Robert Farnon

Robert Farnon as a composer of light classical and "mood music," is a rival to figure such as Eric Coates, David Rose, and Percy Faith. He has also been notably successful in the field of film music since the 1940's. Robert Joseph Farnon was born into a musical family in Toronto, Canada in 1917. He showed a natural aptitude as a musician, and at age 19 was already being employed as an arranger with the Canadian Broadcasting Company Orchestra in Toronto, under the direction of Percy Faith. Farnon succeeded Faith as director of the orchestra when Faith departed Canada for America. Farnon's main interest at the time lay in writing serious music, despite the fact that he enjoyed great success with his arrangements. At age 22, he composed his first symphony, which was performed by the Toronto Symphony in 1941, and later by the Philadelphia Orchestra. A second symphony followed a year later, and it, too, received performances in Canada, but Farnon discovered that he had little personal affinity for writing works of that depth and dimension, talented though he might have been. It was during his service with the Canadian army during World War II, when he was assigned as a band leader and sent to England, that Farnon discovered the light classical music of composers such as Charles Williams and Eric Coates. This was something of a revelation to him--their brand of music was internally complex while not overly profound, inventive and expressive without being pretentious. Their work became something of the model upon which he chose to build his career as a composer, and that brand of light classical music led naturally, in turn, to film composition. Farnon made his career in England after the war, writing mood music for Chappell Music, a task at which he was...