A 195th GARLAND OF BRITISH LIGHT MUSIC COMPOSERS
We begin with brief mentions for two post Second War
figures: Peter Crantock, for his lovely orchestral Cockney
Capers; and Gerald Cockshott (1915-), who produced many arrangements
for voice(s) of traditional songs, British and other – his Dance
Suite for piano solo and the eleven movement orchestral Maddermarket
Suite are also more arrangements than original compositions.
Now for another sheaf of "singleton" musical
composers. H. Lytton Norman’s one show was Carmello; toured
in 1920-21. Ernest Steffan contributed songs to various musicals
around that same period. But the only show of his own, I Call It
Love, did not appear until 1944 and then it did not make the West
End. Rikki Logan is credited with two shows, Lady Isabel’s
Lover (1958) and Isabel (1963); both were based on the Victorian
novel East Lynne so we may assume them to be different versions
of the same basic musical. Ralph Blane and Moe Billington
collaborated on the score of a children’s musical of 1969 entitled Brer
Rabbit and Uncle Remus.
Finally, two composers of musicals who wrote the scores
of at least two musicals each, though without achieving much
distinction. Kenny Graham’s two were Three Musketeers?,
played at Margate in 1962, and Four Thousand Brass Halfpennies,
which had a run at the Mermaid Theatre in 1965. And John Dalby,
also a conductor, was responsible for The Rose and the Ring (Stratford
East, 1964-5) and The Magic Carpet, produced at Guildford’s Yvonne
Arnaud Theatre in 1968.
Philip L Scowcroft
June 2001
Philip's book 'British Light Music Composers' (ISBN 0903413 88 4) is
currently out of print.
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