Joseph Elliott Needham Cooper (7 October 1912 – 4 August 2001), pianist and… Read Full Bio ↴Joseph Elliott Needham Cooper (7 October 1912 – 4 August 2001), pianist and broadcaster, best known as the chairman of the BBC's long-running television panel game Face the Music.
Cooper was born at Westbury-on-Trym, near Bristol, England. He was educated at Clifton College, and then at Keble College, Oxford, where he was an organ scholar, During the 1930s he worked initially as a church organist and piano teacher before joining the GPO Film Unit, where he wrote incidental music for documentaries, including Mony a Pickle (1938) and A Midsummer Day's Work (1939). Here his colleagues included the poet W.H. Auden and the composer Benjamin Britten. He had already embarked on a promising career as a concert pianist when the outbreak of World War II forced him to give up the concert platform for the duration of hostilities. He resumed his career in 1946, studying briefly with Egon Petri and making his London debut in 1947.
Cooper made a number of successful recordings and also began broadcasting on radio. In 1954 he accepted an invitation to work on the BBC radio quiz show Call the Tune. In 1967 the show transferred to television under the title Face the Music. Transmitted on BBC2 and repeated on BBC1, it ran until 1979 and was briefly revived in 1983-4. The show kept Cooper in the public eye, and the "Hidden Melody" round, a regular feature of the show in which he improvised in the style of a composer and cloaked a well-known tune in his elaboate extemporization, served as a vehicle for his great pianistic talent. Face the Music also featured the Dummy Keyboard, in which Cooper played a well-known piano piece on a silent keyboard and the panel had to identify it. The music was gradually faded in for viewers at home.
During the 1960s, Cooper occasionally appeared as one of the presenters of Here Today, a daily 15-minute light current affairs programme broadcast by the independent company TWW, which served South Wales and the West of England. He became known for his acerbic, rather irascible interviewing style and for the fact that he regularly played out the programme with a gentle piano piece.
Cooper was awarded the OBE in 1982. He was married twice, first to Jean Greig from 1947 until her death in 1973, and then Carol Borg, from 1975 until her death in 1996.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Cooper"
Cooper was born at Westbury-on-Trym, near Bristol, England. He was educated at Clifton College, and then at Keble College, Oxford, where he was an organ scholar, During the 1930s he worked initially as a church organist and piano teacher before joining the GPO Film Unit, where he wrote incidental music for documentaries, including Mony a Pickle (1938) and A Midsummer Day's Work (1939). Here his colleagues included the poet W.H. Auden and the composer Benjamin Britten. He had already embarked on a promising career as a concert pianist when the outbreak of World War II forced him to give up the concert platform for the duration of hostilities. He resumed his career in 1946, studying briefly with Egon Petri and making his London debut in 1947.
Cooper made a number of successful recordings and also began broadcasting on radio. In 1954 he accepted an invitation to work on the BBC radio quiz show Call the Tune. In 1967 the show transferred to television under the title Face the Music. Transmitted on BBC2 and repeated on BBC1, it ran until 1979 and was briefly revived in 1983-4. The show kept Cooper in the public eye, and the "Hidden Melody" round, a regular feature of the show in which he improvised in the style of a composer and cloaked a well-known tune in his elaboate extemporization, served as a vehicle for his great pianistic talent. Face the Music also featured the Dummy Keyboard, in which Cooper played a well-known piano piece on a silent keyboard and the panel had to identify it. The music was gradually faded in for viewers at home.
During the 1960s, Cooper occasionally appeared as one of the presenters of Here Today, a daily 15-minute light current affairs programme broadcast by the independent company TWW, which served South Wales and the West of England. He became known for his acerbic, rather irascible interviewing style and for the fact that he regularly played out the programme with a gentle piano piece.
Cooper was awarded the OBE in 1982. He was married twice, first to Jean Greig from 1947 until her death in 1973, and then Carol Borg, from 1975 until her death in 1996.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Cooper"
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Lyric Pieces Op.54: Nocturne
Joseph Cooper Lyrics
No lyrics text found for this track.
The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos
The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos
@Martinelolo
Superbe j'aime bien cette musique gros bravo et merci!
@dogsbody49
Thanks for putting these two pieces on you tube, Face the music was one of my favourite TV programs when growing up in the 1970's. I remember the two main panellists were Robin Ray (who always knew the opus numbers.) & dear Joyce Grenfell. . Another round was the dummy keyboard, this was were Joseph cooper would play a piece on a practice piano were all you could here was the clatter of the keys & the team would have to try & guess what he was playing.
@Buck25thCentury
Wunderbar!
@barleyarrish
very much a lover of face the music and the passion of joseph cooper
@PSearPianist
barleyarrish Yes - I used to watch the show too!
@PSearPianist
@30inventionman In a way, yes - he is combining lots of quoted bars and then adding the hidden melody.
@PSearPianist
@dogsbody49 Thank you. I found the book in a second-hand bookshop and thought it would be good to bring back a few memories to YT viewers!
@PSearPianist
@Martinelolo Merci beaucoup!
@PSearPianist
@Buck25thCentury Thank you!
@PSearPianist
@30inventionman You did indeed hear a quotation from it!