Ronald Binge

Ronald Binge (15 July 1910 – 6 September 1979) was a British composer and arranger of light music. He arranged many of Mantovani's most famous pieces before composing his own music, which included '' Elizabethan Serenade'' and ''Sailing By''.Ades, David. 'Binge, Ronald', in ''Grove Music Online'' (2001)

Biography

Binge was born in a working-class neighbourhood in Derby, Derbyshire, in the English Midlands. In his childhood he was a chorister at Saint Andrews Church (Church of England), London Road, Derby – 'the railwaymen's church' (demolished 1970). Binge was educated at the Derby School of Music, where he studied the organ. Early in his career he was a cinema organist, and later worked in summer orchestras in British seaside resorts (including Blackpool and Great Yarmouth), for which he learned to play the piano accordion. Binge's skill as a cinema organist was put to good use, and he played the organ in Mantovani's first band, the Tipica Orchestra. During the Second World War, he served in the Royal Air Force, during which time he was much in demand organising in-camp entertainment.Carey, Mike
''Sailing By, the Ronald Binge Story''
(2000)

After the war, Mantovani offered Binge the job of arranging and composing for his new orchestra. With Mantovani, Binge also orchestrated Noël Coward’s musicals ''Pacific 1860'' (1946) and '' Ace of Clubs'' (1950). In 1951, his arrangement of '' Charmaine'' gave him and Mantovani worldwide success and recognition. However, he tired of writing arrangements, and turned to composing original works and film scores. Mantovani's orchestra began playing his light orchestral pieces for radio broadcast, and in 1952 Binge devised and conducted his own BBC radio programme called String Song, playing many of his own compositions. He regularly composed for production and library music publishers, and a number of his works were used for radio and television signature tunes.

Binge married his wife Vera Simmons in 1945. During the 1950s they lived at 18, Smitham Bottom Lane in Purley, Croydon. He died in Ringwood, Hampshire, of liver cancer in 1979, aged 69, survived by his wife, son and daughter.

Commemoration

In early 2013, Derby City Council and Derby Civic Society announced they would put a blue plaque on one of his two early homes in Derby (83 Darby Street, Normanton, or 29 Wiltshire Road, Chaddesden).

Compositions

Binge was interested in the technicalities of composition and was most famous as the inventor of the " cascading strings" effect that is the signature sound of the Mantovani orchestra, much used in their arrangements of popular music. First heard on the hit ''Charmaine'' (1951) it was originally created to capture the essence of the echo properties of a building such as a cathedral, although it later became particularly associated with easy-listening music. Tomlinson, Ernest. 'Ronald Binge', in ''The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (2004)

Binge's catalogue includes hundreds of works, most of them light orchestral. His first big compositional success was the orchestral overture ''Spitfire'', composed in Blackpool while he was still on RAF service, which predated William Walton's orchestral tribute by a year.Scowcroft, Philip. L. ''British Light Music'' (1997), pp. 28-29 Best known today is probably '' Elizabethan Serenade'' (1951), which was used by the British Broadcasting Corporation
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