Who composed the music for BBC's The Pale Horse?

BBC One continues its tradition of presenting adaptations of Agatha Christie tales with a new take on her 1961 story, The Pale Horse. It features original music by Anne Nikitin.

Michael Beek

Published: February 10, 2020 at 11:42 am

A list of names is found in the shoe of a dead woman, and it seems their time is also up as, one by one, the named are found dead… of supposedly natural causes. Whodunnit?

Well, we can’t give the game away, but we can tell you who wrote the music for the two-part adaptation – which was co-produced with Amazon – and that is Canadian-born composer Anne Nikitin.

Following studies at Montréal’s McGill University, Nikitin completed a Masters in Composition at the Royal College of Music in London.

While here, she studied with the Oscar-winning composer Dario Marianelli and worked alongside veteran screen composer George Fenton on the likes of the natural history film One Life.

With original music written for a number of critically-acclaimed films and television programmes, not to mention Damien Hirst’s 2017 Venice exhibition, it’s no wonder she was cited as a composer to watch by Classic FM in 2018.

A versatile composer, Nikitin was nominated for both an Ivor Novello and a British Independent Film Award for her score for the film American Animals.

Her previous credits include the BBC drama Mrs Wilson and the films Calibre, The Beautiful Fantastic and The Imposter.

Forthcoming things to look out for include the Netflix production Lost Girl and the feature film Four Kids and It – based on the novel by Jacqueline Wilson.

Reviews Editor, BBC Music Magazine

Michael is the Reviews Editor of BBC Music Magazine. He looks after the 26 pages of recording and book reviews in the magazine each month, deciding what will be reviewed – no easy task with so much being sent in for consideration! Michael joined the team in 2018, following ten years as a freelance film music journalist and fifteen years at St George's Bristol. Film and television music is his favourite thing, and when he’s not listening to things to be reviewed in the mag, Michael loves nothing more than to listen to the music of John Williams and James Horner – his favourite film composers. He was the Editor of MusicfromtheMovies.com and has written for the BBC Proms, BBC Concert Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Albert Hall, Hollywood in Vienna and Silva Screen Records. His favourite writing gigs so far have been programmes for each of the Doctor Who Proms, soundtrack album notes for Doctor Who – Series 4 and Torchwood – Children of Earth, plus programmes and features for live concert screenings of Jurassic Park, Gladiator, Back to the Future and Raiders of the Lost Ark. While he never got the chance to interview the late James Horner, Michael was delighted to spend an hour on the phone with John Williams for the 2020 Christmas issue of BBC Music Magazine. Also a presenter, Michael has hosted concerts and live events for Bristol Film Festival and St George's Bristol, plus Debbie Wiseman's ‘Music and Words from Wolf Hall’ shows at venues across the UK. Michael has worked regularly with Debbie Wiseman over the years, writing concert programmes and scripts (for Terry Wogan and Simon Bates) and producing her 2011 album Piano Stories.