Walking in the Air (The Snowman)

Howard Blake, OBE is an English composer (born 28 October 1938 in London), particularly noted for his film scores, although he is prolific in several fields of classical and light music. His most popular work includes music for "The Bear" and "The Duellists" but he receives most acclaim for the orchestral scores he provided for the 1980 film "Flash Gordon" and his highly successful work for "The Snowman" in 1982.
Howard Blake came up with the score for "Walking In The Air" on a secluded beach in Cornwall, not long after a near-breakdown.

This performance is based mostly on Robert Gower's organ transcription, which appears to be a "version" of the film's Prelude/Postlude for piano. I tried to make mine more like the treble solo/orchestral song at the heart of the production, so, it's sort of a "combination" of the two.

Gower's arrangement appears in "The Oxford book of Christmas Organ Music," published in 1995.

I uploaded this severaly years ago on the Dortmund Sauer:

http://www.contrebombarde.com/concerthall/music/6068

For this performance, I really wanted the magical and mysterious acoustics of Esztergom. I did this at a slower tempo than the previous recording. This was necessary to get some sort of clarity. As it is, it still "washed together" quite a bit.

If you haven't seen "The Snowman", you really MUST! It's an animated, all HAND-DRAWN creation - one of the last to be done all be humans and not computers.

I've been intending to upload this for a few days, but wasn't sure just when to do it. Earlier tonight, I watched "The Snowman" on TV, so, I thought that it MUST be a good omen!

The text of the song is given in the First Comment!

Photos of Howard Blake, Robert Gower, AND THE SNOWMAN are attached below!