Music that Changed Me

Celebrating his 80th birthday this year, the prolific British composer is best known for his score for the hit 1982 animation The Snowman and its song Walking in the Air. Born in London, Blake studied at the Royal Academy of Music before embarking on a career as a commercial composer. The accolades rolled in, but Blake also pursued his interest in writing music for the concert hall. His piano music has been recorded by Vladimir Ashkenazy, while the late Sir Neville Marriner conducted a disc of Blake’s woodwind concertos.

My mother played the piano very well, and my favourite piece was the Chopin Waltz in A minor. My bedroom was next to where the piano was in the living room, and the sound came through the wall at a deafening volume. We had a tutor book that had a picture of the keyboard, and I wrote all the names onto the piano in indelible pencil and taught myself to play that waltz. Then I started having lessons, and my grandmother gave me Solomon’s record of CHOPIN’S Nocturne in D flat, Op. 27 No. 2 and I thought it was the most marvellous playing I had ever heard. It made me practise more and believe I could play the piano properly.

I went to grammar school in Brighton and I was being groomed to go to Oxford to read History. I was all set to go when I went in for the Hastings Music Festival – I won three years at the Royal Academy of Music, all paid for with a university grant. I said, blow Oxford! The headmaster was absolutely furious. We had one master at school who was into modern music, otherwise it was still Rossini’s William

Tell Overture and Bach’s Air on a G string. But I was about 15 when I heard BARTÓK’S Third Piano Concerto and it was eye-opening. He certainly was an influence when it came to harmony, texture and orchestration.

The choices

Chopin Nocturne in D flat, Op. 27 No. 2 Solomon (piano) Testament SBT1030

Bartók Piano Concerto No. 3 Julius Katchen (piano); L’orchestre de la Suisse Romande/ernest Ansermet Testament SBT1300 Howard Brubeck Dialogues New York Phil/bernstein; Dave Brubeck Quartet Sony G010001223089M Schubert Piano Trio in B flat Isaac Stern (violin), Leonard Rose (cello), Eugene Istomin (piano) Sony G010002681880P Blake The Snowman Peter Auty (treble); Sinfonia of London/ Howard Blake Sony G010001289371Q

In the 1950s, jazz was a very big thing. One day a friend played me the opening of a piece which was dissonant and decidedly classical, but then suddenly into it came the Dave Brubeck Quartet. It was Dialogues, written by Dave’s brother, HOWARD BRUBECK. I still think it’s the most marvellous piece as it combines a classical feel with jazz in a way that’s almost impossible to do. Along with the BBC Third Programme’s History of Jazz, of which I listened to every episode, it gave me an interest in jazz.

A while after I left the Royal Academy, I worked as a jazz pianist in clubs and then as a session pianist at Abbey Road. I met all sorts of people there, one of whom was the great Bernard Herrmann, who wrote the Psycho score. He recommended me to Laurie Johnson, and I took over writing

The Avengers series when I was 27 or 28. I made an absolute fortune. I also overdid it and collapsed from overwork. I had to stop. One day I just drove off to Cornwall and stayed there for three months. I thought I’d start again, and I had enough money to buy a water mill in mid-sussex with six acres, a lake and a waterfall – it was a wonderful place. I started listening to Mozart, Bach, Stravinsky, and then suddenly I discovered this record of Schubert. It sounds silly but I didn’t know Schubert’s chamber music, and it was a revelation. This recording of SCHUBERT’S Piano Trio in B flat started me on a whole new direction.

I must excuse myself for picking a record of mine, but The Snowman was a big turning point, and it’s from the point of view of PETER AUTY’S great performance. My friend John Coates had shown me an eight-minute pencil demo of The Snowman, including the flying scene of the boy and the snowman. In my head was a tune that dated from when I had gone to Cornwall and walked along the beach, a tune of complete innocence, wanting to go back to feeling the way you felt as a child. I had never found where to put it until I saw this scene. It was just a tune, and later I wrote the lyric ‘Walking in the air’. I asked a singer friend where I would find the best treble in the world, and she put me in touch with Barry Rose at St Paul’s Cathedral. We chose Peter

Auty – he recorded it the next day, and it’s absolutely fantastic.

Interview by Rebecca Franks