Sir Richard Rodney Bennett could do it all: from twelve-tone to torch songs, from film music to jazz. Bennett was a brilliant musician who never really seemed to find his niche and continues to be undersold – despite the knighthood he acquired in 1998.
This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we remember Bennett with an hour of his music, including his later, generously melodic “Partita for Orchestra,” his thornier Violin Concerto from 1975, and selections from his most celebrated film score, that for “Murder on the Orient Express.”
Even so, it hardly encompasses the enormous variety of his pursuits. Late in life, Bennett began to diversify even further, preferring to paint and work in collage.
Howard Ferguson, one of his teachers at the Royal Academy of Music in London, regarded him as perhaps the greatest talent of his generation, though, he opined, he lacked a personal style. I’m not sure I agree with this, but when one is all over the map with one’s interests, one becomes very difficult to pigeonhole.
Bennett died in 2012. I hope you’ll join me, on what would have been his 80th birthday, for “A Nod to Rod,” tonight at 10 ET. A repeat will air Wednesday evening at 6; or you can enjoy it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.
PHOTO: The young Bennett, looking very Mod, with skinny tie and cigarette
