Richard Rodney Bennett: Very Versatile
In all the tributes to Jack Klugman and Charles Durning, let’s not forget to remember as well another death this week, that of Richard Rodney Bennett. One of Britain’s most versatile and talented composers and performers, he died peacefully on Christmas Eve in his adopted home city of New York, aged 76. His Guardian obit says: ‘Over the course of a distinguished career he has been equally at home writing music for the concert hall and performing cabaret at the Algonquin Hotel; as enthusiastic about Cole Porter as Pierre Boulez.’ He is perhaps best known as a prolific writer of scores for film and television, including for Sidney Lumet’s “Murder on the Orient Express” and “Four Weddings and a Funeral.”
