BBC Radiophonic Workshop: A Retrospective [CD]

Okay I'll get it out of the way early. Without doubt the most famous piece of music to emanate from the BBC,s Radiophonic workshop is the theme tune to Dr Who ( I still have this on 7" vinyl )- a serious contender for the best TV theme tune ever written ( now there's a debate) .It still sounds brilliant to this day , quirky , slightly spooky and alien yet memorable and quite catchy . Its on here in it's original form ( the new Dr Who theme has been updated with portentous strings ). It is however only a smidgeon of the output from the revered workshop .
This is a chronologically ordered compilation covering the output of the workshop from 1958 to 1997 before some dunderhead at the BBC( John Birt in a move that meant every BBC department that couldn't cover its costs had to be axed. The workshop was given five years to break even but due to it's high running costs- it needed engineers as well as composers - failed) decided to terminate( or exterminate it to use a more apt parlance) it so they could pay Chris Moyle's his inflated salary or some other such buffoonery . The double-disc collection is produced by Mark Ayres, surely the world's leading authority on the Radiophonic Workshop, having been a BBC composer and eventual archivist for the now sadly defunct department.
The earlier material from the likes of Delia Derbyshire is truly startling , almost avant garde in it's scope and compositional wizardry . "Talk Out" from 1964 is an extraordinary perspicacious piece of rhythmic music that even today might raise an eyebrow or two. I was especially pleased at the inclusion of Desmond Briscoe's music for the superb "Quatermass And The Pit [1967]" which still sounds eerie sinister and insidiously extraterrestrial.
As the years wore on the workshop came to rely more on standard electronic equipment and lost a little of it's singular sonic inventiveness.. The particular resourcefulness that saw people like Delia Derbyshire and Daphne Oram manipulate tapes and record strange natural or environmental sounds is sacrificed for a more sober less ingenious approach Some of the later material is a little rote and one or two are truly awful but others like the theme From Demon Headmaster, The - Look Into My Eyes and the stuff from "Blake's 7 - Series 1 - Complete [1978] " "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy [1981] " and Salem's Lot" not to mention the abbreviated little soundcsapes from programmes such as "The BBC Natural World Collection" and The Living Planet [1983] " are truly evocative .Miniature aural nuggets of magic.
Back to Dr Who then. The sound of the Tardis de-materialising or indeed materialising ( included here) was made by Brian Hodgson running his keys along the rusty bass strings of a broken piano, with the recording slowed down to make an even lower sound. Genius. No surprise then to learn that George Martin ,another technical studio whiz assisted Maddalena Fagandini with "Time Beat" which is also included here.
How many artists have been influenced by the Work Of The Radiophonic workshop? ....Well I don't know ..who do you think I am? Yet I'm willing to bet my Friday lunchtime treat that a great many influential innovative artists around today owe something to the work of a collection of what were in effect boffins and producers.

This is a brilliant album, and long, long overdue. It showcases the work of the much-missed BBC Radiophonic Workshop between 1958 and 1997, including music from "The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy", Radio 4's "PM" news programme, "The Demon Headmaster", the BBC's Natural World programmes and many others. I was particularly pleased to see the inclusion of Peter Howell's "The Astronauts".

Most of the album is essentially a CD re-issue of two BBC Radiophonic Workshop LPs: "21" and "Soundhouse", released in 1979 and 1983, but also contains some gems that have never before been released.

Of course, the collection contains perhaps the workshop's most famous recording - the theme from Dr Who, and the Tardis sound effect.

Along with the two recent CD collections of music by John Baker, this is a much welcomed addition to the slowly growing collection of music by the workshop issued on CD. It's taken an unbelievably long time, but at last, the full scope of the Radiophonic Workshop's composers' work is gradually getting the recognition it so richly deserves.

Sadly, as the progress in technology marched on, the BBC, in its "wisdom", decided that it could buy mass-produced "electronic music" more cheaply that the workshop could produce it, so in 1997 they closed the workshop for good, and in doing so lost the creativity and talent evident in so much of the work produced by the workshop over its life.

As the saying goes - "they don't make 'em like that any more".

Hopefully more albums are on the way...

This is a very welcome release -- it's an expanded version of two earlier vinyl-only releases, "BBC Radiophonic Workshop 21" and "The Soundhouse" with a couple of minor omissions and a lot of pleasant additions. The most interesting aspect of the album, though, is that you can feel the quality of the output slip from about 1971 to 1980 as synthesisers became available and there was no longer the struggle to create music from recalcitrant technology. It feels like the creativity of the output goes downhill and this coincides with the departure of the RW's "big three" of Delia Derbyshire, John Baker and David Cain.

We start with soundscapes and effects from innovators like Desmond Briscoe and Daphne Oram until the early sixties which is when the theme musics begin to dominate, produced by the above big three, commemorated on BBC Radiophonic Music. All of this was produced by painstakingly assembling reels of tape, despite which they are little organic masterpieces such as "Westminster at Work" or "Great Zoos of the World".

All change, however, with the arrival of synthesisers and the departure, in the early seventies, of the big three. For a while, thereafter, we have twangly nonsense like Roger Limb's "Swirly" to contend with before a sense of musicality returns as everyone and their dog gets a synth and novelty of noise is no longer enough. Thereafter some excellent pieces emerge as Elizabeth Parker and Malcolm Clarke begin to dominate. As a final coda there is a remix of one of Delia Derbyshire's pieces that wouldn't sound out of place coming from a modern studio.

Overall a fascinating catalogue of painful emergence (Briscoe, Oram, Fagandini), settled brilliance (Cain, Baker, Derbyshire), slide to mediocrity (Limb, Yeoman-Clark) and rise to elegance (Howell, Clarke, Parker) before the abrupt end. Dick Mills runs through it all as a constant force.

An excellent collection and one that is heartily recommended. Now, when are we getting a David Cain collection?