Children of the Stones was a complex and disturbing television drama produced for children by HTV in 1976. I remember being literally petrified by this programme, particularly the title sequence. As a youngster, I found its soundtrack both intensely otherworldly and deeply troubling. The music was composed by Sidney Sager who used a combination of a cappella vocalizations of a single, repeated Icelandic word ("Hadave") to create a terrifying and dissonant score. The vocals were provided by the Ambrosian Singers who during their long career have provided choral work for both Ennio Morricone and Nino Rota. The series was filmed at Avebury, Wiltshire during Summer 1976, with interior scenes filmed at HTV's Bristol studio. The score for this series has never been commercially issued, which is a shame as both the "Start Title" and the "Ritual And End Title" are some of the scariest music I've heard on television.
6 comments:
agreed. this had a similar effect on me too
An abiding favorite: thanks for the post, and especially for the mp3s! One of the only reasons to see Simon Pegg's generally dull Hot Fuzz is the Children of the Stones homage at the end. I believe there's a sample of the ritual music used on Belbury Poly's first album as well...
Thank you so much for sharing this, it's really lovely to finally have the music from Children of the stones...
It's one of my favorite program and something i watch quite often, really lovely ....
Do you possibly have the theme from The Owl Service?
Thank you for a wonderful blog
I've some mp3s of the Owl Service somewhere......
Is it possible you can please re-share these? Thanks so much!
I'll try and have a peek in the archives.
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