Music with a British Accent: Underscoring in British Films of the 1930s

A number of notions prevail about the music composed for British films in the 1930s. One is that underscoring (a term that has now developed a specific meaning: the non-diegetic1 musical accompaniment of dialogue) was kept to an absolute minimum; further, within this apparent restriction, the closely synchronized recitative-style of underscoring so prevalent in Hollywood was very unusual in films produced in the United Kingdom. In this article I will be examining such received perceptions of film music culture in Britain, with particular reference to the music composed for London Films Productions, the company founded by Alexander Korda in 1932.