‘Sweet & Dainty’ is one of
the shortest little numbers on the first Marco Polo retrospective CD of music
by the 91 year old light music composer Ernest Tomlinson (b.1924). He has
written that this piece of ‘mood music’ was ‘designed for Pride and Prejudice
type plays.’ The liner notes record that the music was used in an advert for
Palmolive soap and featured as a signature tune for a TV series about fishing. I
have been unable to find out what the TV programme was but would be grateful to
hear from readers. In conclusion the composer suggested that the work satisfied
‘requirements of Jane Austen, personal hygiene and angling at one and the same
time.’
‘Sweet and Dainty’ is exactly
like the title suggests. It is really the same theme repeated over and again with
a little variation. What makes the piece so attractive is the neat orchestration
that delicately changes as it re-presents the melody. Oboe and strings come to
the fore with twittering flutes and pizzicato cellos and basses. I guess that
it would be deemed a little tame for Jane Austen these days, but I think that
the listener well get the idea.
Alas, there is no indication when
this delightful little piece was composed, though it is likely to have been in
the 1950s. It is clearly ‘library music’ that would have been used as and when
the radio, film or TV producer required this particular ‘refined’ mood.
‘Sweet and Dainty’ is available
on Marco
Polo 8.223413. Other works on this CD include his attractive Silverthorn
Suite, the English Serenade and 2nd Suite of English Folk dances. A large proportion of this piece can be heard
on the Amazon download site.
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