Robert Farnon RIP ..

[SGUD missile]

  Bill Nelson said:

On comparing Riddle with Farnon --

The short answer is,"They're not even on the same level."

Not counting Sinatra, I've got 10 Riddle albums. And while they're enjoyable, bouncy, and swinging, NOT ONCE have I lifted the tonearm and place it back down to find the answer to,"How the hell did he do THAT?"

As I'm not a writer or player, I'll have to opt out of the technical explanations.

Phil might well respond with,"Sent you a PM."

As he said,"I've been intensely studying Bob (Farnon) for 40 years."

Actually, Bill answered the Riddle/ Farnon question just about as succinctly as I could have.

Riddle was a good commercial arranger ( and much better know over here than Farnon ), but the actual sublties of the harmonic voicings, interior melodic lines, and command of the orchestral pallette exceed Riddles by orders of magnitude.

Actually, for the overall style of things Riddle did, I far prefer Billy Mays entire body of work IMO ..

Farnon was also a great writer of melodies ..Riddle wrote "Route 66"

Farnon could write in MANY orchestral styles ..Riddle was a bit of a one trick pony ( again IMO )

I love the line : " How the hell did he do THAT? " ..except that for the fact that early on, I transferred Farnons stuff to tape for study purposes, and literally transcribed( as best as I could )a lot of sections by ear, that's what I meant by "intensely studying" his work.

other than Riddle, my choices for employing the more sophisticated Farnon-esque devices ( Along with the aforementioned Ogerman ) were listed several posts back

[JSngry]

  SGUD missile said:

Riddle was a good commercial arranger ( and much better know over here than Farnon ), but the actual sublties of the harmonic voicings, interior melodic lines, and command of the orchestral pallette exceed Riddles by orders of magnitude.

Well, it's those "subtleties" that I'm asking for help on. They must be so subtle that I'm missing a lot of them. Compared to Riddle's greatest work (as opposed to Riddle's "ordinary" work, which is admittedly most of it), what I've heard of Farnon certainly sounds masterful, to be sure, but lacking in that extra "creative insanity", so to speak, that I keep expecting to hear (and which I definitely hear quite often in Ogerman's work).

Which is why I was asking for technical specifics. I do speak the language, you know...

But it seems that none will be forthcoming. One guy's not equipped to do so, and the other doesn't seem to be disposed to do so. And if the preference is for Billy May over the Riddle of, say Only The Lonely, or Love, then what we might well have here is a matter of personal preference anyway, in which case, that's that.

Oh well, I'll keep digging on my own. Always learned more that way anyway, in the long run.

Thanks anyway.

[SGUD missile]

  JSngry said:

  SGUD missile said:

Riddle was a good commercial arranger ( and much better know over here than Farnon ), but the actual sublties of the harmonic voicings, interior melodic lines, and command of the orchestral pallette exceed Riddles by orders of magnitude.

Well, it's those "subtleties" that I'm asking for help on. They must be so subtle that I'm missing a lot of them. Compared to Riddle's greatest work (as opposed to Riddle's "ordinary" work, which is admittedly most of it), what I've heard of Farnon certainly sounds masterful, to be sure, but lacking in that extra "creative insanity", so to speak, that I keep expecting to hear (and which I definitely hear quite often in Ogerman's work).

Which is why I was asking for technical specifics. I do speak the language, you know...

But it seems that none will be forthcoming. One guy's not equipped to do so, and the other doesn't seem to be disposed to do so. And if the preference is for Billy May over the Riddle of, say Only The Lonely, or Love, then what we might well have here is a matter of personal preference anyway, in which case, that's that.

Oh well, I'll keep digging on my own. Always learned more that way anyway, in the long run.

Thanks anyway.

JS ..I thought I was offering some details when I said:

it's in the subtleties considerring the era ..not necessarily "creative insanity" on a large scale

"harmonic voicings, interior melodic lines, and command of the orchestral pallette "

1. Harmonic Voicings ..Farnon was the first one back in the late 40s to use the concept of bitonal chord voicings ala Ravel /DeBussy WAY before any of the American guys were doing it ..( most american guys of the period emulated the gushy David Rose style ( close voiced 4 part chords with doubled leads sstacked in three octaves ..) Farnon began using say , a C Chord in four parts in the violins above a Bb chord in the vlas and celli ..much leaner and more open sound.

2.interior melodic lines ..Farnon started using "linear writing " ( actual atonal or chromatic lines to coonect key chordal points ) before Gil Evans did

3. his woodwind obbligatos on ballads ( especially for flt and clarinet ) are more like Stravinsky or Poulenc very often.

As I said, it's "subtle stuff" and granted, it's buried in an era thats basically pretty gooey overall.

Comparing him to Ogerman is hard, because Claus came into prominence some 30 years later. ( sorta like comparing Mahler to Ravel )

I suggest you try to located some of Farnons 60s stuff ( Music of Frank Sinatra and Johnny Mathis albums i.e. ) and compare them to Riddles work with Linda Ronstadt.

His film scores compare quite favoribly with the best on the Hollywood guys on any era ..Raksin, Williams, Newman, Kaper, etc.

Is that more what you were after ??

[JSngry]

Absolutely, and it is appreciated. Thanks!

Although, comparing anything to Riddle's work with Linda Ronstadt is like using Willie Mays' career with the Mets as a baseline for comparisons with any other player. Hell, even Mario Mendoza looks halfway decent then!

[SGUD missile]

Heres some more BG on Farnon from the London Times:

>>Subject: Robert Farnon (London Times)

Robert Farnon

Prolific composer talented in both jazz and classical with a gift for

arranging orchestras in his head

London Times, April 27, 2005

Although he could have become a great figure in either jazz or the

classics, Robert Farnon became the world's greatest arranger and

composer of light orchestral music.

If his name was not immediately familiar to audiences across the

world, then his television theme music for "Panorama", "The

Prisoner", "The Secret Army" and "Colditz" were widely known, as were

his tunes "Jumping Bean", "A Star Is Born" and the "Westminster

Waltz". In the 1940s and 1950s, his scores for such movies

as "Captain Hornblower R.N." and "Maytime in Mayfair" were among his

most familiar pieces. He continued to work at the highest level for

more than half a century after that, winning his most recent Grammy

award with his instrumental arrangement of "Lament" for the

trombonist J. J. Johnson in 1995.

Once described by André Previn as "the greatest living writer for

strings", Farnon had the ability to create sumptuous orchestral

backdrops for singers and instrumental soloists alike. Yet he did not

need to work at the piano, having the rare ability to hear an entire

arrangement in his head. George Shearing recalled Farnon visiting him

at his Cotswold house before to making the 1993 album "How Beautiful

Is Night", and jotting down notes as they discussed the repertoire in

the living room. Then Farnon went back to his own home in Guernsey,

where he wrote out all the arrangements, sitting in his favourite

armchair. It was a skill Farnon had perfected as a trumpeter in Percy

Faith's CBC Orchestra in the early 40s. During his bars of rest, he

taught himself to shut out the sounds around him, in order to write

out completely new arrangements.

Robert Joseph Farnon was born in Toronto, where he played several

instruments, before settling on the trumpet and studying composition

with the expatriate Louis Waizman. As a teenager, Farnon became a

trumpeter in Faith's broadcasting orchestra in Toronto, where he

played and arranged for the "Happy Gang" show.

When jazz musicians such as Oscar Peterson or Dizzy Gillespie came to

town, Farnon would jam with them, and Gillespie in particular was

impressed with the Canadian's faultless knowledge of harmony,

nicknaming him "Beethoven". They resolved to work together while

Gillespie was still in Cab Calloway's Orchestra in 1941, but did not

manage to do so until many years later, first in an arrangement of

the folksong "Blow the Wind Southerly" in 1978, and finally in

Farnon's arrangement of "Con Alma" in 1989.

Farnon took over as conductor of Faith's band in 1940 and at the same

time he produced his first full-length classical compositions,

including two symphonies, the first of which was premiered in 1941 by

Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He might well have

continued in a classical vein had the war not intervened. He was

appointed conductor of the Canadian Band of the Allied Expeditionary

Forces, which sailed for London in September 1944. There he gave

concerts and broadcast alongside the American band of Glenn Miller

and his British counterpart George Melachrino. London became Farnon's

spiritual home, and he stayed on after the war, joining Geraldo's

Orchestra as an arranger, where his skills at transcribing the latest

American hits via a shortwave radio were particularly highly valued.

Before long he was fronting his own band, and supporting Britain's

major singing stars such as Gracie Fields, Donald Peers and Vera

Lynn, both on air and on disc. His arrangements combined a flawless

string-writing technique with the jazzy freshness of the New World,

and his output was prolific.

Often, when arranging, he adorned other composers' melodies with

dazzlingly original countermelodies of his own, weaving the end

product into a seamless whole that greatly enhanced the material he

had started with. He wrote for his own Decca recording orchestra, for

Chappell's music library of stock arrangements, and for the BBC.

His range of activities broadened ever further, as he composed and

arranged for the screen, ranging from full-scale Hollywood movies

such as "The Road to Hong Kong" with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, down

to domestic television series in the UK.

He settled in Guernsey during the 1960s, a decade when he conducted

and arranged Frank Sinatra's first London album, as well as working

with the jazz singers Sarah Vaughan and Tony Bennett.

Farnon's four Ivor Novello awards stretch from the 1950s to the

1990s, and his Grammys from the 1970s to the 1990s. He was awarded

the Order of Canada in 1998. His arranging has influenced composers

as different as Quincy Jones and John Williams, and thanks to the

diligent efforts of the Robert Farnon Society, the majority of his

most original recordings from the 1950s onwards have recently been

reissued on CD.

His wife and four children survive him.

_____

Robert Farnon, composer and arranger, was born on July 24, 1917. He

died on April 23, 2005, aged 87.

[Bill Nelson]

For those who'd like to hear a 19-minute interview with Bob Farnon, BBC Radio 3 did an interview with 'the Guv' two years ago. Thru 5/3, it'll be available on DJ Brian Kay's 'Light Programme' website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/bklp