Paul Reade

The television soundtracks of composer Paul Reade were well known even to listeners who could not identify the composer. Reade also wrote a good deal of concert music, most of which received less exposure. Reade was born on January 10, 1943, in Liverpool. His father was a fine pianist, and he was enthusiastic about music from an early age. Reade entered the Royal Academy of Music in 1962, studying piano and composition with Alan Richardson. For a time, he worked as a répétiteur at the English National Opera. In 1965, Reade's Overture to a City for orchestra was performed by the Academy Orchestra. Beginning in the late '60s, he was active as a composer for children's television, writing the theme song and much of the music for the British series Play School, arranging music of Beethoven for the animated series Ludwig, and contributing compositions to many other children's series. Reade also wrote an opera for children, David and Goliath (1975), and two works for narrator and orchestra intended for young audiences, Cinderella (1980) and The Midas Touch (1982). In the '80s, Reade turned to music for adult television shows, scoring the miniseries A Tale of Two Cities (1980), Great Expectations (1981), Jane Eyre (1983), and The Victorian Kitchen Garden (1989); the latter score earned an Ivor Novello Award. Reade had already composed several major concert works, including the cantata The Journey of the Winds (1976) and a Saxophone Quartet (1979), and his production of concert works increased during the '80s. His Flute Concerto (1985) was commissioned by the Manchester Camerata and premiered by flutist Philippa Davies; Reade and Davies were later married. Major works of Reade's later years were two ballets, Hobson's Choice (1989) and 1996's Far from the Madding Crowd; the latter was based on the novel by Thomas Hardy. Reade died from cancer, leaving several unfinished works, on June 7, 1997, in London. As of the mid-2020s, about a dozen of his works had been recorded, many of them on the Signum Classics collection A Celebration of Paul Reade in 2023. ~ James Manheim, Rovi