Jingles on Radio 4? Surely not. Well, yes. At least twice to
my knowledge.
According to David Hendy's Life On Air in 1968 station controller Gerard Mansell oversaw the
introduction of "musical jingles during some awkward gaps between
programmes and during the run up to bulletins". I've no idea who composed
them and I've never heard any recordings of these mystery jingles. Do any
copies exist I wonder?
The next set were introduced in late 1977, and I know this
for a fact as I recorded them. Arranged by Fritz Spiegl they were a series a
short instrumental tracks plus a full two and a half minute theme inspired by Dances from Terpsichore composed by 17th century German composer Michael Praetorius.
As far as I'm aware these 'jingles' were in use in late 1977 and most of 1978 and
the full Praetorius Dance Tune was used to open up the network. This replaced
the Spiegl arranged Skipping Tune,
first used in 1973, and in turn was replaced in November 1978 by what would
eventually be called the UK Theme. This corrects the impression I gave in a 2011 blog post which suggested that the UK
Theme replaced the Skipping Tune.
Here's a selection of those jingles plus the full theme used
to start the day on Radio 4. They conjure up an image of a dance at the
Elizabethan court. Welcome to Ye Olde Radio 4 perhaps.
Hendy goes on to mention that "a limited number of
Radio 4 jingles are also introduced" in 1978 at the same time as the
November wavelength changes, only to be dropped the following year. Now I've
been racking my brain about this. Did they use variations on the UK Theme? If
they did I don't think I recorded any. Can you offer any assistance here?
2 comments:
the link to the jingles does not work :(
Just checked today Keith and it seems OK. Direct link is http://randomradio.net/audio/BBC%20R4%20Jingles.mp3
Post a Comment