Fear Not This Night - Guild Wars 2 | Freya Catherine [Epic Orchestral]

My standby drummer at the Nordic Club was Cavan, son of Hazel Malone, an agent for many of the prominent, glamourous young sixties actresses in swinging London: Adrienne Posta, Jenny Agutter, Carole White, Judy Geeson, Susan George, Francesa Annis, Michele Dotrice, Jane Asher - many of whom I met with at this time. Cavan sometimes played drums for me but worked with his mother's Mayfair actor agency as his day-job. In the evenings we often used to meet up at 'The Cricketers' in Chiswick. The artist Ruskin Spear RA was forever propping up the bar there and, doubting my ability to play both Bach and Duke Ellington, of which I'd spoken, asked me to play for him one night in his studio across the road, and after this we became the greatest of friends. In 1990 his widow rang me. She'd been sorting out all his prints with him just before he died. The last one was named 'After the hanging' but wryly depicted the team of judges at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

Fear Not This Night - Guild Wars 2 | Freya Catherine [Epic Orchestral]

The three works in tonight's programme with theRoyal Philharmonic Orchestra, which celebratesthe seventieth birthday of Howard Blake, togetherdemonstrate the wide range of his activities - forhe is one of the most successful of all livingcomposers for the theatre, film and television, therecital room and the concert hall. On the onehand, you might think that a composer who hascompleted around 600 works must have beenwriting music all his life. But on the other hand,on meeting him, you may well be surprised. Thefirst difficulty is in believing his age, for hedoesn't look seventy - twenty years younger ismore likely. Nor has he been writing non-stop, forin the early 1970s he gave up for a number ofyears. After leaving the Royal Academy of Music,in the 1960s he wrote much music for televisionand films. He also became a session pianist atAbbey Road, but none of these were areas onwhich Howard Blake wished to concentrate. Asmusical gifts often appear early on in life, I askedhim - when did he realise he wanted to writemusic?'I had a local piano teacher, and I'd make up tunesfor my family at Christmas and birthdays.Nobody told me to do it, I just wrote tunes, andwhen I was about eleven I wrote a march and tookit to my teacher who said, 'Where did this comefrom?' I said, 'I wrote it'. At first he didn'tbelieve me. But then he realised ir was true and I was serious, andhe took me through all of Percy Buck's Practical Harmony Book andthe J.Frederick Bridges Counterpoint. I loved it.'From then on, Howard knew he likedwriting music more than anything, although hisfather 'would not have entertained the idea that Icould become a musician'. His mother wasmusical however and played the piano and violin well.'She encouraged me, and through her I started thepiano with a teacher and also I started wrotemusic, which I've always loved doing'.'And you've never stopped?' 'Well, I did stop. Iworked hard at playing the piano, getting gradeVIII with distinction and then entering The Hastings Competitive Festival - the only Southern England festival offering a RoyalAcademy of Music scholarship/ It was the first timeI entered any competition but my teacher put me in for the BachPrize, the Beethoven Prize, the Chopin Prize andthe Academy Scholarship Prize - and I won allfour.'What happened to composition?'Although I thought I might make a concertpianist, I still wrote music, but nobodyencouraged me much. At the Academy I choseorgan as a second subject, but during the entranceinterview the subject got round to harmony, and I'd been told to bring in some original work. I broughta four movement orchestral suite, and The Warden Myers Foggin said,'Shouldn't you be studying composition?' 'It had never occurred to me!'Whether it had occurred to Howard Blake or not,we should be glad that someone was able to pushhim in the direction of where his undoubtedtalents have now led him. We should be gratefulthat he has found his true vocation: 'I just likewriting music', he says - and aren't we glad thathe does?

The theme of Walking in the Air entered my mindas long ago as 1970 whilst walking on a Cornishbeach. I thought it might be the opening of asymphony but abandoned it. Eleven years later Ihappened to walk into a London filmproduction company and see a nine-minute pencilsketch based on Raymond Briggs' picture-bookThe Snowman. I felt instantly that this waswhere the theme belonged and said: 'I would loveto set this whole story to music. It wouldn't needany words and I have a song that would work withit like a dream.' Jeremy Isaacs agreed and thetwenty-six-minute animated film was made byChannel 4. While it was being drawn I worked onthe lyrics and orchestration, conducting thecomplete orchestral score in July 1982 with TheSinfonia of London and the superb treble voice ofPeter Auty, a treble in St. Paul's Cathedral Choir.The film was first shown at Christmas 1982, wasnominated for an Oscar and won many prizes. TheCBS Masterworks album was released thefollowing year with Bernard Cribbins speakingmy specially-written narration over the existingfilm score, and a first concert performance of thework in this form took place at the Barbican thatDecember with the same personnel. The album'went platinum' and concert performances of itsprang up all over the world, and have continuedto do so. More than a hundred cover versions ofthe song have been released over the years, notleast Aled Jones' memorable 1985 recording.However, the version which we perform tonight isjust as it first was with Bernard speaking the lines,myself conducting the orchestra, but instead ofPeter Auty (who is now a most successful tenorwith Covent Garden) the part of the boy treblewill be sung by my ten-year old son, RobertBlake [Howard Blake} 041b061a72