Light Music

From the earliest days music was considered essential to accompany silent films. The arrival of talking pictures merely transferred the music inside the cinema to the soundtrack, and a new generation of talented composers and arrangers emerged to fulfil the specialised requirements of the movie industry. Light music has usually been the preferred choice of producers and directors, and by the 1940s it is true to say that this genre had developed into its own art form. As well as writing new material closely allied to the action on screen, composers were often asked to make fresh arrangements of well-known melodies - especially in film musicals. The result has been that a vast amount of recorded material now exists, and it has the power to engender fond recognition of its origins many decades later. Also there are instances where the music has survived better than the film itself, as some of the fine examples in this collection will testify.

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