[78-L] Cinema and Theatre Orchestras - was OT Musical genres^

[Alan Bunting]

> AFAIK, NO theatres had "house bands" to provide the musical 
> accompaniment to their film offerings...?!  Steven C. Barr
>   

> Of course that is not true.  While most of the time it was necessary to 
> have the music provided by a single human because it was ad-lib, by the 
> mid-teens some of the major movies came with a written musical score, 
> and these were played by bands and full orchestras in the larger 
> theaters.  

> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com 

As Mike says, "not true". In Britain there were many fine cinema and theatre orchestras and, to bring the subject back to 78s, there are two CDs (with a third due out next month) in Guild's "Golden Age Of Light Music" series which feature many of them from the 1920s,  30s and 40s.

These CDs were originally intended to include orchestras from around the world but we discovered that recordings of such orchestras appeared to be a British phenomenon. Apart from some pre-electric recordings by the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra and a single 10" from the Paris Gaumont Cinema Orchestra we failed to find anything (recordings by ballet and opera company orchestras don't count!) 

However, fine British orchestras such as The Plaza Cinema Orchestra, The Regal Cinema Orchestra, The London Palladium Orchestra, The Paramount Theatre Orchestra and The Commodore Grand Orchestra, plus many others, made more than enough recordings to ensure that there may well be a fourth CD in due course.

Incidentally, the Palladium Orchestra recorded over 150 sides and The Commodore Orchestra came a close second. 

Another interesting aspect of our research was that all of the orchestras which made recordings were from London theatres and cinemas with the exception of The Coventry Hippodrome Orchestra although many provincial theatre orchestras made broadcasts for the BBC. 

Doubtless the great minds on 78-L will soon prove that our research was incomplete so any information (and, if possible copies) of any recordings made by non-British orchestras would be of great interest.

Complete listings of the tracks on the two already issued Guild CDs may be found here:

http://www.pelstream.co.uk/abcd_1.htm

Alan Bunting