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Track(s) taken from CDA67400

Marching Strings

composer
1952; signature tune for Top of the form
composer
1952; signature tune for Top of the form

New London Orchestra, Ronald Corp (conductor)
Recording details: April 2002
St Jude-on-the-Hill, Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Julian Millard
Release date: September 2002
Total duration: 2 minutes 45 seconds

Cover artwork: Green Park. Robert Buhler (1916-1989)
Royal Academy of Arts, London
 

Reviews

‘Ronald Corp has few rivals in conveying one prerequisite element of this repertoire—charm’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘Respectfully and meticulously played … this impeccably produced program—like its three predecessors—remains a precedent-setting endeavour that is sure to elicit grateful appreciation from many quarters’ (Fanfare, USA)

‘The playing struck me as even finer than in the past and the sound … first class, as before’ (Hi-Fi News)

‘The playing is exuberant, the recording ripe’ (The Evening Standard)

‘This fourth compilation, in Hyperion’s hugely successful British light music is another winner … some eighty minutes of sheer delight’ (MusicWeb International)

‘Infectious stuff, delivered with corresponding relish’ (Yorkshire Post)

«Le travail entrepris par Corp et Hyperion est remarquable, sans concession à la qualité instrumentale ou sonore» (Répertoire, France)
Ray Martin (1918–1988) was born in Vienna where he studied violin and composition at the Academy of Music and Fine Arts before moving to England in 1937. After performing in variety as a solo violin act, he enlisted in the British Army when war broke out. Being fluent in French, German and English, he was recruited for Army intelligence, and later he became a composer, arranger and musical director with the British Forces Network in Hamburg. This led to recording contracts, for which he continued to compose under a variety of names. It was as ‘Marshall Ross’ that he composed Marching Strings (1952), a piece that became widely familiar when adopted as signature tune for the hugely popular BBC radio and television programme Top of the Form. Later Martin retired to South Africa.

from notes by Andrew Lamb © 2002

Other albums featuring this work

British Light Music Classics
CDS44261/44CDs Boxed set (at a special price) — Download only
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