Carlo Martelli

Who is Carlo Martelli?

Carlo Martelli is an English composer of classical music. He was born in London in 1935 into a working-class family, Carlo Martelli was brought up in Walworth and Richmond and became one of the most admired young composers in Britain while still in his teens.

His teachers included William Lloyd Webber.

As a young composer, Martelli had probably the greatest success of all those of his generation. For example, his Symphony was performed by the LSO under Norman Del Mar at the Royal Festival Hall, and was then broadcast by the BBC several times in performances by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

The change in Martelli's fortunes came in the early 1960s. Policy changes at the BBC's 'Third Programme' resulted in his music -- melodious and tonal as it was -- being sidelined in favour of serial and avant-garde experimentation, and Martelli rapidly vanished from the schedules. In addition, he had taken on a tremendous workload as a film composer -- to which burden was added the further strain of working as an uncredited assistant and 'ghost writer' for several other film composers: Martelli sometimes found himself working on two or three films at the same time.