Biography
Born in Toronto in 1917 to a musical family, Robert Joseph Farnon rose to prominence as a composer of light classical and mood music, positioned alongside figures such as Eric Coates, David Rose, and Percy Faith, while also securing substantial success in film scoring from the 1940s onward. At nineteen he joined the Canadian Broadcasting Company Orchestra in Toronto as an arranger under Percy Faith’s direction, later assuming leadership of the ensemble when Faith relocated to the United States. Although arrangements brought him considerable recognition, his chief ambition at that stage remained serious composition; at twenty-two he completed a first symphony that received its premiere from the Toronto Symphony in 1941 and subsequent performances by the Philadelphia Orchestra, with a second symphony following the next year and likewise heard in Canada. During World War II service with the Canadian army, an assignment as bandleader brought him to England, where exposure to the light classical output of Charles Williams and Eric Coates proved revelatory: their music combined internal complexity with an absence of undue profundity, proving inventive and expressive without pretension. This approach supplied the model for his subsequent career, naturally extending into film composition. After the war Farnon settled in England, where his mood-music contributions for Chappell Music achieved wide circulation through intended broadcasts and entered the active repertory of numerous pops orchestras worldwide. His first screen assignment arrived in 1948 with the Herbert Wilcox upper-class romantic comedy Spring in Park Lane and extended to its sequel Maytime in Mayfair. In 1951 he scored the major international production Captain Horatio Hornblower, drawn from C.S. Forrester’s Napoleonic-era naval hero and starring Gregory Peck in a British Warner Bros. film directed by Raoul Walsh; the picture enjoyed global success, remains frequently revived on television, and stands as Farnon’s best-known and virtually magnum-opus screen work. Later assignments included Gentlemen Marry Brunettes and the screen version of The Little Hut, with somewhat higher-profile 1960s projects encompassing The Truth About Spring starring Hayley Mills and the all-star western adventure Shalako. Farnon maintained a leading position in his field across five decades; his popular instrumental works comprise “How Beautiful Is Night,” “Journey into Melody,” “Pictures in the Fire,” “Westminster Waltz,” and “A Promise of Spring,” valued equally for melodic appeal and deceptively complex internal structures. A reserved, self-effacing figure without the self-promotional flair demonstrated by rivals Percy Faith or David Rose, he preferred to work quietly and let his output speak for itself. In 1992 Reference Recordings released a disc of Farnon conducting his own concert pieces together with a suite drawn from the Captain Horatio Hornblower score.
Albums
