BBC Radio 4 between 23 November 1978 and 23 April 2006.
Debbie Wiseman, OBE is a British composer for film, television and the concert hall, known also as a conductor and a radio and television presenter.
Ralph Vaughan Williams composed his Symphony in E minor, published as Symphony No. 6, in 1944–47, during and immediately after World War II and revised in 1950. Dedicated to Michael Mullinar, it was first performed, in its original version, by Sir Adrian Boult and the BBC Symphony Orchestra on 21 April 1948. Within a year it had received some 100 performances, including the U.S. premiere by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Serge Koussevitzky on 7 August 1948. Leopold Stokowski gave the first New York performances the following January with the New York Philharmonic and immediately recorded it, declaring that "this is music that will take its place with the greatest creations of the masters." However, Vaughan Williams, very nervous about this symphony, threatened several times to tear up the draft. At the same time, his programme note for the first performance took a defiantly flippant tone.
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.
Alison Louise Balsom, Lady Mendes, is an English trumpet soloist, arranger, producer, and music educator. Balsom was awarded Artist of the Year at the 2013 Gramophone Awards and has won three Classic BRIT Awards and three German Echo Awards, and was a soloist at the BBC Last Night of the Proms in 2009. She was the artistic director of the 2019 Cheltenham Music Festival.
Cockaigne (In London Town), Op. 40, also known as the Cockaigne Overture, is a concert overture for full orchestra written by the British composer Edward Elgar in 1900–1901.
Seascapes is a weekly 30-minute Irish radio programme covering maritime matters broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 on Fridays at 22:30 and formerly presented by the award-winning presenter Tom MacSweeney. The programme deals with all subjects of maritime interest, from leisure to commercial shipping, as well as fishing and the environment, and is known for encouraging listeners' involvement.
"Méditation" is a symphonic intermezzo from the opera Thaïs by French composer Jules Massenet. The piece is written for solo violin, orchestra and backstage chorus. The opera premiered at the Opéra Garnier in Paris on March 16, 1894.
By the Sleepy Lagoon is a light-orchestral valse serenade by British composer Eric Coates, written in 1930. In 1940 American songwriter Jack Lawrence added lyrics with Coates' approval; the resulting song, "Sleepy Lagoon", became a popular-music standard of the 1940s.
John Wilson is a British conductor, arranger and musicologist, who conducts orchestras and operas, as well as big band jazz. He is the artistic director of Sinfonia of London.
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.
Bells Across the Meadows is a piece of light classical music by Albert Ketèlbey. It was published in 1921 for both orchestra and piano, and first recorded by the composer a year later. Ketèlbey called the piece a "characteristic intermezzo". In 2003 it was selected in the final poll by the BBC radio programme Your Hundred Best Tunes and voted the 36th most popular classical tune of all time.
A timeline of notable events relating to BBC Radio 4, a British national radio station which began broadcasting in September 1967.
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