In the bleakest midwinter of 1982, under the gloom of Thatcher’s Britain, families gathered in front of their TV sets as a plaintive, tender piano melody began to play. Like a flurry of snow caught in the wind, they were whisked away to a little cottage in the countryside, where a young boy called James was building a snowman. As the snowman came to life, and he and the boy flew into the night, a choirboy began to sing in a diaphanous soprano: “We’re walking in the air/ We’re floating in the moonlit sky…”
For generations of us, composer Howard Blake’s score to The Snowman – the animated film adaptation of Raymond Briggs’ classic children’s book – is as familiar to the festive season as mince pies and mistletoe. More than 40 years since it made its debut on the month-old Channel 4, it continues to enchant us, serving as the storyteller in a film free of dialogue. But exactly how did Blake manage to create one of the country’s most popular film scores?
