Blue Planet and Gandhi composer George Fenton dies aged 76

As well as TV demonstrates like Planet Earth and Bergerac, has died at the age of 76, composer George Fenton, whose work included music for films such as Gandhi, Groundhog Day and The Fisher King.

Key points

• Among his other well-known soundtracks were The Long Walk Home, You've Obtained Mail, Sweet Home Alabama, The Lady In The Van and Mrs Henderson Presents.
• He additionally wrote numerous well-known theme tunes, including the BBC's One O'Clock News, Six O'Clock News, Nine O'Clock News, Newsnight, The Funds Programme, and Radio 4's PM Programme.
• Fenton obtained his first job as composer and musical director for a production of Twelfth Night at the Royal Shakespeare Business in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1974.
• Their 18 collaborations included Ladybird, Ladybird; I, Daniel Blake and The Wind That Shakes the Barley.
• For 1987's Cry Freedom – the story of South African campaigner Steve Biko.

For context, the prolific musician received five Oscar nominations for his film scores, including those for The Remains of the Day and Cry Freedom.

His work on the BBC TV show Blue Planet additionally earned awards from the Baftas, Emmy Awards and Ivor Novellos; and he additionally composed theme music for BBC News programmes such as Newsnight and Breakfast Time.

In an official note, Fenton's family remarked: "We are very sad to announce that George Fenton passed away unexpectedly today."

They continued: "He is survived by his loving wife Amanda, ex-wife Jane, children Gemma, Grace and Bridget, and grandchildren Lola, Audrey, Alfred, George, Frank and Beatrice, and a life of music."

Fenton was born George Howe in Bromley, Kent in 1949. According to a biography on his official website, his father was a mechanical engineer, and his mother had been a dancer before becoming a nurse during the war.

Both parents were musical – his father played drums and his mother played piano – but Fenton chose the electric guitar as his instrument at the age of seven.

That was "when music became more important than football, " he afterwards informed The Express newspaper. "The Beatles had a huge influence on me." He took his first lessons from a musician called Brian Rudd.

"He came into our lives as a chimney sweep, which he clearly wasn't, " Fenton afterwards recalled.

My mother went mad at him since he filled the house with soot.

"As he left he said, 'I'm really sorry – but I tuned the boy's guitar for you.' She suggested that as compensation for the mess he could give me a lesson, which he did and then carried on doing."

Afterwards, Fenton began to study the church organ, but rejected the chance to attend university and music college to pursue a career as a performer.

As union rules prevented two actors from having the same name, in 1968, he appeared in Alan Bennett's first West End play Forty Years On and was forced to adopt his mother's maiden name.

During that production, he additionally understudied the musical director of the show, Carl Davis – who similarly became a prominent composer for film and television.

In practice, a year afterwards, he signed a record agreement, and scored a top 10 hit in Sweden with a cover of The Beatles' Maxwell's Silver Hammer, but his career as a solo artist was short lived.

In the mid-1970s, he had a recurring role as soldier Martin Gimbel in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale Farm.

But as time went on, he discovered that directors were always casting him in roles that required him to play an instrument, so he decided to produce music his main focus.

Eight years afterwards, he was nominated for an Oscar for his score for Richard Attenborough's Gandhi, on which he worked with Indian composer and instrumentalist Ravi Shankar to develop a score reflecting the country's musical traditions.

It was only his fourth attempt at film music, and he was still almost entirely self-taught.

Throughout the 1980s, he wrote the soundtrack for a number of TV series, including the Bafta-winning The Jewel in the Crown, The Monocled Mutineer, and Alan Bennett's Talking Heads.

For 1987's Cry Freedom – the story of South African campaigner Steve Biko. This person was brutally killed by police – he worked with South African jazz musician Jonas Gwangwa, earning two Oscar nominations for best original score and song.

Almost by accident, the title track featured Fenton singing a list of anti-apartheid activists imprisoned or killed by the South African administration.

He'd initially recorded the lyrics as a guide for Gwangwa – but the musician decided to keep some of them intact "as a gesture of brotherhood".

"Then it got nominated for an Oscar, so I then found myself singing it on live television to about a billion people, which was not what I intended at all, " Fenton afterwards informed Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.

After composing the score for the BBC's Trials of Life in 1990, Fenton went on to create the music for what became known as David Attenborough's Earth Trilogy: The Blue Planet, Planet Earth and Frozen Planet.

Fenton's music perfectly complemented the stunning visuals of the ocean's depths and the polar ice caps, adding an emotional weight to the narrative, using the full might of the orchestra to evoke everything from wonder and awe to tension and suspense.

After the success of the documentaries, Fenton created a show – The Blue Planet in Concert – which has been performed by leading orchestras in venues worldwide.

Fenton additionally scored more films for British director Ken Loach than any other composer.

Their 18 collaborations included Ladybird, Ladybird; I, Daniel Blake and The Wind That Shakes the Barley. It won the Palme d'Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.

He additionally founded the Association of Professional Composers. It afterwards merged with The Ivors Academy; and he is one of only a handful of musicians to receive the Academy's fellowship, alongside Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, Sir Elton John, Kate Bush, Bruce Springsteen and George Michael.

Furthermore, Fenton was a visiting professor at the Royal College of Music and the University of Nottingham. He was created a CBE for services to music in 2023.

According to The composer often, his musical career had been an accident, but nothing provided him greater joy than seeing his work come to life.

On his episode of Desert Island Discs, Fenton chose one of his own compositions – Reunion, from the soundtrack to the movie Accidental Hero – as it reminded him of watching pianist John Lowe play the melody in the studio.

"If I was sitting on a desert island and thinking about what a good time I'd had writing music, which I have, I want just one thing to remind me about the best part – which is the fact that you write something and then you're so surprised and thrilled at the way it's played, " he informed Sue Lawley. "For a composer, that's the biggest kick you can get."

Taken together, the developments around blue Planet and Gandhi composer George Fenton dies aged 76 point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.