Release Date: 07 January 2005
Label: Naxos - Ex Select Products / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 747313264124
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: BLISS
Description
Arthur Bliss (1891-1975)M?¬lee Fantasque Checkmate: Ballet in One Scene with a PrologueArthur Bliss, who was half-American, studied atCambridge and the Royal College of Music. During theFirst World War he served with distinction, and in thepost-war years his career was launched with a series ofbold ensemble works such as Rout (1920). These gainedhim the reputation as an avant-garde experimentalist, asdid his first major orchestral work A Colour Symphony(1921-2). His musical language reached its maturity inthe late 1920s as heard in the Oboe Quintet (1927) andPastoral (1928). In the 1930s his memories of warinspired the profound choral symphony MorningHeroes (1930), whilst his Music for Strings (1935)demonstrated his mastery of musical structures.A characteristic of Bliss's career was hispartnerships with major artists of other genres,beginning, in 1934-5, with the score for AlexanderKorda's film Things to Come, based on H.G. Wells'snovel. Ballet was an important medium for him and hecollaborated with Ninette de Valois on Checkmate(1937) and with Robert Helpmann on Miracle in theGorbals (1944) and Adam Zero (1946). Othercollaborators included J.B. Priestley, who wrote thelibretto for the opera The Olympians (1948-9).Among orchestral works are concertos for piano(1939), violin (1955) and cello (1970), as well asMeditations on a Theme by John Blow (1955) andMetamorphic Variations (1972). His formidableorganisational talents were brought into play as directorof music at the BBC during the Second World War, andfrom 1953 as Master of the Queen's Music. He wasknighted in 1950, and his autobiography As I Rememberis a fascinating portrait of his life and times.In the years immediately before and after the FirstWorld War, Bliss's enthusiasm for ballet was fosteredby the brilliance of Dyagilev's Ballets Russes on theirvisits to London. In particular Stravinsky's great scoresmade a huge impression, and his influence on Bliss inthe post-war years was significant, as is apparent inM?¬lee Fantasque. Composed in 1921, it was Bliss'sfirst orchestral work to be performed in public whenHenry Wood invited the composer to conduct it in hisPromenade Concerts that year. It was dedicated to thememory of the artist and theatre designer Claude LovatFraser, with whom Bliss had collaborated onproductions of Shakespeare's As You Like It and TheTempest. As he acknowledged in his programme note,Bliss considered M?¬lee Fantasque his first ballet score;in it he aimed 'to convey the rhythmic verve and Bakstlikecolour of Lovat Fraser's paintings'. These were'evoked in colourful episodes', which Bliss contrastedwith 'elegiac passages which hint at the loss of thisgifted friend'. Bliss had a great affection for this workand twice revised it.Checkmate was inspired by another of Bliss'senthusiasms, chess, and as he explained in an articleDeath on Squares, written in 1938, the seeds for theballet were sown at a dinner party when theconversation turned on subjects suitable for ballet.G
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
Bratisla
Borup:Conner
Aquinas Trio
