At just eight years old, Patrick Doyle ventured into his primary school’s assembly hall, eager to try his hand at the newly acquired piano.

“It was a Challen upright,” he reminisced, “I lifted the heavy lid, which clattered loudly, echoing like an explosion.”

Undeterred, Doyle began to play “Catch a Falling Star,” a tune he had learned by ear on a small glockenspiel at home after hearing Perry Como’s rendition on the family radio.

“Realizing I could translate it from the glockenspiel to the piano was the most incredible feeling,” he shared. “I was playing purely by ear, self-taught, when suddenly someone shouted, ‘Stop that noise! Who’s playing the piano? Get out!'”

His impromptu performance had caught the attention of the school janitor, who was less than pleased. “Rather than seeing me as a budding musical talent, he slammed the lid shut and hauled me out by the collar,” Doyle explained.

While such a reprimand might have discouraged others, it only fueled young Patrick’s passion for music: “It didn’t deter me at all; it only strengthened my resolve.”

‘I do genuinely believe music is ingrained in my DNA and I have just been very lucky to have this talent.’

Indeed, the rare talent which that tin-eared ‘janny’ failed to appreciate has gone on to produce a stellar body of work that anyone who has visited a cinema in the last four decades will be familiar with whether or not they recognise the name of Patrick Doyle.

Patrick Doyle with Richard Madden and Lily James at the premiere of Disney’s Cinderella

Composer Patrick Doyle with musicians recording the score for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

While he may not yet be a household name in his native land, the veteran Scots composer is a kenspeckle fixture in the Hollywood firmament having collaborated with some of the world’s most acclaimed movie directors, from Brian De Palma and Ang Lee to Mike Newell, Alfonso Cuarón, and Robert Altman.

With more than 60 movie soundtracks under his belt, the music of this miner’s son from the coalfields of Lanarkshire has illuminated such classics as Carlito’s Way, Sense and Sensibility, Indochine, Donnie Brasco, Gosford Park, and pretty much everything Kenneth Branagh has ever made, from Henry V to Thor.

Nominated for two Academy Awards, two Césars, and two Golden Globes, Doyle has also received two lifetime achievement awards from the World Soundtrack Awards and BAFTA Scotland. In 2023, he was chosen by Charles III as the first Scot to compose a coronation march and last year was awarded the Saltire Award for Arts and Humanities for his work in music and film.

Later this month, Doyle is to be honoured with a special concert at Vienna’s world-renowned Musikverein where, for the first time, he will conduct the Vienna Symphony Orchestra performing his score for the Disney’s animation, Brave, alongside a selection of his other works, including Sense and Sensibility, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Bridget Jones’s Diary.

And yet despite the accolades and a contacts book bulging with the great and good of the arts and entertainment, the 72-year-old can still happily walk the streets of his homeland in complete anonymity.

Which bothers him not a jot. In a wide-ranging interview with the Mail covering his long and serendipitous journey from the mining village of Birkenshaw via a brief acting career, a battle with cancer, and deep friendships with acting and actual royalty, music has remained at the heart of everything.

‘One of my earliest memories was being entranced by the music in the test card on the TV and I used to quietly conduct it when no-one was looking,’ he said. ‘I just couldn’t believe this wonderful classical music which really caught my attention.’

The seventh of 13 children, he was born into a family of singers who never passed up an excuse to perform. His father sang tenor and the record player filled the home with the voices of Caruso, Richard Tauber and Joan Sutherland.

Mr Doyle meets King Charles for the first time in 1987

Mr Doyle with the late actor Robbie Coltrane

Doyle’s eldest daughter, Abi, who now acts as his manager, fondly refers to her aunts and uncles as Scotland’s Von Trapps. ‘It was a bit like The Sound of Doyles, no question,’ he said. ‘Music runs in both sides of the family and they’re all blessed with fabulous voices.’

In his case, the well of creativity ran deeper: ‘I heard melodies in my head and I didn’t tell anyone in case they thought I was mental. But I really heard tunes and orchestras playing them in my head.’

At St John’s Primary in Uddingston, he admitted to being ‘a bit of a show-off’ performing in school plays and the brass band.

An early interest in television earned him the nickname ‘square eyes’ but far from being a couch potato, he was scrutinising how it was put together: ‘I was obsessed with all the technical side of things.’ Even at such a tender age, it seemed the stars were aligning.

After school, he studied classical composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (then the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama), where he met his wife, Lesley, who was studying costume design.

Graduating in 1975, he embarked initially on a dual career as both actor and composer, earning a part in BBC teen drama Maggie as a lovelorn hairdresser, Alexander Smith.

While a student, he earned extra cash as a lounge pianist around Glasgow, including the five-star Fountain Restaurant at Charing Cross, a popular haunt of budding artist John Byrne.

They struck up a friendship which led to an invitation to audition for a role in Byrne’s first play, The Slab Boys, which became so successful it transferred to London’s West End. ‘That’s how it all started for me. I guess I was quite jammy, but you make your own jam,’ he said.

Mr Doyle was behind the score for Bridget Jones’s Diary

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was amongst the scores written by Mr Doyle

He also made lifelong friends with fellow Slab Boy, Robbie Coltrane, who shared his impish humour. ‘My wife and I are both small and he would call us “Mr and Mrs Cruet”. He would lift us up under each arm and ask, “Salt and pepper anyone?”’

The pair would also send each other prank letters; Coltrane used Warner Bros notepaper to invite Doyle to ‘play Mr Coltrane’s buttonhole in his suit’ on a production of Tarzan, while Doyle fooled Coltrane into phoning up for the part of William McIlvanney’s Detective Inspector Laidlaw in an imaginary new film. ‘He was crestfallen because he would have loved that part.’

Emboldened by the success of The Slab Boys, Doyle and his wife made the move to London permanent and continued to play in upmarket restaurants in Park Lane and Mayfair to make ends meet between acting gigs. ‘I was muzak man, playing for the great and the good – I even played to Steven Spielberg once although I didn’t play anything from his films as I thought that would be really naff.

‘It seemed like another world. Never did I imagine that I would be part of this world one day.’

Desperate to focus on music, he enjoyed another slice of good fortune in 1987 when on the recommendation of their mutual friend, John Sessions, Kenneth Branagh took him on as composer and musical director of his newly formed Renaissance Theatre Company.

The first production, Twelfth Night, premiered in the presence of its royal patron, the then Prince Charles, but things didn’t go entirely to plan.

When the prince arrived late, an already tense Doyle launched into the overture before realising to his horror that a lamp on top of his piano wasn’t gaffer-taped down. ‘The overture is quite a robust piece and the piano’s shoogling like mad and I looked up and it was like a Sam Peckinpah movie – I saw this lamp coming towards me and I thought, “this cannot be happening” as it’s landed in my hands and upset all the music and the band stopped and there was this horrible Les Dawson silence.

‘In desperation, I turned round and asked, “Has anybody seen page one?”. The place guffawed and I saw Prince Charles laughing his head off and Branagh’s face like a rabbit caught in the headlights. When he came backstage, Charles said, “That was very funny, you should do that every night!”’

The lamp was firmly taped down thereafter and the production would garner rave reviews. It was the start of a long professional and personal association with Branagh, scoring 15 of his next 20 films including his first, 1989’s Henry V – a huge hit which catapulted the Scot into Hollywood and earned him an Ivor Novello Award for Best Film Theme for ‘Non Nobis, Domine’.

He went on to work with Ang Lee on Sense and Sensibility (1995), earning his first Oscar nomination – which he followed with a second for Branagh’s Hamlet a year later.

He is especially proud of his score for Brave, which became the first Disney film to feature lyrics in Gaelic, including Doyle’s setting of A’ Mhadainn Bhan Uasal.

‘A lot of my music is influenced by Scottish and Celtic music no question. I loved doing the score for Brave – it was the most wonderful experience to dig deep into your own culture especially knowing it would be seen all over the world.’

A self-confessed workaholic (his father regarded idleness ‘as a disease’), Doyle learned to work quickly and methodically on films, turning out three a year at his peak while fending off ‘curveballs’ from movie executives.

After a conference call, he was given two weeks to rewrite 50 per cent of the score for Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011). ‘I was due to fly to LA and the studio’s head of music, who’s a good friend, said, “Patrick, you’ve got ten hours on the plane to write this; you’ve got plenty of time. I knew the picture inside out so I sat on the plane and rethought the entire thing and it came pouring out.’

He admits he loves the ‘chaos’ of creative collaboration, saying: ‘As one of 13 children I was surrounded by chaos growing up.’

His hardest challenge came in 1997 when he was forced to pull out of scoring the Meryl Streep vehicle Dancing at Lughnasa after he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia.

‘I knew I was seriously unwell because it was unusual for me not to get up and battle on. The NHS and Lesley and my family got me through it.

‘The crazy thing was I did write a film score in my hospital room. I was in the middle of a Warner Bros animated film called Quest for Camelot and they gave me an extra month to finish it.’

He had a builder create a little editing studio in the corner of his hospital room in London, and he started to write while receiving chemotherapy.

‘To this day, I don’t know how I did it, but the part of me that writes music seems to live in its own little world,’ he said. ‘The wonderful thing is that all the hospital staff who helped save my life came to the film premiere.

‘It was 29 years ago, and I feel absolutely fantastic. I’m so grateful to be one of the lucky ones.’

He has lost close friends along the way, including Coltrane, Byrne, who he described as a ‘genius’ and the ‘magnetic’ Alan Rickman.

Doyle recalled stumbling onto the set of Robin Hood Prince of Thieves (1991) at Shepperton Studios where Rickman, in a long black wig, was engaged in a frenetic swordfight to the death with Kevin Costner. After the director called cut, Rickman spotted Doyle and propped himself up on one elbow. ‘Without missing a beat, he threw his long hair back and, in that classic, deep drawl, he said, “Hello darling, showbiz!”’

Friendship also bloomed with His Majesty who commissioned Doyle to compose a 90th birthday piece for the Queen Mother and, in 2023, invited him to be the first Scot to write the Coronation march for the new monarch.

He admitted to being ‘terrified’ given the piece would be broadcast live to a billion-strong worldwide audience.

Ultimately, it was no different from scoring a film. ‘You were given a brief, something that would encapsulate the spirit of the day, triumphant, uplifting and memorable.

‘It had to be no longer than four minutes because everything was timed to the second. I worked out that the reverb in Westminster Abbey lasts five seconds so I made the piece three minutes and 55 seconds long and it finished bang on time. And the King seemed very happy with it.’

Doyle often returns to Scotland to visit his ‘huge clan’ and to work with young talent in schools and in his role as patron of the Junior Conservatoire.

He is passionate about the impact music and performing can have on a child’s development.

‘It was great to feed off their enthusiasm and to show them that with hard work anything is possible for them too. Music and performing can be vital in helping children grow in so many important ways, boosting confidence and teamwork and improving social skills. It can be life changing.’

As for his own life, does the concert in Vienna suggest a bringing down of the curtain on his own career?

‘No chance,’ he said. ‘I have all sorts of ideas churning round my head for the future.

‘The music never stops.’