The theme music from the Agatha Christie’s Poirot TV series is instantly recognisable and won its composer Christopher Gunning his second (of four) BAFTA awards in 1989.
With his recent passing (25 March 2023), we can take this opportunity to pay a tribute to his musical legacy.
Christopher Gunning could hardly have avoided a musical life, born in 1944 to pianist parents and raised in a semi-detached house in Hendon that was filled with pianos (a grand and an upright) and reams of music. Christopher intended to become a serious music composer, having studied composition, piano and percussion for 4 years at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. One of his most influential tutors was Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, who was himself an internationally successful composer and jazz pianist with significant achievements in film music composition, including the theme of the 1974 production of Murder on the Orient Express.
Christopher Gunning has been prolific in the composition/arrangement of film and television music, advertising, pop music and more traditional concert music. His concert works have won broad critical acclaim, ranging from children’s operas, through piano preludes, and into major concertos and symphonies.
Vale Christopher Gunning!