H Blake - Orchestral Music
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Label: Somm
Cat No: SOMMCD0678
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Genre: Orchestral
Release Date: 17th November 2023
Contents
Works
A Month in the Country, op.446Concert Dances for piano and orchestra, op.432
Symphony no.1 'Impressions of a City', op.42/409
The Court of Love, op.286
Artists
Howard Blake (piano)Philharmonia Orchestra
English Northern Philharmonia
Conductors
Howard BlakePaul Daniel
Works
A Month in the Country, op.446Concert Dances for piano and orchestra, op.432
Symphony no.1 'Impressions of a City', op.42/409
The Court of Love, op.286
Artists
Howard Blake (piano)Philharmonia Orchestra
English Northern Philharmonia
Conductors
Howard BlakePaul Daniel
About
Blake himself is heard at the piano and conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra, with Paul Daniel also conducting the English Northern Philharmonia.
Internationally recognised as the composer of The Snowman’s ‘Walking in the Air’, Blake’s prolific and wide-ranging achievements extend into symphonies, concertos, oratorios and music for solo piano to embrace the concert hall, dance stage and cinema screen.
This focus on his orchestral music which includes four first recordings begins with his single-movement Symphony no.1 in its 1990 revision, a richly variegated work of vivid images and, as its title has it, Impressions of a City. A work of dazzling, multi-faceted dimensions and execution, it is, writes Robert Matthew-Walker in his authoritative booklet notes, an “organic, truly symphonic, composition from a genuine creative figure”.
Concert Dances, for piano and orchestra, from 1992 and featuring Blake conducting from the keyboard, comprises nine relatively short dance movements in various styles to vivacious effect.
Alluding to Eleanor of Aquitaine, 1979’s The Court of Love is a ravishing concert suite of three movements drawn from Blake’s ballet score for choreographer Lynn Seymour marking Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee two years previously.
The suite taken from his soundtrack to the 1987 film A Month in the Country shows Blake at his most exquisite and expressive in a score, says Matthew-Walker, that “surely belongs in any collection of 20th-century English music for string orchestra”.
SOMM’s long championing of British composers includes recent discs devoted to Stephen Dodgson (SOMMCD0659; 0673), Penelope Thwaites (SOMMCD0612; 0672), Kenneth Leighton (SOMMCD0667), Holst (SOMMCD279), Ian King (SOMMCD0649) and Elgar (SOMMCD278).
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