Norman Forber Kay (5 January 1929 – 12 May 2001) was a British composer and writer.

Education and early career

Kay, who was born in Bolton, was educated at

Bolton School Bolton School is a private day school in Bolton, Greater Manchester. It comprises a co-educational nursery (ages 0–4), co-educational infant school (ages 3–7), single sex junior schools (ages 7–11) and single sex senior schools including ...

, the

Royal Manchester College of Music The Royal Manchester College of Music (RMCM) was a tertiary level conservatoire in Manchester, north-west England. It was founded in 1893 by the German-born conductor Sir Charles Hallé in 1893. In 1972, the Royal Manchester College of Mu ...

and the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music (RCM) is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including pe ...

. His teachers included Richard Hall in Manchester and

Gordon Jacob Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob CBE (5 July 18958 June 1984) was an English composer and teacher. He was a professor at the Royal College of Music in London from 1924 until his retirement in 1966, and published four books and many articles about ...

in London. He began his musical career as a repetiteur at

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist sit ...

and Glyndebourne, where he worked with

Fritz Busch Fritz Busch (13 March 1890 – 14 September 1951) was a German conductor. Busch was born in Siegen to a musical family and studied at the Cologne Conservatory. After army service in the First World War, he was appointed to senior posts in two G ...

Carl Ebert Carl Anton Charles Ebert (20 February 1887 – 14 May 1980), was a Germans, German actor, stage director and arts administrator. Ebert's early career was as an actor, training under Max Reinhardt and becoming one of the leading actors in his nat ...

and Geraint Evans.

Television and film music

Kay made his living from television music. He composed the incidental music for three serials in the first season of ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...

'', including the very first, ''

An Unearthly Child ''An Unearthly Child'' (sometimes referred to as ''100,000 BC'') is the first serial of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. It was first broadcast on BBC One, BBC TV in four weekly parts from 23 November to 14 Decem ...

'', as well as '' The Keys of Marinus'' and '' The Sensorites''. After leaving ''Doctor Who'' following its first season, Kay provided the incidental music for many of the ''

Out of the Unknown ''Out of the Unknown'' is a British television science fiction and horror anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and broadcast on BBC2 in four series between 1965 and 1971. Most episodes of the first three series were dramatisations of s ...

'' stories during the rest of the 1960s, as well as composing the atmospheric theme tune of its first three seasons. Kay also provided music on productions such as ''Late Night Horror'' in 1968, the theme music for ''

Special Branch Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security and Intelligence (information gathering), intelligence in Policing in the United Kingdom, British, Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth, ...

'' in 1969, as well as musical direction for many other television productions, including the series ''

Highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It includes not just major roads, but also other public roads and rights of way. In the United States, it is also used as an equivalent term to controlled-access highway, or ...

'' with Harry Secombe in the 1980s. He also scored the 1968 comedy heist film '' Diamonds for Breakfast''.

Concert music

His first concert works, including two string quartets, appeared in the 1950s. But his first big success was with the large scale (35 minutes in length) cantata ''King Herod'', for soprano and baritone soloists, chorus and orchestra, composed for the Llandaff Festival in 1965 and published by OUP. In 1968 he composed the television opera ''The Rose Affair'', setting a play by

Alun Owen Alun Davies Owen (24 November 1925 – 6 December 1994) was a Welsh playwright, screenwriter and actor, predominantly in television. However, he is best remembered by a wider audience for writing the screenplay of The Beatles' debut feature f ...

that updates the story of ''The Beauty and the Beast''. He composed a second television opera, ''A Christmas Carol'' (after

Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by many as the great ...

), for Harlech Television in 1978, with a libretto by John Morgan. The role of Ebenezer Scrooge was sung by Geraint Evans. A second choral orchestral cantata, ''Daniel'', was premiered at St David's Hall, Cardiff in 1984. Other works include the ''Passacaglia for Orchestra'' (1966), the ''Variations for Strings'' (1968) and his second Chorale Sonata for organ or strings in 1995. His last composition was ''Mr Pitfield's Pavane'' (2000), an elegy for recorder and strings remembering Thomas Pitfield, a fellow Bolton composer whom Kay met at the Royal Manchester College of Music. It has been recorded by

John Turner John Napier Wyndham Turner (June 7, 1929September 19, 2020) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 17th prime minister of Canada from June to September 1984. He served as leader of the Liberal Party and leader of the Opposit ...

and the Royal Ballet Sinfonia.

Other activities

Kay also worked as a

music critic '' The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of m ...

for ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

''. In 1971 he was the first British musician to write a study on

Dmitri Shostakovich Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and thereafter was regarded as a major composer. Shostak ...

, a work that was well received. He was a member of the Savile Club from 1971, where he met his librettist John Morgan. In 1951 Kay married Mary Fieldhouse (who from 1967 was stage manager for and partner of Tommy Cooper)Mary Fieldhouse. ''For the love of Tommy: A personal portrait of Tommy Cooper'' (1986) and the couple had three sons, Anthony Kay, Peter Kay and Simon Kay. He never divorced Mary Fieldhouse, but later had a daughter Serena with partner Janice Willett, a former producer with ABC Television he met while at ABC subsidiary Iris Productions. Kay died in 2001 of

motor neuron disease Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or—in the United States—Lou Gehrig's disease (LGD), is a rare, terminal neurodegenerative disorder that results in the progressive loss of both upper and low ...

, aged 72.

Selected works

* ''Miniature Quartet'' for woodwind (1950) * String Quartets No 1 and 2 (1950s) * ''King Herod'' (1964), cantata, Llandaff Festival * ''Passacaglia for Orchestra'' (1966), Cheltenham Festival * ''Variations On A Theme Of Michael Praetorius'' (1966), harpsichord * ''Song Without Words'' (1967), incidental music (Italia prize) * ''The Rose Affair'' (1968), television opera * ''Variations for Strings'' (1968), Harrogate Festival * ''A Christmas Carol'' (1978), television opera (Salzburg Opera Prize, 1980) * ''Daniel'' (1984), cantata, St David's Hall, Cardiff * ''Robin Hood'' (1985), opera for young people, Buxton * Chorale Sonata No 2 for organ or strings (1995), Solihull Festival * ''Mr Pitfield's Pavane'' (2000), elegy for recorder and strings

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kay, Norman 1929 births 2001 deaths Alumni of the Royal College of Music Alumni of the Royal Northern College of Music British composers British television composers Deaths from motor neuron disease in the United Kingdom English music critics People educated at Bolton School People from Bolton