Arthur Bliss: The Lady of Shalott

The colourful scoring, together with some characteristic melodic and harmonic twists, go right back to the Colour Symphony of the 1920s... it’s hard to imagine a more persuasive performance,... — BBC Music Magazine, January 2022, 4 out of 5 stars (Performance) / 5 out of 5 stars (Recording) More…

Release Date: 5th Nov 2021
Catalogue No: CDLX7387
Label: Dutton

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Bliss: The Lady of Shalott

BBC Concert Orchestra
Martin Yates

Bliss: Rout for Orchestra and Soprano

Ilona Domnich (soprano)
BBC Concert Orchestra
Martin Yates

Bliss: Suite for Piano: Polonaise

BBC Concert Orchestra
Martin Yates

Bliss: Answering You [Your Questions Answered]

BBC Concert Orchestra
Martin Yates

Bliss: Heritage of Britain

[versions A & B]
BBC Concert Orchestra
Martin Yates

Bliss: Contrasts (2) for string orchestra

BBC Concert Orchestra
Martin Yates

Bliss: March of Homage

BBC Concert Orchestra
Martin Yates

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Presto Music Classical Podcast, Episode 41: Standing out from the Crowd - Arthur Bliss with Paul Spicer

13th August 2023

Author Paul Spicer recently joined us at our store in Leamington Spa to discuss his new biography of Arthur Bliss, in conversation with Andrew Burn, chairman of The Bliss Trust.

Martin Yates and the BBC Concert Orchestra present glorious yet unfamiliar music by Arthur Bliss. Bliss’s late ballet, “The Lady of Shalott” (1958), has been unjustly forgotten, deserving to be danced again, and with its Arthurian setting proves to be quite a find. In the varied and tuneful supporting programme, perhaps the biggest surprise is the catchy “One-Step” (1923 orch 1936), which reveals Bliss as being up-to-the-minute with the popular music of his day. Piano music heard anew yields the “Polonaise” (1925), another engaging miniature suitable for either the concert or the ballet stage. Bliss described the “Rout” for soprano and orchestra (1920) as evoking “the sound of a carnival overheard at a distance,” and in this spirited, lyrical confection, soprano Ilona Domnich gets into the party spirit with her medley of made-up words. “Two Contrasts” (1950 arr 1972) comprises dynamic orchestral versions of movements from Bliss’s Second String Quartet, while a pair of BBC radio signature tunes takes us back to 1944 and 1950. Lastly, Bliss’s tribute to Winston Churchill on his death in 1965, “March of Homage in Honour of a Great Man,” constitutes the composer’s Churchill Funeral March, and it is good to hear it performed so rousingly in its orchestral dress.

Reviews

January 2022

The colourful scoring, together with some characteristic melodic and harmonic twists, go right back to the Colour Symphony of the 1920s... it’s hard to imagine a more persuasive performance, and the recording is warm and three dimensional.

March/April 2022

Yates’s performances are a bit on the cool side, more attuned to Bliss’s sassiness than to his succulence; but the orchestra plays well, and Ilona Domnich tosses off the nonsense syllables of Rout as if she were singing meaningful text. The engineering is clear—and the very wide soundstage on the surround-sound tracks pays high dividends in the antiphonal brass moments of Lady.

Arthur Bliss: The Lady of Shalott

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Presto Music Classical Podcast, Episode 41: Standing out from the Crowd - Arthur Bliss with Paul Spicer

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