Bliss had been part
of Richard Itter's Lyrita catalogue
from the earliest stereo days. One of
the finest unsung LPs was SRCS33 which
featured magnificent versions of the
Meditations on a Theme by John Blow
and Music for Strings with
the CBSO conducted by Hugo Rignold.
This largely composer-conducted
anthology is collected from various
corners of the Lyrita analogue catalogue.
Mêlée Fantasque came
from SRCS 50 where it shared space with
works by Walton, Britten/Berkeley and
Holst. SRCS 55 - an LP produced as a
birthday present for the composer from
the Performing Right Society on the
occasion of his eightieth birthday and
presented to him at a Prom on 2 August
1971 - included the Serenade,
Rout, Hymn to Apollo,
A Prayer to the Infant Jesus and
The World is Charged with the Grandeur
of God. The short suite from what
Bliss considered his finest ballet is
from SRCS 47.
The Mêlée
Fantasque is a swashbuckling boys' own adventure in music
recalling in spirit Bax's Overture to Adventure
and Northern Ballad No. 1 but
with a mite more derring-do and gravity.
The vocalising soprano and orchestra
Rout is very romantic, volatile and distinctively Blissy
in the contour of its romantic melody but is also suffused with
the gaudy spirit of the Diaghilev ballets including de Falla and
Stravinsky's
Petrushka (listen at 5.30 for
an echo of the Easter Fair).
It is one of a trio of works from the
1920s - the others being the Rhapsody
and the Madam Noy. You can
hear all three in their garb with ten
instrument chamber ensemble on Hyperion
CDA 66137 (Conversations; Rhapsody;
Rout; Oboe Quintet; Madame
Noy; The Women of Yueh).
In the present full orchestral version
it was heard as an interlude in one
of Diaghilev's Ballet Russes evenings
in London in the 1920s. Three movements
from the ROH ballet Adam Zero is
short commons and was all we had to
get by on until the Handley/RLPO LP
was issued on EMI Classics ASD 3687
in the mid-1970s. You can now hear all
but a few of the movements on an indispensable
double CD set EMI Classics British Composers
7243 5 86589 2 7 and that has to be
the preferred way of getting to grips
with this score. However to have the
composer directing three movements in
such radiantly vigorous readings is
invaluable. Listen out for the Britten-Grimes
echoes in the scudding strings at
the start of Dance of Summer (tr.
5). The Hymn to Apollo is also from the 1920s and was
premiered by Pierre Monteux with the Concertgebouw but we hear the
version Bliss revised in 1964. It is a typically noble and
Olympian work - stridingly serene in
the manner of Morning Heroes at 7:00. The Serenade is the
single largest work here with two instrumental movements
alternating with two song settings -
the first of the words Fair is My
Love by Edmund Spenser and the second
Tune on my Pipe by Sir J Wotton.
It is from the same year as Morning
Heroes but stands in a different
world - lighter yet with substance - a work of delight and probably reflective
of the happy newly married life of Arthur
and Trudy. The World is charged with
the grandeur of God of course sets
the famous words by Gerard Manley Hopkins.
It is an effective rhetorical and celebratory
work for brass ensemble and choir. The
music is in three movements of the type
at which Bliss was a practised hand.
The words were chosen by Peter Pears,
the dedicatee. It was one of those works
slated for the Aldeburgh Festival but
which because of the disastrous fire
in June 1969 had to be premiered at
Blythburgh Church.
The notes are by the
much lamented Christopher Palmer.
This is a desirable
and remarkably generous collection which
must not be overlooked by any serious
Bliss enthusiast. It includes some unusual
works not accessible elsewhere.
Rob Barnett
see also
review by Colin Clarke
bRae Woodland (soprano); cJohn
Shirley-Quirk (baritone); dAmbrosian
Singers; dLSO Wind and Brass Ensemble;
abcLondon Symphony Orchestra/abSir
Arthur Bliss, cBrian Priestman, dPhilip
Ledger. 
for
details
