The Campaign For Real Music
Intelligent Music for Grown-Ups

It’s hard to summarise the incredible contribution that Robert Farnon has made to music. Many consider him to be the greatest composer of light orchestral music to have ever lived, and it is difficult to argue against this conclusion.  In a career which spanned over six decades, he penned and arranged some of the most beautiful music ever created.

We have therefore decided to defer to the experts, and a fantastic profile of Robert Farnon appears on our full review page, a link to which appears at the foot of this post.  This was written by David Ades, secretary of the Robert Farnon Society and one of Radiocafe’s music legends. If you delve into Robert’s profile, you’ll see quite how much Farnon has contributed to music over the years.

If you are yet to experience the wonderful music which comes under the title ‘Light Music’, then we urge you to delve into some of the fabulous Robert Farnon CDs, many of which are available at very affordable prices.  Our few snippets here will serve to give you just the very smallest taster of the magical sound; if you put aside any prejudices, you will hear such music for what it is: delightful, melodic, hand-crafted masterpieces.

We mention musical prejudices, as for some reason there seem to be plenty against this kind of music.  For many years, light orchestral music was the mainstay of British Radio; wonderful light orchestras and the music of Farnon could be heard from the days of the BBC Light Programme, and then during the Seventies and Eighties on BBC Radio 2, until 1990 when management changes deemed such music unfashionable. You can read more about this is in Radiocafe’s profile of the BBC Radio Orchestra.

But great music has nothing to do with fashion.  When have Mozart and Beethoven ever been declared unfashionable?  While much of the music is over 50 years old, it completely deserves its place in musical heritage alongside the greats of classical music. 

We cannot understand how this kind of music is completely overlooked by those who control radio in the UK.  Until recently, an hour of light music was all the entire BBC network offered, with a paltry 55 minutes on Radio 3; now, they have decided that we do not even deserve that.

We believe that lovers of good music are too intelligent to be swayed by fashions or trends, and music as good as this will survive nonetheless.  But the decision of the BBC does cause one to wonder about what the motivations are.  How a master of his craft, who used to feature so extensively on many Radio 2 shows, and who is regarded as one of the finest musicians ever to have lived, can be treated by the BBC in such a manner is, quite frankly, despicable.

BBC local radio provides a few glimmers of hope, with a few Farnon items appearing every so often; the excellent David Jacobs also manages to fit a few Farnon items into his Collection every now and then.  But beyond that, you’ll probably have to resort to American commercial internet radio.

But if you have found this site, then we are confident you are the kind of person who will give this music the chance that its deserve, irrespective of the fact that a vast musical heritage is being overlooked.  If you feel the same way as we do, please join our Campaign and have your say by leaving a comment here.

>> CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL RADIOCAFE PROFILE OF THIS ARTIST 

(4 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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