"Which long running TV series was introduced by a piece of music, entitled, ""The Funeral March of a Marionette"", by Gounod?"
Funeral March of a Marionette Island Discs". Funeral March of a Marionette The Funeral March of a Marionette () is a short piece by Charles Gounod. It was originally written for solo piano in 1872 and orchestrated in 1879. It is perhaps best known as the theme music for the television program "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". While residing in London, England, between 1871 and 1872, Gounod started to write a suite for piano called "Suite burlesque". It was a satirical character piece intended to be a parody of the personality of Henry Chorley, a music critic. It greatly amused Gounod's English patron, Georgina Weldon, who described
Funeral March of a Marionette having a "thin, sour, high-pitched sopranish voice" and moving like a "stuffed red-haired monkey". Gounod intended to publish the piece with a dedication to Chorley, but the latter died before this was possible. Weldon then invented a new program for the piece, which was re-titled "Funeral March of a Marionette". After completing this piece, Gounod abandoned the rest of the suite. The piece was dedicated to Madame Viguier, a pianist and the wife of Alfred Viguier, the first violin in the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire. In 1879, he orchestrated the piece with piccolo, flute, 2 oboes,