Composition:
ELIZABETHAN SERENADE

Location:
WEST BENCH, ELIZABETHAN GARDEN

Elizabethan Serenade is a light music composition by 20th century light music composer Ronald Binge. Its Elizabethan ambience and title are somewhat accidental. The website www.ronaldbinge.com reports that according to the composer, the composition "...owed something to Walter Eastman, who as head of the publishers Ascherberg, Hopwood & Crew, had offered much encouragement to Binge when he returned full-time to the world of music after the war. When he heard it for the first time, Eastman telephoned Ronnie and said enthusiastically: 'That's what I call a tune, I think we've really got something here. Damned if I know what you're going to call it – sounds like some sort of Elizabethan serenade!' So Elizabethan Serenade it became."

When it was first played by the Mantovani orchestra in 1951, it was simply titled Andante cantabile, although the original orchestral manuscript parts in Ronald Binge's own hand show the title The Man in the Street (possibly the title of an early television documentary). The name was altered by the composer to reflect the post-war optimism of a "new Elizabethan Age" that began with the accession of Queen Elizabeth II in February 1952.

The piece won Binge an Ivor Novello award and also had chart success in Germany and South Africa. A version with lyrics by poet Christopher Hassall called Where the Gentle Avon Flows was released, and the work also had lyrics added in German, Czech, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Dutch, Danish and French. It was also used as the theme for the popular 1950s radio series Music Tapestry, as the play-out for the British Forces Network radio station, and as the signature tune to Music in Miniature on the BBC Light Programme.

In 1968, a reggae version titled "Elizabeth Reggay" by Boris Gardiner & the Love People was released. It was re-issued as "Elizabethan Reggae" with a different b-side in 1969 (This version was initially erroneously credited to the track's producer, Byron Lee and the Dragonaires).

In 1982, Louise Tucker recorded a different vocal version entitled Only For You on the album Midnight Blue.

- Sources: Wikipedia, Classic FM