An Interview With Gerhard and Heidi Narholz
For nearly 60 years, Sonoton was Gerhard and Heidi Narholz. In fact, so indistinguishable were the two entities that one didn’t exist without the other. This familial relationship fuelled the company – Gerhard composed and produced much of the music and Heidi ensured the business kept abreast of the technological advances of the time. Both played a vital role in ensuring Sonoton was Germany’s premier production music library. Their children went from being featured on early Sonoton sleeves to recording for the library’s vast catalogue.
In 2021, Gerhard and Heidi finally handed over the reins to Alex Black, who first worked with the Sonoton catalogue in 2006 during his time at Imagem Production Music (formerly Boosey & Hawkes production music). Alex went on to be Global Director of EMI Production Music, the home of the legendary KPM Music library and home to about 400 Gerhard Narholz copyrights via the Conroy Berry and Coloursound labels. With Alex now at Sonoton, Gerhard, ever the composer, still keeps his hand in, writing and recording to this day. In a candid and exhaustive interview, the couple looks back over their career and their creative, business, and romantic relationship.
Can you outline the years leading up to the formation of Sonoton in 1965?
Gerhard: “I used to tell the story that my father was a wise man who said, ‘before my son goes to music he has to learn a proper profession’. So, I studied as a teacher – I could be a teacher in an elementary school. I never taught, I just completed my degree, and then I went to university in Vienna and studied musical composition. When I was there, I wrote songs – pop songs – for the German market.
There were a number of hit songs. So, somehow I got into this corner of music – German pop – and in the late-50s and early-60s I had about 100 single releases of pop songs under my name. Also, with performers and singers who were popular at that time, such as Petula Clark and Heidi Brühl. Through songwriting, I got into the German film market, where it was popular to produce the so-called Heimatfilm – films based on popular songs, with a little story. Those films weren’t necessarily produced to please viewers with a story, but rather to make the songs popular. My songs got into these movies, and I started writing the music for such films.
When we married in 1965, I completely stopped the song business and decided to write film music only or just concentrate on instrumentals. At that time, I was one of the first who wrote for a very popular German TV show, ‘John Klings Abenteuer’, a German spy series. You could compare it to something like ‘Criminal Minds’ today, maybe not as sophisticated, much simpler! A lot of action. While doing this work, I began to realise it was a waste of time to write music just for one film or a TV show that is shown once or twice and never again. I thought it would be good to reuse the music – this was the idea of the music library. It was based on the music I had written for films. I got the permission to reuse it, and so I started the music library in 1965.”
And that was the birth of Sonoton? Something that you and Heidi devised.
Gerhard: “We started the company together. For the whole history of Sonoton, we have worked together. I did the music and Heidi looked after the administration, and then later the digital version. She invented search programmes and all the digital things that became necessary.”
What was the aim of Sonoton?
Heidi: “Sonoton was founded to make Gerhard independent of other publishers and record companies – and to let him do his own thing as he wanted it. In the early years, Sonoton distributed easy listening music composed by Gerhard to the German radio stations on tape and also music to TV broadcasters, which Gerhard had initially composed for feature films or TV series. This was successful, and the demand was great, so soon Gerhard composed ‘library music’ for German TV. He also asked other composers to join. This way, Gerhard has invented production music in Germany, not knowing that there was already a lot of production music available in England.
Sonoton and Intersound signed the sub-publishing contract with Berry Music in 1970. All our records were pressed in the UK by Berry and imported to Germany for our market. Berry Music distributed the albums to the rest of the world.”
Were you aware of music libraries at this time?
Gerhard: “I don’t think we were aware when we started this company.”
Heidi: “If I remember correctly, in 1969, we found out about libraries in England. Gerhard invented it for Germany and a few years later we discovered that somebody had done it in England. The communication wasn’t there then – not like today.”
Gerhard: “1972 was the birth of Sonoton the record label.”
Heidi: “We said we would do it ourselves.”
Gerhard: “In the late-60s, Berry Music released our very early productions for the world market. They made sub-contracts with their agents and that was our step into the world via this English distributor.”
Heidi: “For years we just concentrated on providing the music and we didn’t have any expenses in pressing the albums. But then Berry Music was sold to EMI. By this time, we had a lot of our material released on Berry Music through its label Conroy. We also created for Berry the Blossom and Studio One labels which were exclusively our productions. The Conroy, Blossom and Studio One recordings were all copyrights on license to Berry.”
Gerhard: “We simply finished our contract and made our own operation. Made our own publishing contracts around the world and then went from there. At this time we decided to represent more third party catalogues, such as KPM. KPM had Conroy Berry and represented Sonoton and Intersound in England, it was a reciprocal arrangement that ran until the end of 1989. In the late-70s we also created a joint venture with Gunter Greffenius called Coloursound. The label has some classic library albums by regular Sonoton writers such as Klaus Weiss, Geoff Bastow, Mladen Franko and a lot of Joel Vandroogenbroek’s work. The label funnily enough also ended up being sold to EMI sometime in the 90s.”
In 1965, were you mostly composing music for TV?
Gerhard: “At that time, yes.”
Why was that? TV was exploding all over the world at this point?
Gerhard: “Television was young in Germany. The big German channel ZDF was founded in 1960. They needed everything.”
They needed music for their shows?
Heidi: “For everything. But especially at this time there was programme music. Programmes would finish at 1 o’clock or 12 o’clock – it wasn’t 24 hours – and then they had test cards. There was music underneath. And if music was played underneath the payments were very good.”
Gerhard: “So we could afford the big orchestras.”
Were you based in Munich?
Heidi: “Yes, here in Munich.”
What was the process? Would people come to you and tell you what they required? ‘We need music for a romantic scene. We need music for a car chase scene’, and so on…
Gerhard: “Yes, but I was thinking of a wider range. I wasn’t just thinking of having one song. I went to the music divisions at TV and asked them what kind of music they needed. They told me what they wanted. A sports person at one channel needed this certain type of music, and a sports person at another station told me they needed the same type of music; so, we would produce music for sports, music for families, music for children, and so on. That’s how it started.”
Did you get to see the scenes beforehand? Were you writing to pictures? Obviously not for sport…
Gerhard: “No, in production music, you don’t get to see the pictures. You imagine the pictures and try to imagine a variety of scenes and a variety of pictures and then write this music. That’s how production music works in general. To this day.”
And that was something you could do? You didn’t need the visual prompt?
Gerhard: “We have been producing 100 titles every month, we had lots of other composers working for us, I couldn’t write everything myself! I’m still writing. A little bit for the company. A composer never stops composing.”
In musical terms, the 1950s into the 1960s were a time of great change. Rock’n’roll came along and everything that followed subsequently. Did you never want to become the front person? The star? Were you always happy being behind the music?
Gerhard: “I have been very happy my whole life to have been behind the music. I don’t like being in public at all. There was one time I had to go a little bit public; it was my time as Norman Candler. As Norman Candler, I produced, arranged, and recorded a huge string orchestra with two big string sections. I think I made 10 or 11 long-playing albums for Decca in the UK, Telefunken in Germany and King Records in Japan. Being Norman Candler, I had to act like Norman Candler, but this kind of music was popular for a while and suddenly, nobody wanted this mood music anymore. This was fine for me because it was just a sideline I was following.”
So, without trying to find fame or celebrity, library music was the ideal vehicle for you and your music?
Gerhard: “I’m happy to be in the background.”
Heidi: “He was even a little bit shy. When we were in Singapore, we went to the television broadcasting stations and we saw the people there, who found out this was Norman Candler. This huge crowd of Asian girls gathered around him and treated him like a little star. He was popular. We had some parties in England and other countries, but he was never very happy being in the limelight. Gerhard likes to be behind all the things, but not to be presented in public. This is one of the reasons for pseudonyms. Another important reason is that our son Gregor started a Hollywood career in the 1980s. The problem: Gregor’s short name, G. Narholz, is the same as Gerhard’s, G. Narholz. Since then, Gerhard did not use his own name anymore in order to develop the name Narholz for Gregor.”
When did you decide to come up with these alter-egos, these pseudonyms?
Gerhard: “It was developed over the years. It simply developed.”
Because there was a conception that someone that was composing jazz for instance couldn’t also write a rock’n’roll song?
Gerhard: “Exactly that. The idea that someone producing classical music could also produce rock’n’roll was strange to a lot of people. I had a name for Latin music; Norman Candler was for the big strings and romantic music. Otto Sieben was for the more classical music; John Epping was the industrial music of the 70s and 80s.”
Were there any meanings behind any of the pseudonyms? Or were they randomly chosen?
Gerhard: “Norman Candler had the candle in mind – romantic music. But all the others were just names.”
Heidi: “We had to check that none of the names existed, so for some people we had to come up with a list of suggestions to get the ones that weren’t being used.”
As the 60s morphed into the 70s and 80s, music was always evolving and technology informed a lot of those changes. Were you comfortable adapting to all the new musical forms?
Gerhard: “I was developing with all the others. And, I think, I’m a kind of chameleon. I can do various music styles. If I listen to a piece of music in a new style I can analyse it because I have the education to really analyse. I feel able to compose in that style. It’s a theoretical thing that can be turned into a practical output.”
Does it matter whether you like the music or not?
Gerhard: “There are certain kinds of music that I had to get used to – to start liking it. But if you dive deeper into music styles – particularly those that you don’t like originally – you find that there is a lot of creativity and a lot of power in this music, and suddenly you don’t dislike it anymore. You start liking it because every musical style has an idea behind it. Music develops all the time, and all developments are very creative. All the music that is produced in the spheres of remixing, dance and so on… there is a lot of creativity. Even if somebody just takes a piece of music and makes something out of it.”
Where did the name Sonoton come from?
Gerhard: “I made it up. Sound and tone. I simply made it up. I remember I made it up when I was driving from Austria to Munich. The Americans insisted on putting an e at the end, but we didn’t.”
The first albums that you released on the Sonoton label – were they all you, or did they feature other composers?
Gerhard: “A lot of other composers as well.”
You’d commission other musicians and composers?
Gerhard: “Yes, of course. That’s how we do it still.”
So, you knew what you were asking the composer or the musician, to make?
Gerhard: “In many cases, we were working with composers, co-writing a lot of the productions. I might deliver the sketches, and my co-composer would make the final orchestration and bring it to life.”
Was the music a practical or creative practice?
Gerhard: “All my thinking, my whole life, has always been commercial, always commercial. I never wrote a piece of music without thinking who could use it or who could pay for it. I’m not a romantic composer at all; I’m just a worker.”
Heidi: “Once I asked him if he could just dedicate one song to me. I said: ‘You know I’m your wife and I hope to be the love of your life.’ He said all the songs were dedicated to me. That was his answer.”
Gerhard: “Absolutely.”
How did you two meet?
Gerhard: “That’s a long story.”
Heidi: “It was not love at first sight. Not at all. We met in Vienna when he was 19 and I was 17. It was the time of the 5 o’clock teas, he used to play in clubs and pubs. There was a big crowd of us. I was never interested in him at all. I thought he was too young. I thought he was just a boy. I spent a lot of time in other countries, in England and in America, but we still kept… he claims that when he saw me the first time he thought I was very beautiful, and sometimes I think he was already a little bit in love with me from the very beginning, no?”
Gerhard: “No, it was just a simple evaluation. One of my friends came along and said, ‘Look at this girl, do you think she’s beautiful?’ and I said, ‘Yes, she is’.”
So, you used to perform in bands?
Gerhard: “I played the piano.”
Heidi: “We used to write postcards to each other. Christmas cards, Easter… and we occasionally met, just friends really. And then I was in Vienna and he was in Munich. I had to go to Munich I think, or Paris or something. And he said, ‘Let’s meet again’. Two years later, we were married.”
Are you both from Vienna?
Heidi: “No, he was born in Upper Austria. I was born in Lower Austria. But we met in Vienna.”
What brought you to Munich?
Heidi: “He was writing pop songs, so moving to Munich was natural. It was one of the centres of the German pop market. Hamburg was very popular, and so was Cologne. Munich was closest to Austria; closest to home.”
What was the first release on the Sonoton label?
Heidi: “It started with Son101 – Mladen Franko’s ‘Amazing Space Vol. 1’. A production that’s stood the test of time.”
How did it develop from there? Did it grow quickly or gradually?
Gerhard: “Rather quickly.”
Heidi: “We also had another label called Intersound. This was founded to release our easy listening recordings – instrumentals – that we distributed to the radio mainly. This was very, very big – we had a lot of well-known artists that we produced on this Intersound label: Nelson Riddle, Billy May and his Orchestra, Les Brown and his Band of Renown, Xavier Cugat, Kapono Beamer, Kenny Ball and the Jazzmen, Franck Pourcel, Norman Candler, and many others… This was popular in the radio landscape in Germany when there were still those programmes. Instrumentals eventually faded out when private radio companies came in.”
What were the benefits of using library music?
Gerhard: “In the beginning of library music, in the old days, there were two rights. The right of the recording and the right of the composition. The right of the composition was controlled by the publishers and the right of the recording was mainly the record company’s – EMI, Deutsche Gramophone and so on. And the business of library music, which we invented here in Germany, was that we had both rights. So, if somebody wanted the music, for advertising or whatever, they could use it because they only had to get the rights from one person – us, Sonoton. Not from the publisher and the record label. This is the nature of library music, production music. Library music has an old-fashioned nature; we like to call it production music.”
And it just developed from there?
Gerhard: “In the early years, we were lucky because we were the only ones doing this. We invented it. As time went on more and more people copied us. Almost every step we made has been copied. Companies came in like Universal: when they started a library business in Germany they copied our business conditions, almost word for word.
Heidi: “It was incredible. But we thought it’s better we are copied than we copy.”
How did people access your music? Would they have to ask?
Gerhard: “No, no. Nobody has to ask in the world of library music because the rights are settled at the source. All television stations – like in England – have contracts with the performing rights society, in Germany also with the mechanical society, like MCPS or PRS in England. In Germany, radio stations or TV stations can use any piece of music without asking. They can use Michael Jackson or Sonoton. They have the same rates for Michael Jackson and the same rates for Sonoton. You can use both at any time, because the radio stations also have a contract with the GVL (Gesellschaft zur Verwertung von Leistungsschutzrechten), and based on this general contract, all radio stations and TV stations can use recordings from anywhere and anybody without asking for permission. And the payments for use go directly to Phonographic Performance Limited, to GVL in Germany, or to GEMA. GEMA distributes to composers and publishers, and the GVL distributes to the owners of the recordings and the performers. It’s very well organised. The only thing that does not go through the societies is music that is not used in television. Music that is used in advertising or in documentary films, in cinema movies… for such usages we have to invoice directly. In such cases, the people don’t ask us, but they have to tell us. ‘We have used this track. Please send us the invoice.’”
When you started, it was just you two? You were in effect Sonoton?
Heidi: “Yes, just a man and a woman. Nobody else. And you know, I never thought about working for Gerhard. I used to hate typewriting. Hated it. I said I would never ever get a job where I have to type. I was working for Swiss Air, so I didn’t have to type anything. And then when we were married, one day he said: ‘You can type. Can you type me this letter?’ And I just, you know, I just came into this. Typing for him. Doing the administration work. It just happened. We never talked about it. I just did it because, you know… And after Christoph was born, I said I have no time. I’d just had a baby. Not now. After some time, I said: ‘Ok, Gerhard, I can do it again.’ I am very old-fashioned, my family is old-fashioned, so the mother has to stay home and take care of the kids, and this is how a mother was in 1965. Gerhard said: ‘Either I will have a secretary or you can have a nanny. What would you like?’ It’s very easy to know what my decision was. A nanny.”
Your children feature on some of those early sleeves. Was that just about keeping it a family affair?
Gerhard: “Yes, the whole thing was a family affair.”
Heidi: “For the first few years, I didn’t have so much to do. Gerhard composed and Berry Music was taking care of it. And the rates – the television rates – for his music were high, so we didn’t have so much to do. So, we had time to raise our kids. We were both at home; it was important and it worked for everybody. We were in Munich at this point, and then when it was time for Christoph to go to school, we decided to move back to Austria. We had a manager here and we travelled back and forth. And it worked.”
Your children have all been involved in composing for Sonoton. What did you think of that? Did you want them to follow you into the family business?
Gerhard: “Our son Gregor is a Hollywood composer and also creates music for Sonoton. Our other two sons have also studied music and composing but only write occasionally. Christoph teaches Philosophy at the University of Munich and Robert is a film producer in Australia.”
Can you tell us a little bit about Pro Viva? How was it different from Sonoton?
Heidi: “Gerhard’s interest in contemporary music led to a new division in Sonoton, EDITION Pro Nova, dedicated to publishing the work of living, modern classical composers. In this field, the new idea was to mirror Sonoton’s business model and create recordings of the published works. These recordings have been released on LPs to the public on the Intersound label Pro Viva.”
When did you produce the first catalogue that potential clients could look through?
Heidi: “The late-70s. Technology happened very fast. I wanted a computer. We didn’t know what to do with it. In 1984, Gerhard bought one. It was extremely expensive in Austria and when I got it, I didn’t want to think about it, it was this huge thing. Hardly any memory, wouldn’t start… anyway, two months later we bought another one. I engaged a girl in Austria to put in all the data.”
Gerhard: “And you went on a course. You learned programming.”
Heidi: “Yes. That’s true. Anyway, this girl put in the data. We thought it would be two or three months’ work. She left Sonoton three years ago! It’s a constant. I had to learn it and fortunately, I did. I was very up to date. There was a time when I was spending all the money on computer software and hardware. There were some years where I spent more on the technology than he did on his music production. But it was necessary. If I hadn’t done it, Sonoton wouldn’t exist anymore. A lot of our friends didn’t do it. They didn’t update the systems and they went.”
When did you go from the physical book to digital?
Heidi: “We had everything in the computer in 1984. In 1995, we had our first search programme. We were the first ones to do this. In 2000, we were online. Before that, we had the CD-ROM and everything was possible, technology-wise, because of the capacity – how much we could store. I remember at the turn of the century, we were online. Before that, the CD-ROMs had little tracks with samples to listen to. There was only enough memory to store snippets. People would listen, and then we would go to the shelf to get the CD – that was how we operated between 1990 and 2000. And then I remember I said we had to go online with the individual tracks. Gerhard moaned that I wasn’t leaving him any money for the production. I wondered how I could convince Gerhard that we had to do it; that it was really necessary. So, I started to talk about it and we went back and forth, back and forth. Eventually, he said ‘Do it.’”
Technology changed how music was made. Did it change how you operated?
Heidi: “Yes, at that time the talk wasn’t about the music but how we would provide the music.”
Has the story of Sonoton been one of continual progression? Was there a boom time for production music? Or has the demand for production music always been there?
Gerhard: “The music has always been in demand because it was needed. Advertising always needed it; radio was always playing it, and television was always needing it. It was needed all the time.”
What about the afterlife of production music? The music is used today in other ways than it was intended – it’s sampled by producers, for instance…
Gerhard: “This seems to be a new development in production music. Rappers are looking for sounds or grooves from the ’60s and ’70s. We recently had a big success with Chance the Rapper and another one with Drake. And a number of others. It’s another new usage for production music, which we are happy about for sure. Because all the old goodies rise again.”
Heidi: “I always like to tell the story that if someone has a lot of money, you know, millions, they couldn’t produce or record a library like Sonoton’s. It is impossible.”
Gerhard: “They could not produce those old tracks because the equipment is not there.”
Heidi: “This makes it. I like to think about that. All the money in the world couldn’t produce a library like we have.”
What does the fact that music Sonoton released in the 70s or 80s is being reused or repurposed today, say about the music you were making then? It’s clearly stood the test of time. Does it validate your vision? What do you think when you discover that Chance the Rapper or Kendrick Lamar is using music from the Sonoton catalogue?
Gerhard: “I’m a businessman, I’m happy about it.”
And what about the act of sampling, do you see it as something creative?
Gerhard: “Sure. There’s a lot of creativity in sampling. The producers who are using our music have a lot of ideas, and to combine it with existing material… it’s legitimate.”
Is your story – as a couple and a family – inescapable from the story of Sonoton?
Heidi: “We’ve been very, very lucky, because it’s not easy for a married couple to work in the same company. I think the secret is that I had my departments and Gerhard didn’t intervene. He didn’t get involved in the technological side of things, for example. And I didn’t interfere with his composing. He is an artist, but he’s also a businessman, which is very rare. To cut a long story short, we have been married for 60 years…”
Gerhard: “We never had any problems together.”
Heidi: “Never. This is unique. We never had fights. He doesn’t fight. He just doesn’t. I will sometimes say: ‘Ah, Gerhard.’ But he doesn’t get angry. We are very fortunate. I’m really thankful. I’m grateful for that.”
Who are the other individuals integral to the Sonoton story? Musicians? Composers?
Heidi: “A lot of people have been very important, very dedicated, very true. Gerhart Frei, our sound engineer, is one of those. Taking care of the quality, the authenticity.”
Gerhard: “And I’ll tell you, our recordings from the 70s, now that they are remastered they sound like they were recorded yesterday. They really sound fresh.”
Heidi: “We look back and think we did quite well! Things that were recorded in 1970 or 1971 or whatever.”
And what do you put that down to?
Gerhard: “The sound quality. The technical quality of the production has always been really great. Of course they have been remastered. Mastering means that the frequencies technically are polished up.”
Sound has always been an integral part of the Sonoton story hasn’t it?
Gerhard: “Of course. This is part of our success in the world. Because clients know that if they go to Sonoton, they get the best quality. That means a rock’n’roll album is truly rock’n’roll. We try to use the right composers for certain styles of music. We use the right musicians. And the place of recording. We have a huge series of ethnic music that we recorded at the source in the countries. I think we have over 100 countries that we cover. We went there, travelled there ourselves, and found out about the music and the musicians.“
Heidi: “And Gerhart Frei too. He went to these countries and recorded there.”
Gerhard: “And other producers who did it too. I think we cover most countries.”
You would travel to these countries?
Gerhard: “We would travel a lot and record a lot.”
Heidi: “The first one was in Australia wasn’t it?”
Gerhard: “Yes, Australia. We were in Alice Springs and found a studio. The guy there would go out 300km into the bush and he recorded the Indigenous Australians at source. This was our first production in the Authentic Series.”
Did you know there would be a market for these authentic sounds?
Gerhard: “I assumed there would be. I thought: ‘What do films need?’ I began to think about what films would need what kind of music. And that’s the thing that we have to provide. All the documentaries of geographical, historical, or other themes need authentic music from countries, which we provided.”
Not just traditional music then?
Gerhard: “No, no. We do have Sonoton Authentic Today, which involves recording the contemporary music – the pop music – of today from the country, also at source. But the main bulk of recordings is ethnic music. This is often related, of course – pop music derives from ethnic music. Particularly Latin music, the rhythms are part of our pop music.”
Learning about music in different countries, cultures, and the different styles of music… is that something you’ve enjoyed and indeed immersed yourself in?
Gerhard: “You learn your whole life.”
And that attitude – that openness – has enabled Sonoton to develop and evolve over the years?
Gerhard: “I think so, yes.”
Heidi: “Definitely. This is the success, Gerhard. The creativity, that’s you.”
Gerhard: “I must say, I am always looking at music from the user’s point. I think what do they need for this purpose? Where is the demand? What could be the demand? And I try to fill this.”
Heidi: “This is the businessman in him, which is unusual to a composer. Not many artists think like this. His father was very artistic and his mother was very business-oriented, so he is a perfect combination of his parents. He really is.”
Do you describe yourself as a businessman or a musician? Or both?
Gerhard: “Both. Of course.”
Do you prefer one over the other?
Gerhard: “Without the businessman the composer would not sit here.”
Heidi: “But right now I must say we are very happy because you can concentrate on your composing now, and the business is up to Alex.”
Gerhard: “I’m still working. I’m still working on productions. I’m still writing and recording.”
So, the inspiration, the creative juices… it is still flowing?
Gerhard: “A composer never stops composing. I’m not a romantic composer. I’m like a shoemaker who makes a shoe if he needs to make it. I sit down and write if I need to sit down and write.”
Heidi: “But sometimes I must say he will get up in the middle of the night and write down what he’s been thinking about composing the next morning.”
In that respect, is it a craft that one never stops learning? As a creative and artistic person are you still learning about and developing your craft?
Gerhard: “Sure. I tell you, at the age of 88, I feel like I’m 50. I’m lucky to have the health.”
Heidi: “His body might be 88, but his soul is 50.”
Have you ever heard a piece of Sonoton music in a film or on television and been pleasantly surprised?
Gerhard: “Sometimes I say to Heidi when we’re watching television ‘This sounds familiar’. And it’s me. I’ve written probably over five thousand pieces, so I can’t remember them all.”
Do you have any thoughts on how your music is used?
Heidi: “Sometimes the music has been used in sex movies, and I would say: ‘Gerhard, your music should not be in the sex movies.’ And he said if it’s not my music, it will be someone else’s.”
Gerhard: “And these were very popular films in cinemas for years! They’re not so controversial now. In the 70s, it was a sensation, of course.”
Once you’ve written and created the music and it’s out there, available to be used, do you have any thoughts on how it’s used or where?
Gerhard: “It’s interesting, but I don’t follow it up really. Only once did I follow it up. It was an American film, ‘The Hurt Locker’, which won an Oscar. They used a Norman Candler piece in a very long passage in a supermarket. It’s one of the films I’ve watched deliberately because of this. I wanted to know where it had been used.”
Heidi: “Did you like it? Did you not like it? Did you have any comments about it?”
Gerhard: “It was in the right place.”
Are you not interested in how the music is used? Or is it that there’s just so much that you couldn’t explore every usage?
Gerhard: “I’m interested, but there are so many usages. I can see in the royalties what has been used. I don’t get information about what has been used. It’s very hard to trace. We get statements saying this track has been used for so-and-so minutes in television and we get this amount of money for it, but they don’t say where it was used – in what programme.”
What are your favourite albums from the catalogue?
Gerhard: “I like them all, but especially my own Norman Candler recordings and compositions on the Intersound label.”
When did you know the time was right to hand over the reins to Alex?
Gerhard: “We worked full-time until Alex took over as CEO. It was a fortunate coincidence learning from Alex at a business dinner in Los Angeles that there might be a chance to headhunt him from EMI. Two years later, we did it. Alex is successfully continuing the Sonoton idea but also developing new business ideas that advance the company.”
Has the role of library music, production music changed over the last 60 years?
Gerhard: “I think it’s become more and more important. We have a huge number of competitors now. We started from zero and it was growing, growing, growing, and growing. And now the amount of production music that is used in television across the world is unbelievable. In America, at one point, almost 90% of the music used on television was production music. It’s huge. Unbelievable. But the competition has never been greater. It’s the demand. AI is the new threat now, but we have seen our business model challenged over the years with royalty-free libraries, commissioned music libraries, etc. Our hope is that at the heart of storytelling in visual media, the music used continues to be created by humans. That our production music remains a credible choice for visual producers because we are really the ones who create the music. AI is just reproducing the creativity of hard working composers and artists.”
Heidi: “Sonoton has always been about looking forward.”
You can read this interview and much more in our book S.60.