Miss Marple Music
Robin Martin
question and perhaps it may be of use to others. The music done for
the Miss Marple Series starring Joan Hickson that aired on PBS and
A&E, was actually done by a team of two composers. Alan Blaikley
scored the main title along with Ken Howard, but Ken Howard was mainly
responsible for the incidental scoring (the background music that most
people pay very little attention to, even though the music itself is,
in my opinion, exquisite). The title theme itself saw release on a
45rpm release by Consort in 1984. It also contained an incidental
track called St. Mary Mead on side B (which was basically the theme
that accompanies the introduction of the character of Miss Marple in
most of the episodes).A cd and cassette produced by Video Symphonic
were released in 1993(by EMI and Silva Screen records) entitled
"Agatha Christies Miss Marple: Original Music From The BBC Television
Series". Sadly, these are not the original tracks used in the show, as
most likely the original scoring for the show no longer existed by
1993, or was not in a suitable audio form for a stereo cd release.
Except for the reproduced main title on the cd (which sucks), all the
other tracks have been faithfully recreated from the originals by
Video Symphonic and i am sure most people (those who are actually
interested in this music) would not be able to tell the difference.
The cd contained twelve tracks:
1. Miss Marple: Main Title
2. 4:50 From Paddington
3. At Bertrams Hotel
4. A Pocketful Of Rye
5. The Moving Finger
6. A Caribbean Mystery
7. Nemesis
8. The Body in The Library
9. A Murder Is Announced
10. The Mirror Crack'D
11. Sleeping Murder
12. They Do It With Mirrors
Each track, except for the main title, consisted of well arranged
suites of the incidental music composed for each story. Varying in
running time from 2-6 minutes. The cd obviously did not sell very well
as it was deleted very soon thereafter and is now almost impossible to
get ahold of (even on Ebay, i think it has come up for auction only
once someone told me).After much searching i came across an obscure
website and got ahold of a copy of the cassette.
Ken Howard & Alan Blaikley also scored two other british series, The
Flame Trees of Thika and By The Sword Divided. The soundtrack for the
Flame Trees of Thika was released on a 12" LP in 1981 containing 15
tracks. Music from By The Sword Divided was released on a 45rpm by
Consort in 1983 containing the series main title and a second track
entitled "Arnescote".
The Miss Marple main title (the original) is available on a few older
compilation CDs, including one entitled "The Best of BBC TV Themes".
Robin