Today's theme from Saturday is from 1969 and from Delia Derbyshire, the woman at the heart of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Delia's Theme is a little under one and a half minutes of Delia, a vintage synth and some oscillators. It was originally released on an album called Standard Music Library, sound effects and short pieces of music for radio and tv. If you ever see a copy in a charity shop, snap it up for me please.
Delia is much better known for this theme, a groundbreaking piece of tv music, built round that famous two note bassline with tons of reverb and some whooshing siren noises. Despite being very well known and instantly recognisable it's still a startling piece of music.
4 comments:
What an incredible talent Delia Derbyshire was. Delia's Theme would be an equally startling backdrop to a Doctor Who episode.
Did you see Arena 'Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and Legendary Tapes' a little while back when it was aired on BBC Four (written by and featuring Caroline Catz)? I really enjoyed it, and finding out a bit more about her and her work. (Just checked and it's still available on iPlayer for a few weeks if you didn't see it.)
Legend - for women in music, for pioneer of electronic sound, for perseverance under undeniable pressure...That is the best descriptor for Delia Darbyshire.
One of last years most important album releases, in my opinion, was Hanna Peel's Fir Wave - a work based on, encorporating and paying homage to Darbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. If you listen to some of Darbyshire's work and then follow it with the current work of Peel, you can't help but hear expressed, the lineage between their work.
Thanks C- meant to watch that and didn't get round to it. Will do so now you've remidned me.
Agree Echorich about Hannah Peel, only just caught up with some of that recently. Need to dig in further.
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