The light orchestral music performed covers the entire range from Palm Court, ballroom and cafe music; to shows, radio, TV and film music; the Viennese and ballet repertoire, and popular classics and opera.
Histories
Your 100 Best Tunes History
The radio programme ‘Your 100 Best Tunes’ ran for 44 years, starting in 1959. Alan Keith devised and presented the programme for most of this time, as he sought to offer generally light and undemanding classical pieces. Alan Keith chose the original 100 pieces himself, but in subsequent years, listeners periodically voted the pieces on.…
The Palm Court Story
In 1952-53 and 1953-54, the violinist, Tom Jenkins, won the Daily Mail National Radio Award for Most Popular Musical Entertainer. The award was based on a poll conducted in depth across a wide section of the listening public, covering both radio and television entertainers. With an estimated fifteen million listeners in the 1950’s, it was…
New Year Viennese Concert History
One of the most famous concerts in the world, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s New Year’s Day Concert from the fabulous Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikvierein dates back to 1939. This was the first and only time the concert was not held on New Year’s Day but on December 31st of that year. Clemens Krauss conducted…
Music While You Work Story
In 1939, due to the outbreak of war, the BBC reduced its hours of broadcasting, and used its own musical resources on its new ‘National’ service’. By 1940 this became known as the ‘Home Service’ until after the war when it became known as the ‘Light Service’ as the then ‘Home Service’ was mostly entertainment,…
Housewives Choice Story
This popular programme on the BBC’s Light Programme ran from 1946 to 1967. As a part of the post-war movement to encourage everyone in the home and at work, it offered a wide range of music to appeal to housewives at home during the day. It had little competition and therefore, through its appeal had…
Family Favourites History
As successor to the popular wartime wireless show ‘Forces Favourites’, ‘Family Favourites’ ( ‘Two-way Family Favourites’ in later years) was broadcast on Sunday lunchtimes on the BBC Light Programme, BBC Radio 2 and British Forces Broadcasting Service until 1980. It was a request programme designed to link families at home in the UK with British…