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Sidney Torch
MBE Mbe may refer to:
* Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo
* Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria
* Mbe language, a language of Nigeria
* Mbe' language, language of Cameroon
* ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language
Molal ...
(born Sidney Torchinsky; 5 June 1908 – 16 July 1990) was a British
pianist
A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...
,
cinema organist,
conductor,
orchestral arranger and a
composer of
light music.
Early life
Torch was born of
Russian Jewish origin to a Ukrainian father, Morris Torchinsky, and an Estonian mother, Annie, at 27
Tottenham Court Road
Tottenham Court Road (occasionally abbreviated as TCR) is a major road in Central London, almost entirely within the London Borough of Camden.
The road runs from Euston Road in the north to St Giles Circus in the south; Tottenham Court Road t ...
in
St Pancras,
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
.
He learned the rudiments of music quickly from his father, an orchestral trombonist, who used to sit next to fellow trombonist
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst (born Gustavus Theodore von Holst; 21 September 1874 – 25 May 1934) was an English composer, arranger and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite ''The Planets'', he composed many other works across a range ...
in such places as the old
Holborn Empire
Weston's Music Hall was a music hall and theatre that opened on 16 November 1857 at 242-245 High Holborn in London, England. In 1906, the theatre became known as the Holborn Empire.
History
Early years
The theatre was constructed on the site of ...
.
Torch studied piano at the
Blackheath Conservatoire
The Conservatoire (formally The Blackheath Conservatoire of Music and the Arts) is an educational charity in Blackheath, on the border of the London boroughs of Greenwich and Lewisham. The Conservatoire of Music and the Arts took on its curren ...
in
south east London. His gift for memory came to his rescue when he entered an examination room and realised that he had left the compulsory music back at his home in
Maida Vale
Maida Vale ( ) is an affluent residential district consisting of the northern part of Paddington in West London, west of St John's Wood and south of Kilburn. It is also the name of its main road, on the continuous Edgware Road. Maida Vale is ...
. He thus had no choice but to play from memory; he passed with distinction.
Following his studies, his first professional job was as accompanist to the violinist Albert Sandler.
He worked as an
accompanist
Accompaniment is the musical part which provides the rhythmic and/or harmonic support for the melody or main themes of a song or instrumental piece. There are many different styles and types of accompaniment in different genres and styles of ...
before getting a job playing the
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...
with the Orchestra of the Regal Cinema,
Marble Arch
The Marble Arch is a 19th-century white marble-faced triumphal arch in London, England. The structure was designed by John Nash in 1827 to be the state entrance to the cour d'honneur of Buckingham Palace; it stood near the site of what is toda ...
,
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
.
When the cinema's
Christie Theatre Organ was installed in 1928, Torch became the Assistant Organist to the Chief Organist, Quentin Maclean. Torch took over as Chief Organist at the Cinema in 1932. Maclean had left in 1930 to become Chief Organist of the Trocadero Cinema,
Elephant and Castle
The Elephant and Castle is an area around a major road junction in London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark. The name also informally refers to much of Walworth and Newington, due to the proximity of the London Underground stati ...
and was followed at the Regal until 1932 by
Reginald Foort.
Torch's tenure at the Regal lasted until 1934.
[ His signature tune became "I've Got To Sing a Torch Song" (from the film '']Gold Diggers of 1933
''Gold Diggers of 1933'' is a pre-Code Warner Bros. musical film directed by Mervyn LeRoy with songs by Harry Warren (music) and Al Dubin (lyrics), staged and choreographed by Busby Berkeley. It stars Warren William, Joan Blondell, Aline M ...
''), which had his own special lyrics added.
Torch then played the organ in a number of London cinemas (amongst others, the Regal, Edmonton) and in 1937 he became the Chief Organist of the new Gaumont State Cinema
Gaumont State Cinema is a Grade II* listed Art Deco theatre located in Kilburn, a district in northwest London.
Building
Designed by George Coles and commissioned and built by Phillip and Sid Hyams, the cinema opened in 1937. The ''Gaumont St ...
, Kilburn. He continued to play the Wurlitzer
The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant (Franz) Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments ...
there up until 1940, when he was drafted into the RAF
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
and stationed near Blackpool. Torch would play and make recordings on the numerous cinema organs in the Blackpool area during his spare time. While in the RAF, he became the Conductor of the RAF Concert Orchestra, where he learned to arrange music and to conduct.
Light music career
Following the end of the Second World War, Torch concluded that the heyday of the cinema organ was over. He thus made a new career in light orchestral music as a composer, conductor and arranger. It has been suggested that his wife Elizabeth Tyson, whom he married in 1949, may have influenced this decision, as she reportedly did not like the organ.
Starting in 1946, Torch composed and conducted a number of instrumentals with the Queen's Hall Light Orchestra for the Chappell catalogue, using his own name and the pseudonym 'Denis Rycoth' (an anagram of Sidney Torch). He was enlisted by the publishers Francis, Day & Hunter to conduct the New Century Orchestra in 1947, when their library was established, remaining with them until 1949, when a Musicians' Union ban stopped all work of this kind in Britain.
Torch conducted many orchestras and bands, particularly those of the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
.
Torch was the man who created the
BBC Light Programme
The BBC Light Programme was a national radio station which broadcast chiefly mainstream light entertainment and light music from 1945 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 1. It opened on 29 July 1945, taking over the ...
show ''
Friday Night is Music Night'', which began in 1953,
and continues to be broadcast to this day (currently as 'Sunday Night is Music Night'). Torch also conducted the
BBC Concert Orchestra
The BBC Concert Orchestra is a British concert orchestra based in London, one of the British Broadcasting Corporation's five radio orchestras. With around fifty players, it is the only one of the five BBC orchestras which is not a full-scale sym ...
for nearly every ''Friday Night'' show until his retirement in 1972.
This came after a disagreement with the BBC: Torch snapped his baton in half at the end of his last concert.
Torch also composed many pieces for the BBC, particularly the theme tunes for
radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...
and
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
shows. The theme of the radio show ''
Much Binding In The Marsh
''Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh'' was a comedy show broadcast from 1944 to 1950 and 1951 to 1954 by BBC radio and in 1950–51 by Radio Luxembourg. It was written by and starred Richard Murdoch and Kenneth Horne as officers in a fictional RAF stati ...
'' is an example of this.
Torch also composed independently, mostly pieces of light music. The piece "On A Spring Note" is considered to be one of Torch's best works: it is still regularly played and recorded by modern cinema organists.
"Concerto Incognito" for piano and orchestra was written in the 1940s, in the style of
Richard Addinsell
Richard Stewart Addinsell (13 January 190414 November 1977) was an English composer, best known for film music, primarily his '' Warsaw Concerto'', composed for the 1941 film '' Dangerous Moonlight'' (also known under the later title ''Suicide S ...
's "
Warsaw Concerto
The ''Warsaw Concerto'' is a short work for piano and orchestra by Richard Addinsell, written for the 1941 British film '' Dangerous Moonlight'', which is about the Polish struggle against the 1939 invasion by Nazi Germany. In performance it norma ...
" and other "Denham Concertos" popular at the time in many British films. The three movement ''London Transport Suite'', depicting hansom cab, omnibus and steam train, was written for a BBC Light Music Festival commission in 1957. "The Trapeze Waltz" (1963) became the theme tune for a series of French-themed plays, ''Maupassant'', produced by
Granada Television.
Torch made a huge number of
recordings during his lifetime, some of them produced by
George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin (3 January 1926 – 8 March 2016) was an English record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, and musician. He was commonly referred to as the " Fifth Beatle" because of his extensive involvement in each of the ...
. Many of Torch's cinema organ recordings have been re-released on
CD and can, therefore, still be bought today. A recording of Torch's "Off Beat Moods Part 1" was chosen by
Stanley Kubrick as the theme for the fictitious BBC news programme "The World Tonight", seen aboard the spaceship Discovery in the film ''
2001: A Space Odyssey''.
Torch had a reputation as a disciplinarian, according to the singers and musicians he conducted. One such performer described the "crackle" which came from starched shirt cuffs on his swift downbeats. It has been said that singers dreaded "the glare of the Torch" if they did not live up to his expectations. Despite this, his private generosity was also recalled by musicians who were in need of temporary financial help. Torch insisted upon smart attire from his musicians: he always had an extra pair of black socks or gloves kept on standby if required. According to David Ades of the
Robert Farnon
Robert Joseph Farnon CM (24 July 191723 April 2005) was a Canadian-born composer, conductor, musical arranger and trumpet player. As well as being a composer of original works (often in the light music genre), he was commissioned by film and ...
Society, Torch's music "was also often entertaining to watch as well as hear"; his "London Transport Suite" and "Duel for Drummers" being "ideal examples requiring, as they do, such athletic participation from the percussion section."
His personality was described by some of his choral singers and instrumentalists as "tyrannical"; in a 1983 he admitted to having been "cruel" when working with others. However, he also felt that the end results could have been positive, with those on the receiving end having benefited from this treatment.
Personal life and death
In 1949, Torch married Eva Elizabeth Tyson (known as Elizabeth), a BBC producer. He retired from full-time conducting with the BBC in 1972 and was appointed an
MBE Mbe may refer to:
* Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo
* Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria
* Mbe language, a language of Nigeria
* Mbe' language, language of Cameroon
* ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language
Molal ...
in 1985.
He and his wife lived in a flat in
Eastbourne
Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. Eastbourne is immediately east of Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Great Britain and part of the la ...
,
Sussex, with a
grand piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...
which he reportedly never played. He appeared to lose interest in music, and gave his records away to friends.
Despite this, Torch and his wife were reportedly happy in retirement. She predeceased him, dying on 1 March 1990. Torch's health was worsening, and, according to one biographer, he became "increasingly depressed". On 16 July 1990, he took an overdose, "leaving warm, apologetic and explanatory notes to two good friends". One of these was his doctor, who was on holiday at the time. He died aged 82, with ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'' commenting in their obituary that "he leaves a legacy to treasure".
Bibliography
* Bierley, Paul E.; Rehrig, William H. ''The Heritage Encyclopedia of Band Music. Composers and their Music'', Integrity Press, 1991.
* Larkin, Colin. ''The Encyclopedia of Popular Music'', 5th edition, Macmillan, 1998,
* Rust, Brian; Forbes, Sandy. ''British Dance Bands on Record 1911 to 1945'', General Gramophone Publications, 1987,
* Upton, Stuart. ''Sidney Torch (1908-1990)'', Vintage Light Music, Winter, 1991.
Selected Discography
* ''Sidney Torch at the Theatre Organ 1932-39'', Doric compilation, 1973
* ''Music From Across The Sea'',
Coral
Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and ...
LP, 1955
* ''Sidney Torch Orchestral Works'',
Marco Polo, 1997, reissued as
Naxos
Naxos (; el, Νάξος, ) is a Greek island and the largest of the Cyclades. It was the centre of archaic Cycladic culture. The island is famous as a source of emery, a rock rich in corundum, which until modern times was one of the best ab ...
8.223443 in 2006 (original compositions)
* ''All Strings and Fancy Free: The Music of Sidney Torch and his Orchestra'', Living Era compilation, 2004
* ''Sidney Torch Historic Recordings'',
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...
compilation, 2009
References
External links
*
''On a Spring Note'', Queen's Hall Light Orchestra
{{DEFAULTSORT:Torch, Sidney
1908 births
1990 deaths
English classical composers
20th-century classical composers
Light music composers
English conductors (music)
British male conductors (music)
British music arrangers
English Jews
Jewish British musicians
Members of the Order of the British Empire
Theatre organists
Musicians from London
English people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent
English people of Estonian descent
20th-century British conductors (music)
20th-century English composers
English male classical composers
English music arrangers
20th-century organists
20th-century British male musicians
Drug-related suicides in England