Brian Easdale

Brian Easdale was born in Manchester, England, in 1909 and sang as a chorister at Westminster Abbey before studying at the Royal College of Music. In the 1930s he wrote music for the theater and for the pioneering documentaries of the GPO Film Unit, an influential training ground for British filmmakers and composers. During World War II he served in India, and throughout his life he also composed operas and concert works.

His great partnership was with the filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, known as The Archers. Easdale wrote the score for Black Narcissus (1947), their story of nuns in a remote Himalayan convent, in which music and image are unusually closely integrated, with some scenes shot to prerecorded music.

The Red Shoes (1948) took that approach even further. At its heart is a ballet of some seventeen minutes based on Hans Christian Andersen's tale of a girl whose enchanted shoes will not let her stop dancing, set to an original score by Easdale and performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Thomas Beecham. The film became a classic and inspired generations of dancers. Easdale's score won the Academy Award, making him the first British composer to win the Oscar for best score.

Easdale continued to work with Powell on Gone to Earth, The Battle of the River Plate and the controversial thriller Peeping Tom (1960). He died in 1995.