How often have you been aware of the music when watching a film or a theatre performance? If the music is skilfully written you probably weren’t aware of it, and yet music in film is pervasive – what Claudia Gorbman refers to as Unheard Melodies in her excellent book.

In theatre too, at the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, new scores are produced for each new production, but how often do we notice this music unless attention is drawn to it. Perhaps some musicians appear onstage at a dance or to accompany a song or a party and suddenly we notice, but what happens when we are not aware of the music? Certainly it continues to influence the atmosphere, our mood and our response to characters. It manipulates our understanding of plot events, it slows down and speeds up our perception of time, it signifies a geographical or historical location and it adds excitement or tension as the plot develops – and yet it must not be so significant that it draws focus from the plot.

Writing theatre music that fulfils all the demands made of it is an art.

Guy Woolfenden, who died in April this year, was music director of the RSC for 37 years and wrote over 150 scores for the company. He was a master of this little noticed art. His contribution to theatre music was not simply in writing excellent scores, however. He also supported and commissioned younger composers who work across media in theatre, film and television (such as Stephen Oliver, Ilona Sekacz, Nigel Hess, Gary Yershon, Shaun Davey), and composers of electronic sound (including Delia Derbyshire) contributing to the spread of what was then an experimental area of practice. The work of the RSC in extending the variety and importance of music in theatre and supporting the work of composers and musicians is rarely discussed; an unheard melody in British theatre practice whose development was spearheaded for many years by this kind and witty man.

Rest In Peace, Guy Woolfenden: pioneer of contemporary theatre music.