Luna Park
(Eric Siday)
Analysed by Robert Walton

When I first visited Sydney, Australia, the most memorable thing I saw was Luna Park across the harbour behind the famous bridge. In fact it was the first amusement park I’d ever seen. You couldn’t miss its flashing lights and vertically predominant position like Paris’s Eiffel Tower filling the sky and giving the city its character, years before the opera house. Composer Eric Siday had moved to New York in 1939 so it would have been the famous one at Coney Island which inspired his composition.

Siday was a violinist and composer who during the 1920s and 30s occasionally doubled on alto saxophone in British dance bands including that of Ambrose and Ray Noble. Little did musicians and music lovers anticipate the coming of Chappell’s Queen’s Hall Light Orchestra in the 1940s. Once it became established the name itself conjured up the finest combination of its kind in the world with players borrowed from the capital’s symphony orchestras. The high standard of tunes, arrangements and names like Robert Farnon, Sidney Torch, Wally Stott (who became Angela Morley), Clive Richardson and Charles Williams told you in no uncertain terms that Light music had reached its Golden Era. No light orchestra has ever come anywhere near its high standard. It must surely have been the pinnacle of such excellence. We would never hear its like again.

Announcing this “down under” pleasure ground, swirling strings quickly show what they’re capable of, rising up and heading for the heights, only to dive down slightly after reaching the top. After a deliberate pause, the busy first chorus gives the arco strings a real chance to display their wares and portray the activities in such a park - the Big Dipper, dodgems, the Ghost Train, and the Big Wheel. This is pure Queen’s Hall Light Orchestra which clearly marks its time and place. And then escaping the repetitive nature of the notes, the strings are given a little freedom with a chorus of longer notes, plenty of syncopation and less tension. But busy is still the operative word!

After another obvious pause we arrive at the official bridge and a tune with some nice decorations, several mini climaxes followed by some fun orchestration and a sudden pizzicato ending.

We immediately return to the opening and the strings are again hard at work with the lively atmosphere that highlights Luna Park. A woodwind flourish briefly cuts in, but we’re soon back to the busyness with a really neat ending.