“Effortlessly at ease on all sides of the cultural divide, Herbert Chappell, who has died aged 85, was a musician, composer, conductor and filmmaker who carved out a rich career writing music for film and TV,” writes Kenneth Shenton in Wednesday’s (11/20) Independent (U.K.). “As head of the Decca record label’s audio visual department, Chappell was the driving force behind the Three Tenors event during the 1990 Fifa World Cup in Italy, when Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras were persuaded to gather in the Baths of Caracalla, Rome, for a performance televised live to 56 countries and an estimated 800 million viewers…. His career break had come in the early Sixties when he was recruited by Huw Wheldon to contribute to a newly established BBC2…. His many film and television scores—more than 200 in total—included The Shadow of the Tower [and] music for The Pallisers…. His pop cantata The Daniel Jazz (1963), a setting of words by Vachel Lindsay that he once described as ‘hotting up the Bible,’ spawned a raft of imitators…. Seamlessly uniting the many diverse elements in his technique is his Antiguan-inspired, richly coloured Caribbean Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra.”
Posted November 21, 2019
