Aboard the ark, forty days and forty nights of ceaseless rain takes its toll, but the mood changes both dramatically and musically when the rain finally stops. Spirits begin to lift while the musical accompaniment shifts from percussive, raindrop-like figures to a swaying gesture reminiscent of gentle ocean waves. As the floodwaters subside, Noah enlists a terrified raven to scout for dry land. Following a short, unsuccessful survey of the watery landscape the affrighted raven succumbs to a moment of literary allusion croaking "Nevermore!" (invoking Edgar Allan Poe’s 1845 poem, The Raven).

This article is about the British composer and conductor. For the American cultural historian, see Joseph Horowitz.In the 1980s he composed music for the TV series Agatha Christie’s Partners in Crime and A Dorothy L Sayers Mystery. After a wonderful 70-year career in music his compositions number twelve ballets, nine concertos – including his much-loved Jazz Concerto, and the Euphonium Concerto – two one-act operas, chamber music, works for brass and wind bands, film, television and radio, and choral works - most famously his Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo .

Snowman, Daniel. "The Hitler Emigrés". www.penguin.co.uk. Archived from the original on 22 February 2020 . Retrieved 23 February 2020. I’m a secular person but of a generation that learned bible stories at school. The magic and richness of these stories has stayed with me as mythology, not theology. I was pleased to find old Noah step into my poem. I see him as played by John Houston. Many animal qualities in the poem are invented, but some are adapted from old bestiaries and a scurry around world mythologies. I am indebted to poet Alyson Hallett for information about the hyena.He composed the score for The Search for the Nile (1971), a miniseries, for a BBC production of The Picture of Dorian Gray (1976), for Lillie, a TV series about Lillie Langtry starring Francesca Annis (1978), and for Rumpole of the Bailey (1978). An energetic, enthusiastic and erudite man, the sprightly Horovitz invariably showed genuine yet modest delight when his works produced a positive reaction. “If people find, for instance, three minutes of a piece of music of mine which they’d like to hear again, that’s a wonderful thing,” he said. Horrortorio (words by Alistair Sampson from a scenario by Maurice Richardson) for soloists, chorus and orchestra. It was performed at the Hoffnung Astronautical Musical Festival Yet there was more to Horovitz than the tale of a messianic shipbuilder who saved the human race by floating away on a series of somewhat corny chord changes. In his early years he was a renowned composer and conductor of ballet, notably Alice in Wonderland (1953), based on Lewis Carroll’s novel and written for Anton Dolin’s Festival Ballet Company (later English National Ballet) to mark the Coronation. He spent a year in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, who not only “hoovered my music of redundant notes” but also influenced the searching lines of his 1950 Violin Concerto. “She taught me to admire, to emulate, sometimes even to imitate the procedures of Stravinsky in his neoclassic manner,” he added.

His Jazz Harpsichord Concerto (1965), using a concertino of amplified harpsichord, drums and bass, was a curiously idiosyncratic work for a professor at the RCM to write in the mid-60s, but its skilful blend of classical and jazz procedures, and its infectious, foot-tapping enthusiasm, give it immense audience appeal.The commitment and enthusiasm of the children was memorable, as was the sight of their parents in the audience” Horowitz lived at Dawson Place, London, W2. He died on 9 February 2022, at the age of 95. [10] [11] Music [ edit ]