He composed the theme music for the television series Murder, She Wrote, and won an Emmy for the 2-hour pilot episode in the Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition for a Series (dramatic underscore) category. Addison will also be remembered as the composer Alfred Hitchcock turned to when the director ended his long relationship with Bernard Herrmann over the score to his 1966 film Torn Curtain,[3] although Addison was not hired for any of his other films.
He had a personal connection to Reach for the Sky (1956) which he scored, since Douglas Bader (the subject of the movie) was his brother-in-law, having married Addison's elder sister Thelma.[5]
Although he wrote numerous classical compositions, Addison explained that "If you find you're good at something, as I was as a film composer, it's stupid to do anything else." His classical works included the Concerto for trumpet, strings and percussion (1949), described by The Times as "buoyant" and "Gershwinesque";[9] a trio for oboe, clarinet and bassoon;[10]Carte Blanche, a ballet for Sadler's Wells first performed at the 1953 Edinburgh Festival[11] from which an orchestral suite of "sophisticated high spirits" was performed at the Proms;[12] a septet for wind and harp,[13] a piano concertino,[14][15] a concertante for oboe, clarinet, horn and orchestra;[16] and a partita for strings, which was warmly praised.[17] The Bassoon Concertino was one of his last compositions. It was premiered by Graham Salvage and the Hallé Orchestra on 4 July 1998 at the BBC Proms.[18]
Marlene Dietrich recorded If He Swing By the String and Such Trying Times from the music in Tom Jones.
Addison's collection of correspondence, scores, and studio recordings were donated to the Film Music Archives at Brigham Young University in 1994. He was survived by his wife Pamela; two sons Jonathan and Daniel; daughter Lucinda; stepson Rex Birchenough, and stepdaughter Sandra Stapleton. His daughter Jane pre-deceased him.
^ abRandel, Don Michael, ed. (1996). "Addison, John". The Harvard biographical dictionary of music. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press. pp. 5. ISBN0-674-37299-9.
^1959, commissioned for and performed by the then "National Schools Symphony Orchestra" (not to be confused with the later National Schools Symphony Orchestra), otherwise called the "British Youth Orchestra" ( http://www.answers.com/topic/trevor-harvey-2 ), following the withdrawal of his former teacher, Gordon Jacob from the commission, following the death of the latter's first wife