Light music is orchestral music, which originated in the 19th century and continues until the present day. The style is a less "serious" form of Western classical music, featuring usually shorter orchestral pieces of mood music or concert music. Light music is often grouped with 'Easy Listening". On our stations playlist you will hear a mix of instrumental light music and excerpts from traditional forms of music. (beautifulmusic.uk, beautifulinstrumentals.com and classicalmusic.network)
the music
Before Late Romantic orchestral trends of length and scope separated the trajectory of lighter orchestral works from the Western Classical canon, classical composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or Joseph Haydn won as much fame for writing lighter pieces such as Eine Kleine Nachtmusik as for their symphonies and operas. Later examples of early European light music include the operettas of composers such as Franz von Suppé or Sir Arthur Sullivan; the Continental salon and parlour music genres; and the waltzes and marches of Johann Strauss II and his family. The Straussian waltz became a common light music composition (note for example Charles Ancliffe's "Nights of Gladness" or Felix Godin's "Valse Septembre"). These influenced the foundation of a "lighter" tradition of classical music in the 19th and early 20th centuries...from the likes of Binge and Coates to Farnon.
Bayco best known for his Tudor pastiche "Elizabethan Masque". Born in London, he attended Brighton School of Music, where he attained an ARCO. He was later made a fellow of the Royal College of Organists (FRCO). Other pieces include "Lady Beautiful", and his marches "Royal Windsor" and "Marche Militaire".
Like many composers of the light music genre, he contributed a number of pieces to music libraries, and as a result his pieces "Inferno" and "Finger of Fear" have ended up being frequently used in programmes such as the Ren and Stimpy Show. Many of his KPM library compositions have a historical or martial feel, for example the mock-heroic "Joust" Other pieces appear to have unusual titles, for example "Bear in a Buggy".
WIKIPEDIAVIDEO: Frederic Bayco playing a "Spanish Medley" on the Compton Theatre Organ of the Dominion
Theatre Tottenham Court Road London. Mr. Bayco was principal organist for the Gaumont British Picture Corporation during the thirties and left the Dominion to open many of the company's Compton installations.
