# Charles Williams - The Devils Galop sounds like it was written centuries ago



## classicfan (Dec 12, 2011)

Charles Williams - The Devils Galop sounds so much like a classical piece from the 18th or 19th century:






Devil's Galop" - music composed by Charles Williams. It became famous as the theme tune to the radio serial Dick Barton - Special Agent. It was written in the 1940s.

If I didn't know it was a 20th century piece I would have assumed it was centuries older. One of the great 'modern' classical pieces (if you can call it that).


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

I would have preferred to think it was written in the 19th century personally....


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## presto (Jun 17, 2011)

Good to see this posted up, I love so called "Light music" there is an absolutely huge amount of it now coming onto CD, check out this link and sample the tracks, some real gems coming to light.

http://www.guildmusic.com/shop/wbc.php?sid=10712875c653&tpl=produktliste.html&rid=260


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

It has certain 20th century aspects to it though, sort of Khachaturian feel to it in parts, but I definitely see what you mean.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Dick Barton ran weekday evenings for 15 mins, at its peak it had 15 million listeners. I, along with every other boy in Britain, ran home to listen to it. It caused ructions, questions were asked in Parliament about the bad effect it was having on the youth of the country. The signature tune is an exciting piece of music and we all thought that it illustrated the Devil on a mad gallop. But look at the spelling of " galop", it is a dance !
Charles Williams,real name Isaac Cozerbreit, was born to a Polish Jewish immigrant family in London's East End. He attended the Royal Academy of Music and eventually played as leader (concertmaster) for orchestras under Elgar, Beecham and Sir Landon Ronald. He eventually wrote music for many films and radio programmes all of it was of a very high standard and much of it still heard.


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