Howard Blake at 70

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Robert Matthew-Walker talks to one of the most successful composers of our time.

You'd think that a composer, celebrating his 70th birthday on 28 October with a Royal Philharmonic Orchestra concert entirely of his music and conducted by him, who's completed around 600 works, must have written music all his life. But, on meeting him, you may be surprised. The composer is Howard Blake: the first difficulty is in believing his age, for he doesn't look seventy - 20 years younger is nearer the mark. Nor has he been writing non-stop, for in the early 1970s he gave up for several years. After leaving the Royal Academy of Music, in the 1960s he wrote much music for television and films. …