Mantovani

Radio 2 celebrates the extraordinary career of Venice-born conductor and composer Annunzio Mantovani (1905-80), whose family moved to England when he was seven. Known simply as Mantovani, the easy-listening superstar and violinist produced a huge number of light-orchestral LPs during his peak, with more than 50 albums charting in America between the 1950s and 1972, including the 1957 number one Film Encores, which spent 231 weeks in the charts. In 1953 he scored big in the UK with the number one single The Song from the Moulin Rouge and the number two Swedish Rhapsody; his UK album debut came in 1959 with the Top Ten Continental Encores.

Celebrating the career of Venice-born conductor and composer Annunzio Mantovani.