Richard Addinsell

Richard Stewart Addinsell (13 January 1904 – 14 November 1977) was a British composer, best known for film music, primarily his Warsaw Concerto, composed for the 1941 film Dangerous Moonlight (also known under the later title Suicide Squadron). Addinsell was taught at home. After studying at Hertford College, Oxford, he made incomplete attempts at studying Law, and then Music (at the Royal College of Music, spending time in Berlin and Vienna). Ho... more

Richard Stewart Addinsell (13 January 1904 – 14 November 1977) was a British composer, best known for film music, primarily his Warsaw Concerto, composed for the 1941 film Dangerous Moonlight (also known under the later title Suicide Squadron). Addinsell was taught at home. After studying at Hertford College, Oxford, he made incomplete attempts at studying Law, and then Music (at the Royal College of Music, spending time in Berlin and Vienna). However, both were abandoned without him obtaining formal qualifications. His style is very much of the "English Light music" style. In 1932, with Clemence Dane, he wrote the incidental music for the Broadway adaptation of Alice in Wonderland by Eva Le Gallienne, starring Josephine Hutchinson (produced 1933). In 1947 it was revived, starring Bambi Linn. Addinsell was known for his Christmas parties and was part of a social circle that included many British show business and Royal celebrities of the 1930s and '40s. He collaborated from 1942 with... less