Arthur Bliss
Although outspoken in his support of the post-World War I Parisian avant-garde during his youth, English composer Arthur Bliss ended his long career as a dedicated proponent of a more conservative, neo-Romantic musical aesthetic. Educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge and at the Royal College of Music (where he found his studies with Charles Stanford too stifling), Bliss' earliest music (all later withdrawn and subsequently destroyed by the composer) shows a strong knowledge of and interest in the music of Edward Elgar.
After service with the Royal Fusiliers (and later the Grenadier Guards) during the War, however, Bliss' musical aesthetic changed dramatically, and he quickly became known as a thoroughly "modern" composer, owing more allegiance to the exciting happenings on the continent than to the musical life of his own country. His music from the 1920s (such as the Rhapsody for two voices and chamber ensemble) is characterized by unusual vocal techniques, jazz influence, and striking harmonic procedures (not to mention occasionally exotic ensembles (e.g., the incidental music to The Tempest, 1921, scored for two male voices, trumpet, trombone, piano, gong, and five percussionists!).
Bliss' notable career as a conductor began in 1921 with his appointment as conductor of the Portsmouth Philharmonic Society. Invited to compose a work for the Three Choirs Festival in 1922, Bliss created one of his best-known works, the Colour Symphony; this adventuresome work had the unwelcome side effect of causing a strain in the relationship between Bliss and Elgar, a dedicated conservative through whom the actual commission for the work had come. After two years in California with his brother and father (1923-1925) (during which time Bliss lived in semi-retirement from the musical world and married Trudy Hoffmann), the composer returned to Great Britain and resumed his active composing career with the Introduction and Allegro of 1926 (commissioned and premiered by Leopold Stokowski).
Over the course of the 1920s Bliss began to re-evaluate his heritage as a composer and found him veering away from the "modernist" tendencies of the post-War years in favor of a richer melodic approach in which sound musical rhetoric and construction occasionally suffer in favor of expression and clarity of dramatic purpose. The five-movement Morning Heroes, a choral symphony dedicated to the victims of World War I and premiered in 1930, is a fine example of Bliss' new outlook.
The first years of World War II were spent in the United States teaching at Berkeley, but Bliss returned to England to take over as director of music at the BBC from 1942 to 1944. Knighted for services to British music in 1950, Bliss served as Master of the Queen's Music from 1953 to until his death in 1975 at the age of 83.
© TiVo
Discography
12 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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Elgar: Enigma Variations; Pomp & Circumstance Marches; Serenade for Strings
Los Angeles Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta, London Symphony Orchestra, Arthur Bliss
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Jan 2001
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Sir Arthur Bliss – The Decca Originals
Classical - Released by Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd. on 5 Jun 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Campoli: The Bel Canto Violin, V (Elgar, Bruch, Bliss)
Alfredo Campoli, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Adrian Boult, Arthur Bliss
Violin Concertos - Released by Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd. on 1 Jan 1955
Gramophone Editor's Choice16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bliss conducts Bliss
Classical - Released by Heritage Records on 1 Jan 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Sir Arthur Bliss: The Beatitudes - FIRST PERFORMANCE (Text arranged by Christopher Hassall)
Classical - Released by The Digital Gramophone on 20 Dec 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Two English Oboe Quintets: Bax and Bliss Oboe Quintets
Manhattan String Quartet, Bert Lucarelli
Classical - Released by Musical Heritage Society on 16 Jul 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Music by Bliss, Vol. 1
Classical - Released by Editions Audiovisuel Beulah on 17 Jan 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Music By Bliss, Vol. 2
Classical - Released by Editions Audiovisuel Beulah on 20 Jan 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Festival of the City of London, in St. Paul’s Cathedral: A Concert of English Music - A B.B.C. Broadcast on the Home Service, 17th July 1962
Classical - Released by The Digital Gramophone on 14 Oct 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Sir Arthur Bliss: Discourse for Orchestra - Colin McPhee: Symphony No. 2, Pastoral
The Louisville Orchestra, Robert Whitney
Classical - Released by First Edition on 14 Jan 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bliss: Colour Symphony / Hindemith: Symphony, "Mathis Der Maler" (Bliss, Hindemith) (1955)
London Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker, Arthur Bliss, Paul Hindemith
Classical - Released by Naxos Classical Archives on 1 Jun 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bliss, A.: Miracle in the Gorbals (Excerpts) / Music for Strings (Philharmonia Orchestra, Bliss) (1954)
Philharmonia Orchestra, Arthur Bliss
Classical - Released by Naxos Classical Archives on 1 Jan 2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo