LIFECYCLE op.489 (1996) Listen to this Work

Duration: 64 mins
First Performance: Howard Blake, Schloss Rosenegg, Steyr, Austria, 6th August 1996.
Instrumental / piano score for sale
Sheet music 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

Movements

• 1: Prelude: Andantino (1975)
  
• 2: Nocturne (1975)
  
• 3: Impromptu (1975)
  
• 4: Toccatina (1957)
  
• 5: Mazurka (1970)
  
• 6: Walking Song (1975)
  
• 7: Chaconne (1975)
  
• 8: Scherzo (1975)
  
• 9: Ballad (1975)
  
• 10: Rag (1973)
  
• 11: Study (1975)
  
• 12: Berceuse (1975)
  
• 13: Prelude: Allegro Risoluto (1976)
  
• 14: The Music Box (1979)
  
• 15: Romanza (1961)
  
• 16: Dance of the Hunters (1996)
  
• 17: Dance of the Sun and the Moon (1996)
  
• 18: Isabelle (1993)
  
• 19: Serioso . come una Marcia lenta (1968)
  
• 20: Jump (1976)
  
• 21: Walking in the Air (1982)
  

  In c# minor, composed as a song for the animated film "The Snowman" in 1982 in Kensington. Transcribed for piano in Kensington in 1996.

• 22: Night and Day (1993)
  
• 23: Oberon (1996)
  
• 24: Make-Believe (1986)
  

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 8 pieces from among them originally titled "8 Character Pieces" as published by Faber Music in 1985.)

Performances

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

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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. 

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Robert Beale, Manchester Evening News, 1/10/2004

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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

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... his (Blake) piano writing is exceptional amongst modern-day composers…

Robert Matthew-Walker, 2003

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