The Coldest Girl in Hometown

Ronald Binge was responsible for creating in 1951 the ‘cascading strings’ sound that made the Mantovani Orchestra famous throughout the world. This was achieved purely by clever scoring, dividing the violins into several parts, each allotted a different melody-note in turn, which they sustain and then fade out, until called upon to move elsewhere. Binge’s inspiration came from his love of church music, particularly Monteverdi. Composers of sacred music had to allow for the long reverberation inevitable in cathedrals, and this is reflected in their writing. The first big success was ‘Charmaine’, followed by many others that made Mantovani’s albums million-sellers, especially in the USA. Binge’s association with Mantovani dates from 1935 when he played in, and did all the arrangements for, Mantovani’s Tipica Orchestra…