Synopsis
The life of British composer James Bernard reads like a PBS mini-series: as a schoolboy, he meets Benjamin Britten, who encourages his interest in music; during WWII he joins the R.A.F., works with the team breaking the German Enigma code, and takes occasional breaks from this top-secret work to turn pages for Britten at London recitals during the Blitz; after postwar study at the Royal College of Music, he starts writing music for radio and stage plays.
Then by chance another composer booked to score a British science-fiction movie falls ill, and Bernard is asked to step in. The film The Quatermass Xperiment, was released on today’s date in 1955, proved a hit, and was even shown in the U.S., retitled The Creeping Unknown.
The Creeping Unknown would become James Bernard’s bread and butter, since the Hammer Film studio, who made The Quatermass Xperiment, kept Bernard on to score their horror films starring Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as Baron Frankenstein. Unlike most film composers, Bernard orchestrated his own work, and helped establish the “Hammer sound,” lushly romantic or frantically hair-raising as needed. After his death in 2001, a biography was titled James Bernard – Composer to Count Dracula.
Music Played in Today's Program
James Bernard (1925-2001): Opening Credits and Dracula’s Blood, from Taste the Blood of Dracula; Studio orchestra; Philip Martell, conductor; GDI GRICD-010
On This Day
Births
1887 - Nicaraguan composer Luis Delgadillio, in Managua
1915 - British composer Humphrey Searle, in Oxford
Deaths
1958 - British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, 85, in London
Premieres
1815 - Weber: Clarinet Quintet, in Munich, featuring clarinetist Heinrich Bärmann
1846 - Mendelssohn: oratorio Elijah, at Birmingham Festival in England, with composer conducting
1954 - Alan Rawsthorne: Practical Cats (after T.S. Eliot), for speaker and orchestra, at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland
1956 - Martinu: Frescoes of Piero della Francesca, for orchestra, at the Salzburg Festival in Austria
1957 - Panufnik: Rhapsody for orchestra, in London
2001 - André Previn: Tango, Song and Dance, at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland, with violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and pianist Lambert Orkis
Others
1717 - French flutist and composer Jacques-Martin Hotteterre is appointed royal flutist (“flutte de la chamber de Roy”) at a salary of 6000 livres
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About Composers Datebook®
Host John Birge presents a daily snapshot of composers past and present, with timely information, intriguing musical events and appropriate, accessible music related to each.
He has been hosting, producing and performing classical music for more than 25 years. Since 1997, he has been hosting on Minnesota Public Radio's Classical Music Service. He played French horn for the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestra and performed with them on their centennial tour of Europe in 1995. He was trained at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Eastman School of Music and Interlochen Arts Academy.