MOVIE MUSIC UK

Composer and conductor Barrington Pheloung died in Australia on July 31, 2019, at the age of 65, from respiratory failure.

An Australian who spent most of his professional life in Britain, Pheloung was best known for his haunting music for Inspector Morse, and subsequently Lewis and Endeavour. He also enjoyed a distinguished career in film, theatre and dance, receiving an Academy Award nomination for his score for Hilary and Jackie.

Barrington Somers James Pheloung was born in Manly, New South Wales, on May 10, 1954. He began playing guitar as a child and performed in blues and R&B groups with his brother before discovering Bach in his late teens and becoming increasingly interested in classical music. At 18 he moved to London, initially studying guitar and double bass at Chiswick Music Centre before winning a scholarship to the Royal College of Music. There he studied composition with John Lambert and guitar with John Williams and Julian Bream.

Pheloung’s earliest professional commissions were for dance. While still a student he became involved with the London Contemporary Dance Theatre and was appointed its musical director in 1979, remaining with the company until 1995. He ultimately composed more than 50 works for dance, initially influenced by avant-garde figures including Schoenberg, Stockhausen and Boulez while also incorporating jazz, blues, electronics and unusual percussion.

Television brought him to a much wider audience. After writing music for the first series of Boon in 1985, Pheloung was commissioned to score Inspector Morse in 1987. His melancholy orchestral theme became one of the most recognizable pieces of British television music. Ingeniously, its rhythm incorporated Morse code spelling out M-O-R-S-E, while Pheloung occasionally embedded the identity of a murderer—or a deliberate red herring—into individual episodes using the same technique.

Pheloung scored all 33 Inspector Morse stories between 1987 and 2000, developing a sophisticated musical world that reflected both the Oxford setting and Morse’s love of classical music. Following John Thaw’s death, Pheloung continued the musical lineage through the sequel Lewis, beginning in 2006, and the prequel Endeavour from 2012. Across the three series his music became virtually inseparable from Colin Dexter’s characters and their particular vision of Oxford.

His feature-film career developed alongside his television work. He collaborated with Anthony Minghella on Truly Madly Deeply (1990), in which Pheloung also appeared briefly as a double bassist, and subsequently scored films including Shopping (1994), Nostradamus (1994), The Mangler (1995), Twin Dragons (1996) and Saint-Ex (1996).

His greatest film success came with Anand Tucker’s Hilary and Jackie (1998), the story of celebrated cellist Jacqueline du Pré. Pheloung’s emotionally rich orchestral score incorporated cello prominently while moving between warmth, turbulence and tragedy, earning him nominations for both the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Original Score. He later reunited with Tucker for Shopgirl (2005) and And When Did You Last See Your Father? (2007). Other later films included Touching Wild Horses, Incendiary and the final installment of the Red Riding television trilogy.

Beyond film and television, Pheloung wrote substantial concert music, including works for guitar, cello, double bass and orchestra. He composed music for the Sydney Opera House’s 20th-anniversary celebrations and contributed to the opening of London’s Millennium Dome. He also entered the world of video games, writing atmospheric scores for Revolution Software’s acclaimed adventures Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars, Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror and In Cold Blood.

Pheloung was married twice. His first marriage, to dancer Anita Griffin, produced sons Daniel and Anthony and ended in divorce. He later married Heather Lovejoy, with whom he had two further children, Adel and Timmy.