Jack Beaver: Yacht Race

Travelling through the Solent during Cowes week, the traveller may see yachts racing during one of the United Kingdom’s oldest and most prestigious sailing events, dating back to 1826. Held annually in early August, it attracts elite sailors and enthusiasts worldwide. According to Wiki there are some forty daily sailing races, around five hundred boats, and 2500 competitors ranging from Olympic and world-class professionals to weekend sailors. Yacht Race celebrates this event and others like it in this evocative work.

Jack Beaver (1900–1963) was a British composer known for his prolific work in film music and contribution to “light music.” He studied at the Royal Academy of Music and later contributed to numerous film scores, often uncredited, during the 1930s and 1940s. His compositions include music for The 39 Steps (1935) and The Case of the Frightened Lady (1940), where he pioneered the "Denham Concerto" style. Beaver wrote much library music, with pieces like Holiday Camp March, Mannequin, and Cavalcade of Youth gaining recognition.

Yacht Race, is a brisk, nautical-themed orchestral piece composed for the Chappell Recorded Music Library. It captures the exhilarating energy of sailing. Characterized by its lively rhythms and tempo as well as a bright orchestration, the piece conveys movement and excitement, fitting its title perfectly. Sometimes described as “light, bright, and breezy,” it is included in compilations of light orchestral music and has featured in films and television, where its upbeat style complements scenes of racing, adventure, and outdoor activity. It remains a recognisable example of Beaver’s ability to craft evocative music that enhances visual storytelling. Its cinematic energy made it a popular choice for mid-century newsreels and documentaries, capturing motion and momentum with vivid musical flair which evokes the thrill of competitive sailing and the grandeur of open waters.

Jack Beaver’s Yacht Race can be heard on YouTube, here. It does not state who is performing it but may be the Queen's Hall Light Orchestra under Charles Williams. It would appear to be a part of the Chappell Music Library Collection.

Jack Beaver: Portrait of Isla (1940)

Jack Beaver’s Portrait of Isla is one of several so-called ‘Denham Concertos’ which were named after Frank Korda’s studio where many films were made. Other better-known examples include Richard Addinsell’s Warsaw Concerto, Miklós Rózsa’s Spellbound Concerto and Hubert Bath’s Cornish Rhapsody. All were composed as part of a film score. These pieces were part of a trend in which films would feature a short concerto, giving the impression of a serious classical composition, while being accessible and appealing to a wide audience. They remain popular to this day, both in occasional concert performances and recordings.

The 1940 film The Case of the Frightened Lady is a crime drama based on a play written by the British author Edgar Wallace. The storyline is centred on the Lebanon family who live at Mark’s Priory. Lady Lebanon is insistent that her son, the schizophrenic and psychopathic William, must marry his cousin Isla Crane, to continue the family line. However, William does not wish to marry her, and she falls in love with an architect, Richard Ferriby, who is working on the restoration of the Priory. Enter two suspicious footmen and the family doctor to add to the suspense of this murder mystery. Lord Lebanon, in his less disturbed moments plays the piano and composes music, in this case for Isla.

The film stars Marius Goring, as Lord Lebanon and Helen Haye as his mother. Isla is played by Penelope Dudley Ward. There are shorter roles for Felix Aylmer and Ronald Shiner. In the film, Goring plays the piano part, as he was a competent pianist.

Portrait of Isla is noticeably short mini concerto written in ternary form. The outer sections tend towards the sinister, with the middle segment being highly charged, but quite delicious, romantic music. The work concludes with an overblown coda.

Jack Beaver was born on 27 March 1900 at Clapham. After study at the Metropolitan Academy of Music, he completed his formation at the Royal Academy of Music, under the tutelage of Frederick Corder. Other film scores included The Thirty-Nine Steps, Flying Fortress and his final film score, the children’s adventure set in Gibraltar, The Clue of the Missing Ape. In the latter part of his career, Beaver provided music for the various recorded music libraries. His best-known piece is Cavalcade for Youth, which was used as the signature tune for radio show The Barlows of Beddington. Another important composition was his Sovereign Heritage written for the 1954 Brass Band Championships. Jack Beaver died in Battersea, on 10 September 1963.

John Huntley, in his British Film Music (Skelton Robinson, 1947) wrote that Portrait of Isla was the first example of the “first tabloid piano concerto” or “pseudo-concerto” which was written in a style that would be copied by Addinsell, Bath, and many others. The effect was to add a “layer of sophistication and emotional depth to the film’s narrative.”

Listen to Philip Fowke and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra under the baton of Proinnsias O'Duinn on YouTube, here.

Jack Beaver: Holiday Camp March

When I was a youngster, I always wanted to go for my summer holidays to Butlin’s Heads of Ayr Holiday Camp on the ‘sunshine’ west coast of Scotland. It was never to be, although I did get a day’s visit there.  The camp was built during the Second World War and became a shore training establishment, HMS Scotia for the duration. After decommissioning, it opened to holiday makers in 1946 and survived until 1987 when it was renamed Wonderwest World. Ten years later it closed before reopening as Craig Tara ‘under new management.’

What appealed to me most was the ‘Olympic sized’ outdoor swimming pool with the magnificent fountain, the miniature railway and the amusement park. Added to this, Billy Butlin had acquired a British Railways steam locomotive, The Duchess of Sutherland, No. 6233. It had been built in 1938 by London, Midland and Scottish Railway. It remained at the camp between 1965 and 1971. Fortunately, it has been restored to full working order and regularly runs on rail tours.

Jack Beaver (1900-63) was a London-born composer. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music. During the 1930s and 1940s he was involved with Louis Levy’s team of film composers producing scores for Gaumont British as the resident composer. To his credit was the pre-war blockbuster Alfred Hitchcock film, The Thirty-Nine Steps starring Robert Donut and Madeleine Carroll, also featuring John Laurie (Private Frazer, Dad’s Army and Miles Malleson).  Beaver received no credit in the film titles for his score.

The ‘Holiday Camp March' dates back to the early post-war days of the holiday camps. I am not sure which one he had in mind: Ayr, Clacton, Pwllheli, Minehead, Filey, Bognor etc. Or did he imagine his work in a Pontin’s camp instead of Butlins?

The music is a perfect foil for the excitement and fun of a holiday, even if the events and amusements still had something of wartime organisation about them.  As the liner notes point out, the march epitomises the time when most British holidaymakers had ‘yet to discover the delights of foreign package holidays.’  

Jack Beaver’s Holiday Camp March can be heard on The Golden Age of Light Music: Bright Lights (GLCD 5212) It was recorded in the late 1940s by the New Century Orchestra conducted by Sidney Torch.

Jack Beaver: News Theatre

I can just recall seeing newsreels in the cinema – in my day they were an ‘extra’ beside the big film and the ‘B’ movie. I am not sure that I ever went into a dedicated News Theatre although there is a dim memory which suggests that I was taken to one in Glasgow. I could be wrong. They were overtaken by television and then of course, many years later the Internet. Whenever I see an extract from Pathé News on the television, supporting some documentary, I am always impressed. They were quite definitely an art form in their own right.

There was a news theatre at Piccadilly, and the building is still extant – it is used as a night club. However it does not take much imagination to mentally travel back in time to an age when people would have popped in to catch up with the day's or week's events. In my mind's eye I can see the old taxis, with the luggage strapped to the driver’s cab; I can glimpse the Routemaster buses making their way through areas now pedestrianised. I can visualise all the hustle and bustle, the newspaper vendors and the policeman on his beat. Glamorous ladies arriving for a show or an important date at the Ritz…

And that is the mood that Jack Beaver’s evocative piece conjures up for the listener. It was composed for one of the music libraries which were run by a number of London music publishers. It was music that could be used in a film, or a television programme or a radio presentation. Yet this piece, surely better than most, captures the very spirit of what the title suggests. There is a buzz about this music from the very first bar to the last. It is an epitome of ‘London’ light music and musically describes a scene that is well known- at least in the imagination.

Of course we cannot know what news features Beaver had in mind when he named the piece. But it was nothing too heavy; I guess it was not concerned with wars or rumours of wars, but more likely with Wimbledon or Goodwood – or perhaps a Royal progress to some far flung part of the Commonwealth.

It is sad that there is virtually no mention of this fine work in the musical literature (at least that I can find) nor does the Internet help – I managed only four hits on Google. And there is only one recording of this piece presently available –and that is the Queen’s Hall Orchestra conducted by Sidney Torch. It is not clear when it was recorded.

Jack Beaver: Cavalcade of Youth

I recently wrote in these pages about Percy Whitlock’s Dignity & Impudence March for Orchestra. I suggested that if it were as well known as Elgar’s Pomp & Circumstance offerings it would be as highly regarded. The same sentiment applies the little known, but well respected composer Jack Beaver and his Cavalcade of Youth.
Beaver (1900-1963) is perhaps best known as a ‘backroom boy’ in the world of music: he worked for the BBC and the Gaumont -British Film Company where he provided the scores for dozens of films, radio and TV programmes. Perhaps his most famous film score is that for The Thirty Nine Steps.

The Cavalcade of Youth was first heard in a 1950’s radio play called 'The Barlows of Beddington.' It became an instant hit. Rob Barnett at MusicWeb suggests that Beaver “leans on Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 and Capriccio Italien for Cavalcade of Youth and then pulls off a nice dignified trio melody.” My similitude would be William Walton. All the elements are here –the opening fanfares, the jaunty march and the impressive, moving and finally triumphant trio tune. Perhaps it lacks the dissonant ‘bite’ of Walton -but it certainly has the power and the interest. The only downside is that the music, which was written in 1950, does not really seem to relate to the present iPod and Gamesbox generation of youth!

Cavalcade of Youth on Hyperion