[2] He spent six months in Germany in 1922, then returned to London, where he won a scholarship from the Worshipful Company of Musicians and attempted his first serious compositions while earning his income as a jazz violinist, pianist and arranger.
These included The Seventh Veil (1945), The Man in the White Suit (1951), The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), The Night of the Iguana (1964), and Battle of the Bulge (1965),[5] as well as the first British (partly) serial film score, to The Curse of the Werewolf (1961).
One of the first to gain attention was the Sonata No 1 for solo violin of 1942, which was dedicated to the Austrian-born violinist and viola player Max Rostal.
This amounted to slander as far as Clark was concerned, and he sued Frankel in the High Court, calling the composers Christian Darnton and Bernard Stevens as witnesses.
[12] While Frankel's alleged slander itself was unproven, the jury exonerated Clark of any wrongdoing and he felt this meant his integrity was intact.
[6] Born and raised in Hammersmith, Frankel lived in London for many years, most notably at 17 Soho Square between 1953 and 1957, where he was the host of a circle of artists including the poet Cecil Day Lewis and film director Anthony Asquith.
[5] Frankel died in London on 12 February 1973 while working on the three-act opera Marching Song and a ninth symphony, which had been commissioned by the BBC.
When he died, Marching Song had been completed in short score; it was orchestrated by Buxton Orr, a composer who had studied with Frankel and whose advocacy has been at least partly responsible for the revival of interest in his works.