Christopher Gunning is perhaps most famous for his music for the TV series Poirot, but his career in film and TV music stretches back some forty years. In his twenties, Gunning composed the music for several documentary films and also worked as an arranger, providing the backings for a wide variety of recording artists, including Mel Tormé, Shirley Bassey, The Hollies, Colin Blunstone, and the saxophonist Phil Woods. At the same time he composed the music for a lot of advertising campaigns, some of them long-running, such as those for Martini and Black Magic.

Gunning has spent the greater part of his career writing television and film scores for productions that vary in character from period pieces to contemporary drama, many of which are represented on this disc. He has won four BAFTA awards, for La Vie en rose, Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Middlemarch, and Porterhouse Blue, and three Ivor Novello awards, for Rebecca, Under Suspicion, and Firelight.

More recently, Christopher Gunning has been devoting much of his time to composing music for the concert hall. His output includes concertos for the oboe, clarinet, saxophone, and piano, and five symphonies for large orchestra.

The Film and TV Music of Christopher Gunning is performed by the BBC Philharmonic, under the British-born conductor Rumon Gamba who records exclusively for Chandos. It also features exquisite performances from a number of soloists with whom Gunning has worked over the years: the saxophonist Martin Robertson, soprano Nicole Tibbels, and guitarist Craig Ogden whose many recordings, including more than half a dozen for Chandos, have received wide acclaim.