Sir Arthur Bliss

[vandermolen]

It is interesting that a work can remain in your collection for ages (decades in my case) and you hardly give it any attention and then, all of a sudden, you realise how good it is. Such is the case with Bliss's 'Hymn to Apollo' (1926). It is only a short work (11 mins) but I find it very powerful and ultimately moving. In the booklet notes for the recent Chandos release of 'Morning Heroes' which includes 'Hymn to Apollo' as a welcome bonus, Andrew Burn makes the interesting and I think quite convincing point that the work is not just a thank you to Pierre Monteux who had introduced 'A Colour Symphony' to New York but also an invocation to Apollo as the God of Healing as Bliss was struggling to come to terms with the loss of his beloved brother Kennard in the First World War a few years earlier. I have three recordings ( ) by Andrew Davis, Vernon Handley and Bliss himself - they are all good.
Here is the work:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_y9iDOFbBdE
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[Scion7]

I have that too (digital download.)

Haven't heard the original version:

Here we are given a coupling, and a substantial one too: the first ever recording of the original version of Bliss's Hymn to Apollo, another work written in the aftermath of the First World War and sharing many of the same concerns as Morning Heroes. The revisions which Bliss made some forty years later were not major — a cut of twenty-one bars, and some reduction of the orchestration ...

[Scion7]

The Piano Concerto performance here - even tho' it's a bit old and a mono recording, Mewton-Wood and company have such empathy and passion that this is the one to have above others.  Some critics have been somewhat dismissive of this concerto - bah!  Fine piece of music!



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These are not bad:

[vandermolen]

The Piano Concerto performance here - even tho' it's a bit old and a mono recording, Mewton-Wood and company have such empathy and passion that this is the one to have above others.  Some critics have been somewhat dismissive of this concerto - bah!  Fine piece of music!


Great sleeve designs. I have the Unicorn LP somewhere.

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These are not bad:

Great images of these covers. I have the Unicorn LP which was a fine performance. Its CD release included Bliss's 'March of Hommage' an In Memoriam for Winston Churchill which I like.

[DaveF]

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Copy ordered on that recommendation.  It also includes the only piece of Bliss I know at all well, the Clarinet Quintet, which I used to try to play in my trying-to-play-the-clarinet days, so looking forward to that too.  And nothing to do with the quality of his music, but it seems that everyone who knew Bliss pays tribute to a thoroughly honourable, decent and fine human being - not many of them in the ranks of the great composers 

[vandermolen]

Copy ordered on that recommendation.  It also includes the only piece of Bliss I know at all well, the Clarinet Quintet, which I used to try to play in my trying-to-play-the-clarinet days, so looking forward to that too.  And nothing to do with the quality of his music, but it seems that everyone who knew Bliss pays tribute to a thoroughly honourable, decent and fine human being - not many of them in the ranks of the great composers 

I don't think that he was a great composer but he is one whose music I often return to. Hope you like the CD.

[cilgwyn]

Great with a small g perhaps?!

[Scion7]

We have a number or English, or British, composers that make fine listening but are 2nd tier below, say, Mozart and the like.  But life would be far duller without Bowen, Vaughan Williams, Bax, Bliss, Elgar, Alwyn, Arnold, Rawsthorne, Berkeley, Simpson, Walton, Stanford  . . . . . . .

UPDATE:  I left off Bridge!  Arrrgh!

UPDATE2: and Bate! ack!

[Christo]

We have a number or English, or British, composers that make fine listening but are 2nd tier below, say, Mozart and the like.  But life would be far duller without Bowen, Vaughan Williams, Bax, Bliss, Elgar, Alwyn, Arnold, Rawsthorne, Berkeley, Simpson, Walton, Stanford  . . . . . . .

For me, and no doubt for many here, there's no sense in talking about "first rate" composers like Mozart en considering all these composers "second rate" in comparison to that imaginary standard.

To be honest, for me it's rather the other way around: composers like Vaughan Williams are definitely first rate and Mozart is often a bit mwehh (not my cup of tea). However, what I really want to suggest, is that the classification makes no sense: many of these composers are absolutely fine and a class of their own. If others warm with a similar warmness to Mozart or Schubert or any other unique composer, that's just great and no reason for contempt at all. Composing is no Olympic sport and there's no competition with measurable results.

[Scion7]

and no reason for contempt at all. Composing is no Olympic sport and there's no competition with measurable results.

"2nd tier" is not the same thing as "second rate" - and as stated, there was no "contempt" at all in my post - quite the opposite.
And critically, musicologists have to separate the wheat from the chaff - (as in Stockhausen - bleh.)
But they also must divide out the Beethovens from the Coplands ... with no put-down of the latter type artists, just that they are not as brilliantly creative and important as 1st tier composers.

[vandermolen]

For me, and no doubt for many here, there's no sense in talking about "first rate" composers like Mozart en considering all these composers "second rate" in comparison to that imaginary standard.

To be honest, for me it's rather the other way around: composers like Vaughan Williams are definitely first rate and Mozart is often a bit mwehh (not my cup of tea). However, what I really want to suggest, is that the classification makes no sense: many of these composers are absolutely fine and a class of their own. If others warm with a similar warmness to Mozart or Schubert or any other unique composer, that's just great and no reason for contempt at all. Composing is no Olympic sport and there's no competition with measurable results.

Just because the GB women's hockey team defeated the Netherlands for the Olympic Gold Medal there's no need to take it so personally. I very much agree with your comments above however. VW and the others offers me a glimpse through the 'magic casements' which Mozart et al, for all their greatness, do not.

[vandermolen]

We have a number or English, or British, composers that make fine listening but are 2nd tier below, say, Mozart and the like.  But life would be far duller without Bowen, Vaughan Williams, Bax, Bliss, Elgar, Alwyn, Arnold, Rawsthorne, Berkeley, Simpson, Walton, Stanford  . . . . . . .

I very much agree with you apart from the inclusion of York Bowen whose music I find totally unmemorable. I would include Moeran instead.

[Scion7]

 

Poor York.
Please give his chamber pieces another chance.
He's not a "great" composer but I like his stuff.
He was much loved by other composers of his generation!

[vandermolen]

Poor York.
Please give his chamber pieces another chance.
He's not a "great" composer but I like his stuff.
He was much loved by other composers of his generation!

Any particular recommendation?

[DaveF]

I don't think that he was a great composer but he is one whose music I often return to. Hope you like the CD.

Since I appear to have started this discussion by making myself insufficiently clear, and also by an incautious use of the "G" word, what I meant to say was that Bliss was universally acclaimed as a thoroughly excellent chap, in (refreshing) contrast to many of the "great" composers (Mozart, Beethoven, Bruckner, Brahms, Wagner) whose personalities seem to have consisted entirely of disorders.  Hope that clears everything up - although I suspect it won't...

Hope my CD arrives tomorrow, too, otherwise Tuesday will be the earliest possible.

[Parsifal]

Copy ordered on that recommendation.  It also includes the only piece of Bliss I know at all well, the Clarinet Quintet, which I used to try to play in my trying-to-play-the-clarinet days, so looking forward to that too.  And nothing to do with the quality of his music, but it seems that everyone who knew Bliss pays tribute to a thoroughly honourable, decent and fine human being - not many of them in the ranks of the great composers 

A very fine release. I remember being particularly impressed with Checkmate (ballet music).

[DaveF]

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Arrived and listened to - quite agree about Hymn to Apollo, which succeeds in being elegiac and menacing at the same time.  The quintet perhaps lacks some of the fizz of the old Melos Ensemble recording (can't verify that as the Melos is nla), although the first movement is much closer to its Moderato marking in Hilton's performance.  Bliss was older than I realised, so that anything that sounds Walton-influenced probably actually reflects his own influence on the younger generation.  Must try to hear some of those early works that briefly got him the reputation of enfant terrible.

[vandermolen]

Arrived and listened to - quite agree about Hymn to Apollo, which succeeds in being elegiac and menacing at the same time.  The quintet perhaps lacks some of the fizz of the old Melos Ensemble recording (can't verify that as the Melos is nla), although the first movement is much closer to its Moderato marking in Hilton's performance.  Bliss was older than I realised, so that anything that sounds Walton-influenced probably actually reflects his own influence on the younger generation.  Must try to hear some of those early works that briefly got him the reputation of enfant terrible.

Very pleased you liked the Hymn to Apollo - there is a recent recording of the slightly different original version coupled with Morning Heroes on Chandos. Both versions are fine. The booklet note in the Chandos recording is interesting about the Hymn, linking it with Bliss's brother's death in the First World War.

[Maestro267]

Picked up a recording of Bliss' Piano Concerto, cw the Sonata and 2-piano Concerto (Donohoe/RSNO/Lloyd-Jones). It's my first time hearing the Concerto. What an epic first movement! To me, it sounds like a combination of the big-boned drama of the great Romantic concertos, with the syncopation and modern touch of jazz. A truly 20th-century take on the large-scale Romantic piano concerto.

[vandermolen]

Picked up a recording of Bliss' Piano Concerto, cw the Sonata and 2-piano Concerto (Donohoe/RSNO/Lloyd-Jones). It's my first time hearing the Concerto. What an epic first movement! To me, it sounds like a combination of the big-boned drama of the great Romantic concertos, with the syncopation and modern touch of jazz. A truly 20th-century take on the large-scale Romantic piano concerto.

The climax of the first movement is one of my favourite moments in Bliss's music. Yes, it is a very fine work. You've made me want to listen to it later today. My favourite of his chamber works is the eloquent Oboe Quintet.