Ronald Binge

Ronald Binge (15 July 1910 – 6 September 1979) was a British composer and arranger of light music.

Biography Binge was born in a working-class neighbourhood in Derby, Derbyshire, in the English Midlands. and later worked in summer orchestras in British seaside resorts (including Blackpool and Great Yarmouth), for which he learned to play the piano accordion. Binge's skill as a cinema organist was put to good use, and he played the organ in Mantovani's first band, the Tipica Orchestra.

After the war, Mantovani offered Binge the job of arranging and composing for his new orchestra. They had two children.

He died in Ringwood, Hampshire, of liver cancer in 1979, aged 69, survived by his wife, son and daughter. it was originally created to capture the essence of the echo properties of a building such as a cathedral, although it later became particularly associated with easy-listening music.

Binge's catalogue includes hundreds of works, most of them light orchestral. His first big compositional success was the orchestral overture Spitfire, composed in Blackpool while he was still on RAF service, which predated William Walton's orchestral tribute by a year. Best known today is probably Elizabethan Serenade (1951), Other well-known pieces include Miss Melanie (used as the theme for the CBS Network's radio comedy The Couple Next Door from 1957 to 1960), Like Old Times, The Watermill (1958) for oboe and strings (used as the theme for the BBC children's series The Secret Garden),

Selected works

Film scores