Great tv theme tunes

[eighthobstruction]

....Perry Mason....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT4wkkkaFTc

[johnb]

Sorry to lower the tone of the discussion but I do like the theme tune to Midsommer Murders - slightly eerie and foreboding but with an ironic chuckle.

[LMcD]

I remember the late 50s/early 60s as a fantastic time for genuinely stirring TV themes that seemed to announce the adult world of urgent modernity and progress waiting out there after enduring the mundane regimentations of school. This was Francis Chagrin's theme for The Four Just Men: Rawsthorne crossed with Copland. You don't find harmonic sophistication to match this in today's retrostyled movie themes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtRs-h5Z1uY

Goodness me - I'd completely forgotten about that series!
Another theme which I remember now was 'Somewhere In The Night', written by Billy Mays, which opened every episode of 'Naked City'.

[Lordgeous]

I Claudius - Wilfred Josephs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71s_Y37_KYo

[LMcD]

I Claudius - Wilfred Josephs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71s_Y37_KYo

I agree (see #31)

[Edgy 2]

I Claudius - Wilfred Josephs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71s_Y37_KYo

Enemy at the Door (late 70s) - also Wilfred Josephs

https://youtu.be/gW2tovJPIMc

By coincidence I watched the film Cash On Demand today,recorded from Talking Pictures,music by the very same composer

[johnb]

By coincidence I watched the film Cash On Demand today,recorded from Talking Pictures,music by the very same composer

That reminds me, the other day I tuned to Talking Pictures and came upon a long extract from the start of Rheingold used in some version of Dracula - it was very effective but I kept expecting the Rhine Maidens to start singing. (I think the film might have been Werner Herzog’s “Nosferatu The Vampire”.)

[MickyD]

Then there was ITV's flagship current affairs programme, This Week, that used the Karelia Suite.

I heard that when I was just 4 years old and loved it so much my Dad wrote to Rediffusion TV to ask what it was. He bought me an EP of it and I owe my love of classical music to that!

[MickyD]

More Jim Parker, his delightful music to the outrageously camp first series of "Mapp and Lucia". Once I've heard it, I can never stop humming it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2JBGw1TTPU

[Lordgeous]

Some Mothers Do Have Em: Ronnie Hazlehurst Brilliantly simple and memorable - and cheap!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE3ZWFadjgs

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I recall that in the mid-1960s, Poulenc’s Les Biches (Rondeau) was used for BBC Look North.

[Serial_Apologist]

I recall that in the mid-1960s, Poulenc’s Les Biches (Rondeau) was used for BBC Look North.

It was also used for something broadcast down here, though I can't remember what.

[LMcD]

Animal Magic (Laurie Johnson's 'Las Vegas')

[Serial_Apologist]

Animal Magic (Laurie Johnson's 'Las Vegas')

Should have stuck to jazz, that Laurie Johnson - would have made a far better living out of that.

[LMcD]

Should have stuck to jazz, that Laurie Johnson - would have made a far better living out of that.

I'd forgotten that the 'Animal Magic' theme tune was also used for 'W1A'.