The story
De Wolfe Ltd was founded in London by Dutch musician Meyer de Wolfe in 1909. In early cinema the soundtrack to movies was provided by musicians playing live in the theatres. Meyer de Wolfe offered a sheet music library of original compositions to accompany silent films, often produced in collaboration with other musicians from the orchestras of London. These collaborators included conductor Sir Landon Ronald, violinist and conductor Sir Eugene Goossens, composers Giuseppe Becce and Ivor Novello, and violinist Mantovani.
By the late 1920s de Wolfe Music began recording with the 'sound-on-disc' technique and 'sound-on-film', on the 35mm nitrate film. This film was explosive if improperly stored, which proved to be the cause of an explosion in the basement of the company's Wardour Street office. Examples of compositions from this time include Keep Your Face To The Sunshine (1926), Odiele, performed by Ivor Novello, from the film The Rat (1925), and Policeman's Holiday (1931) by Montague Ewing.
In the 1930s de Wolfe created soundtracks for newsreels, working with Pathé News, British Movietone News, and British Gaumont Cinemas. This work continued throughout the Second World War and on in to the 1960s. The company was still providing music for film, including Fame Is the Spur (with a soundtrack composed by Dam Busters pilot John Wooldridge) and Edward, My Son (1948).
After the Second World War, de Wolfe expanded in to North America through a partnership with Corelli and Jacobs, two film editors from Paramount Pictures. In 1955 the company provided the music for the first televised commercial in the U.K. for Gibbs Toothpaste.
In 1962 de Wolfe began distributing 10" vinyl records, with cover designs by Rolf Webster and Nick Bantock. These LPs are now widely sought after by record collectors. At this time de Wolfe provided the theme to The Power Game (earning de Wolfe and Wayne Hill an Ivor Novello Award for Instrumental Composition of the Year), and for a number of episodes of Doctor Who.
The Pretty Things (Phil May, Dick Taylor, John Povey, John Alder and Wally Allen) recorded five albums for the Music de Wolfe library under the name 'Electric Banana' from 1967-1978 that were used in the film 'Dawn Of The Dead', the Doctor Who story 'The Green Death' and the TV series 'The Sweeney'. These albums were released in the UK as a 3-CD Box Set by Grapefruit Records on Sep 27 2019.
In 1973 a Jack Trombey composition was used as the theme for the detective series Van Der Valk. Eye Level became a million-selling number one single, topping the U.K charts for six weeks. Around this time de Wolfe music could be heard in Kung Fu movies by Shaw Brothers, British comedies Zeta One and Adventures of a Taxi Driver, and the Monty Python films. The 1970s was a period of further expansion for the company, with the addition of the Rouge catalogue in 1975 and the establishing of Angel Recording Studios in 1979.
Digital technology brought changes to the music industry in the 1980s, particularly with the evolution of CDs. In 1985 de Wolfe launched its DWCD collection of 6 CDs, becoming the world's first digital production music library. De Wolfe ultimately ended the production of its vinyl series in 1988, and the end of the production of CDs would come in 2014 as de Wolfe shifted focus to online delivery.
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De Wolfe Ltd celebrated its centenary year in 2009, with the company at that time claiming offices and agents in 40 countries.
From Wikipedia’s article on De Wolfe Music, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3