Release Date: 30 April 2003
Label: Naxos - Ex Select Products / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 747313593125
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: BLISS
Description
Arthur Bliss (1891-1975)Piano Quartet Sonata for Viola and Piano Oboe QuintetArthur Bliss belongs to the generation of English composerswho came to maturity in the years between the two World Wars. It was once theaccepted view that he had moved from the modernism of the 1920s into a moreconventional Elgarian romanticism. It is only now, in a new century, that it isproving possible to see his work in a truer perspective. Theson of a New England businessman and his amateur pianist wife, Arthur Bliss wasborn in London in 1891. He and his brothers were brought up by their father,after the early death of their mother. Educated at Rugby and then at PembrokeCollege, Cambridge, where he was a pupil of Charles Wood and came to knowEdward Dent, he spent a year at the Royal College of Music, before joining thearmy, in which he served from 1914 until demobilisation in 1919. At the RoyalCollege he was a contemporary of Herbert Howells, whose talent he particularlyadmired, and of Eugene Goossens, Ivor Gurney and Arthur Benjamin, but hadlittle in common with Stanford, his teacher. As an officer in the RoyalFusiliers and later in the Grenadier Guards, Bliss shared the horrors of trenchwarfare, wounded, later gassed, and mentioned in despatches. His brotherKennard was killed in action, a loss Bliss felt keenly. Inthe years after the war Bliss began to make a name for himself in London,writing music that occasionally provoked a hostile reaction from conservativecritics. Works of his were heard abroad, and his A Colour Symphony,commissioned by Elgar, together with works by Howells and Goossens, was playedat the Three Choirs Festival in 1922, although not on that occasion to his ownsatisfaction. He spent the years 1923 and 1924 in America with his father andhis brother Howard and in 1925 married, before returning with his wife toEngland, to engage once more in composition, largely neglected during his stayabroad. Oftendrawing inspiration from distinguished performers, in the summer of 1939 Blissfound himself in New York, where the pianist Solomon was to give the firstperformance of the composer's new Piano Concerto at the World's Fair. Acceptingan opportune invitation to teach at Berkeley, he returned to England in 1941 toserve as Director of Music with the BBC from 1942 until 1944. The years broughtfilm and ballet scores, and after the war collaboration with J.B.Priestley onthe opera The Olympians. In 1950 Bliss received a knighthood and three yearslater he succeeded Arnold Bax as Master of the Queen's Musick, thereaftercontributing the expected ceremonial pieces demanded by his office. At the sametime there was a series of major works, including a Violin Concerto in 1955 forAlfredo Campoli, and a Cello Concerto in 1970 for Mstislav Rostropovich, givenits first perfor
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Yaqi Yang; Margarita Parsamyan; Robynne Redmon; Minghao Liu; Frank Ragsdale; Kim Josephson; Kevin S
Vilmos Csikos; Olivier Lechardeur; Manon Lamaison
Tomas Cotik; Martingale Ensemble; Ken Selden
