• Howard Blake
  • The Snowman Stage Show, Op. 522 (1993)

  • Chester Music Ltd (World)
  • fl(pic).perc.pf.2syn
  • 1 hr 30 min
    • 23rd November 2024, Sadler's Wells, London, United Kingdom
    • 23rd November 2024, Sadler's Wells, London, United Kingdom
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Programme Note

Howard Blake composed the words and music of The Snowman in 1982, when an animated film was made of the story, using the drawings by Raymond Briggs that had already made his children's picture-book a prize-winning best seller. The film won many prizes too and the music was released on CBS Records, on cassettes and on video, all of which have been enormously successful.

In 1985 Aled Jones recorded its famous song, "Walking in the Air" which rose to number three in the hit parade and made him a household name.

"The Snowman" has been performed by orchestras worldwide from Japan to Canada and elicited from The Independent the headline "Knee-deep in Snowmen" and the astounding comment that "Snowman has well nigh frozen out Handel's Messiah as the nation's traditional Christmas musical fare"

What is the appeal? Christopher Palmer, writing in March 1990, says "…..since we have seen many excellent products which have come and gone and failed to reach a wider audience, The Snowman must have something special, something which touches a popular nerve. Looking at it, and its successor, Grandpa, it is not too difficult to see what the "something" is. It is the voice of Innocence which has not been silenced or distorted by Experience, but actually made more articulate by it……."

Discography