LIFECYCLE
op.489
(1996)
A sequence of 24 pieces for the piano
Published by: Highbridge Music Ltd
Duration: 64
mins
First Performance: Howard Blake, Schloss Rosenegg, Steyr, Austria, 6th August 1996.
Sheet Music Available
Instrumental / piano score for sale
Sheet music available
Recordings Available
Recorded by William Chen in the Eugene Goossens Hall, Sydney, January 2003 and released with the sub-title 'Piano Music of Imagination and Reflection'
ABC Classics 476 118-4
Notes
'Lifecycle is a brilliantly conceived piano cycle of ‘imagination and reflection’, combining teaching pieces (the Chaconne and Toccatina are from the Associated Board’s Diploma syllabus) with recital works ranging from the uncompromising technical demands of Scherzo and Oberon, to the outstandingly sublime yet musically powerful Prelude and Nocturne.
Lifecycle covers the composer’s creative life with an extraordinary number of musical connections running through the set, namely the melodic importance of the interval of a third – most often major and rising, the second being the harmony of a bare fifth, again often rising, but equally heard as a chord.
Blake conceived the idea for Lifecycle, a sequence of 24 pieces for the piano, after a conversation with world-renowned pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy in 1962 and dedicates the cycle to this wonderful musician. Although 24 works in the set, it is not a set of Preludes as written by Chopin, Scriabin and Rachmaninov, but there does appear within the cycle one piece in each of the 12 major and 12 minor chromatic keys.'
(from sleeve-note by R. Matthew Walker)
(Incorporates the early '12 Piano Pieces' and includes eight pieces from among them which against the wishes of the composer were titled "Eight Character Pieces" when first published by Faber Music Ltd in 1985.)
Performances
| December 2010 |
|
| 11th July 2008 |
Nadia Giliova, Wigmore Hall
(selected works)
|
29th May 2008
- 2nd June 2008 |
William Chen, Nagoya, Japan
|
| 8th August 2007 |
Nadia Giliova, St James' Piccadilly, lunchtime recital
|
| 10th March 2007 |
Les eleves de Mme.Freret, Salle de L'auditorium de l'ecole nationale de musique et danse, Lisieux Pays d'Auge (in the presence of the composer)
Prelude, Berceuse, Nocturne, Toccatina,Rag
|
| 19th October 2006 |
Nadia Giliova, St. John's Smith Square, London (7.30)
Programme to include works by Howard Blake (some pieces from 'Lifecycle'), Kosenko, Schumann & Rachmaninov
|
| 4th October 2006 |
Jenni Fleming, Queensland Conservatorium,Griffith University, Brisbane,Australia, Kawai Concert Series,
|
| 30th September 2006 |
Nadia Giliova playing selected pieces from Lifecycle and Rachmaninov, Haywards Heath Music Society, St Wilfrid's Church 7.45
|
| 10th September 2006 |
Jenni Fleming, St. Mary's Anglican Church, Brisbane, Australia
First complete Australian concert performance, with photography by Morgan Flemming
|
| 22nd April 2006 |
Anca Nite, Greyfriars Church Edinburgh
Selected pieces from 'Lifecycle' preceding a performance of 'Benedictus'
|
| 15th June 2005 |
Howard Blake, Selangor Palace, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
The Asian premiere of 'Lifecycle'. By royal command of HRH The Sultan of Selangor
|
| 18th May 2005 |
Howard Blake, Recital Room, Ardingly College, Sussex
|
| 16th August 2002 |
Howard Blake, Aigues-Vives, Nimes, France
A recital at the house of the Baron & Baroness Botzelaer; Marc Andre Hamelin in the audience.
|
| 4th July 2002 |
You-Chiong Lin, Alexandre Gallery, The Skryabin Space, Hanover Square, London
|
| 2nd May 2002 |
Various students from the London School of Music,, St Stephen's Gloucester Road, London
An idea for a performance with each piece of the 24 played by a different player, conceived & organised by Alberto Portugheis
|
| 21st December 1996 |
Howard Blake, Gothenburg Opera House (Recital Room)
|
| 6th August 1996 |
Howard Blake, Schloss Rosenegg, Steyr, Austria
|
Reviews
HOWARD BLAKE
LIFECYCLE
Highbridge Music
HBM001
I think some people would believe me if I told them that Howard Blake retired in 1982 to live off the royalties generated from his hugely successful score to The Snowman. But I would be lying, for the truth is quite different. He has written hundreds and hundreds of pieces, and, according to his website, reached his opus 612 (ironically, a string quartet version of The Snowman) at the beginning of last year.
Lifecycleopus 489 is a sequence of 24 pieces dedicated to Vladimir Ashkenazy. Covering all the major and minor keys, they were composed over a period of 40 years, incorporate the Twelve Pieces for Piano that first appeared as opus 192, and were given their first performance by the composer himself in 1996. Although Lifecycle can be performed as a complete work, pianists will naturally want to pick out their individual favourites, so readers will be pleased that the book encompasses a wide range of difficulty.
One of the easier pieces is the prelude that opens the cycle. This beautiful piece is one of the alternative List C pieces on the ABRSM’s 2011-12 Grade 6 syllabus. A version of Walking in the Air (No 21) is also in the book and is written at about the same level. Most of the other pieces are harder; Chaconne and Toccatina, for example, are on the DipABRSM diploma syllabus, and a couple of pieces make further demands still! The book is attractively priced, and the aforementioned prelude is available separately from the same publishers (HBM002). (MM)
MM,
Piano Magazine,
5/9/2011
H Blake
Lifecycle
William Chen pf ABC Classics 0 ABC476 1184 (66' • DDD)
A gifted composer of tunes reflects on life in his 21st-century 'Lyric Pieces'
Howard Blake is best known for his 1982 score for the animated film The Snowman. 'Walking in the air' has become his Prelude in C sharp minor, his
Land of Hope and
Glory, quite overshadowing his 500-plus other works, one of which is this enchanting cycle. Its composition spans 40 years of Blake's creative life, 24 miniatures, one each in all the major and minor keys, arranged in a sequence of falling fifths beginning in B minor and ending in
F sharp major. (Is it rueful acknowledgement that makes 'Walking in the air' the cycle's C sharp minor contribution?)
Blake's titles and tonal language are unapologetically of the 19th century. Dissonant harmonies and jazz are employed infrequently. Blake, you see, writes tunes — an unfashionable gift (and, judging from the work of his peers, a rare one, too). No doubt these Lyric Pieces for the 21st century will be dismissed in some quarters as lightweight trifles.
I think there is more to them, expertly and economically crafted as they are (Blake studied piano with Harold Craxton and composition with Howard Ferguson). In some cases, a secure finger technique is demanded (try Toccatina and Dance of the Hunters). Here, and in the mood of quiet reflection that predominates, William Chen proves an ideal champion.
Graced by Robert Matthew-Walker's eloquent booklet-notes and a track-listing that includes the date, place and source of each work's composition, this first recording of Lifecycle shows that there is still much to be said for melody, traditional harmony and conservative values.
Jeremy Nicholas
Jeremy Nicholas,
Gramaphone,
2011
H Blake
Lifecycle
William Chen pf ABC Classics 0 ABC476 1184 (66' • DDD)
A gifted composer of tunes reflects on life in his 21st-century 'Lyric Pieces'
Howard Blake is best known for his 1982 score for the animated film The Snowman. 'Walking in the air' has become his Prelude in C sharp minor, his Land of Hope and Glory, quite overshadowing his 500-plus other works, one of which is this enchanting cycle. Its composition spans 40 years of Blake's creative life, 24 miniatures, one each in all the major and minor keys, arranged in a sequence of falling fifths beginning in B minor and ending in F sharp major. (Is it rueful acknowledgement that makes 'Walking in the air' the cycle's C sharp minor contribution?)
Blake's titles and tonal language are unapologetically of the 19th century. Dissonant harmonies and jazz are employed infrequently. Blake, you see, writes tunes — an unfashionable gift (and, judging from the work of his peers, a rare one, too). No doubt these Lyric Pieces for the 21st century will be dismissed in some quarters as lightweight trifles.
I think there is more to them, expertly and economically crafted as they are (Blake studied piano with Harold Craxton and composition with Howard Ferguson). In some cases, a secure finger technique is demanded (try Toccatina and Dance of the Hunters). Here, and in the mood of quiet reflection that predominates, William Chen proves an ideal champion.
Graced by Robert Matthew-Walker's eloquent booklet-notes and a track-listing that includes the date, place and source of each work's composition, this first recording of Lifecycle shows that there is still much to be said for melody, traditional harmony and conservative values.
Jeremy Nicholas
Jeremy Nicholas,
Gramaphone,
2011
WILLIAM CHEN Howard Blake piano music **** William Chen (ABC Classics).
'...music by the composer of We're Walking In The Air, from The Snowman. In fact, the
"composer's cut", as you might call it, of Walking In The Air is
here, in C sharp minor, and there's a brilliant little drawing of
the Snowman himself, by Dianne Jackson, the original illustrator,
in the liner notes. Lifecycle is a set of pieces, one in each
of the major and minor keys, which were written at different
times and in different contexts but which Blake feels add up to a
satisfying whole. And they do. He is a man out of his time, a
composer closer to Chopin and Schumann than to modernism. But he
has Royal Academy of Music training behind him and he understands
the sonorities of the piano wonderfully. Most of these pieces are
about three minutes long: one extends to five; one is only 51
seconds. There is a much variety in them, though - songs, dances,
character pieces, jeux d'esprit - and one (Chaconne in D minor)
surprises with its vehemence, while others (Study, in C minor, and
Oberon, in F sharp major, which is almost a Revolutionary Study
in itself) make considerable demands on the performer. But the
subtlety of Blake's music often lies in its careful use of
familiar patterns - ordinariness, if you like - so that eventually
the nuances begin to speak with an eloquence you would miss if
you just thought it was old-fashioned ideas warmed up again.
William Chen plays them with immaculate technique and classical
purity.
Robert Beale,
Manchester Evening News,
1/10/2004
The 24 miniatures that constitute Lifecycle were composed over a period of
40 years, and are set in every one of the major and minor keys available
on the piano. Anyone who had previously assumed that Walking in the Air was
something of a one-hit wonder for Blake will surely be taken aback by his
inexhaustible flow of melodic enchantment. Each time you think you've
reached the best of the set, he produces yet another winningly memorable
tune. A rare delight.
Classic FM Magazine,
10/2004
... his (Blake) piano writing is exceptional amongst modern-day composers…
Robert Matthew-Walker,
2003
Highbridge Music Ltd.
