Peter Howell

about

Peter Howell is a musician and composer best known for his work, as a member of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, on Doctor Who. Howell's musical career began in the late 1960s working with John Ferdinando in various psych folk bands including Agincourt and Ithaca. His psych folk work also included a musical version of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass and a comedy musical entitled Tomorrow Come Someday. Together, Howell and Ferdinando recorded five albums before Howell became a member of the Radiophonic Workshop. In 1970 he became a studio manager at the BBC and in 1974 he joined the Radiophonic Workshop with which he would associated until 1997. His work on Doctor Who began in 1975 when he provided incidental music for Revenge of the Cybermen and special sound for Planet of Evil but it is for his re-working of the programme's distinctive theme tune that he is best known. When John Nathan-Turner became producer of Doctor Who in 1980, he decided that the music needed to be updated and commissioned Howell to provide a new arrangement of the Doctor Who theme to accompany a new title sequence. Whereas the original arrangement of the theme (written by Ron Grainer) had been realised by Delia Derbyshire using musique concrète techniques, Howell arranged Grainer's theme on analogue synthesisers. The result was glossier and more dynamic but less mysterious than Derbyshire's arrangement. Howell's new arrangement first appeared in 1980 on The Leisure Hive, for which Howell had als

top songs

albums

Doctor Who - The Five Doctors (Original Television Soundtrack)

Doctor Who - The 50th Anniversary Collection (Original Television Soundtrack)

Through a Glass Darkly

Doctor Who - The Music

Doctor Who

Legend

BBC Radiophonic Workshop - 21

Doctor Who: The 50th Anniversary Collection

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The BBC Radiophonic Workshop - A Retrospective [Disc 1]

BBC Radiophonic Workshop - The Soundhouse

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Doctor Who - The Music yyy

BBC Radiophonic Workshop - A Retrospective

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