ABSTRACT
In the twenty-two years between 1947 and 1969 in addition to all of his concert works, Malcolm Arnold wrote the scores for 115 films, approximately 55 hours of music, a truly staggering figure. These varied from brief documentaries or educational shorts, on topics such as mining or steel production, to full-scale epics covering every genre from love stories and comedies to horror films and war dramas. Arnold’s entry into the film world came about almost by accident when John Hollingsworth attended the first performance of Arnold’s Larch Trees in 1943 and was so impressed that he promised to find Arnold some film work. Arnold was enormously popular with orchestras because of his efficiency in directing the sessions, where the music was usually sight-read through once and then recorded in two or three takes. Arnold’s exuberant conducting style was often the cause of comment for critics, the Musical Times saying ‘Arnold conducts like a frantic windmill’.
