You may not have heard of John Barry, but you have certainly heard his music. The composer is famous for his music for films, among them eleven James Bond soundtracks. He passed away on 30 Jan, leaving behind a musical legacy that influenced and captured the moods of twentieth-century film.

Listen to the theme he wrote for From Russia With Love. Like James Bond, the theme is dynamic and active, yet it is unhurried.  Though Barry gives his listeners a sense of heart-racing urgency, the music is too sensuous to risk tripping over itself. It is smooth, confident. This confidence makes you trust Barry, and when you’re watching the film, it makes you trust Bond.

Barry was born in Yorkshire, and you can hear it in his score for The Lion in Winter. His soundtrack is arguably the best part of this film, or at least the part that has aged best. John Barry got one of his five Oscars for it, and filled the opening sequence with a sense of momentous power.

Barry’s most famous music is from Goldfinger. Few soundtracks can lay claim to the iconic status that Goldfinger has – one recognizes its first notes and shameless stretches of brass even before Shirley Bassey’s voice blows in like a desert breeze.

Here and elsewhere, you can hear the heaviness that made Barry’s sound so suitable for film – self-aware, magnificent, almost over the top. They say that composers hear their music in their heads before they write it ­– if this is what he heard, it must have been pretty awesome to be John Barry.