Sir Arthur Bliss (1891-1975)
The Composer Conducts: A 50th Anniversary Tribute
London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Northern Orchestra/Sir Arthur Bliss
rec. 1961-1969
SOMM Recordings Ariadne 5039-2 [77+79]
Amidst all the understandable noise and clamour surrounding the 50th anniversary of the death of Dmitri Shostakovich, an identical commemoration seems to be slipping by. Sir Arthur Bliss died on March 27th 1975. At the point of writing this review in early June there appear to have been few if any major new releases devoted to his music in the first half of the year. Until, that is, this fine double disc of “Bliss – The Composer Conducts” from SOMM. With some performers “the composer conducts” can be something of a poisoned chalice with flawed stick technique and little podium presence generating more performing problems than musical insights. Luckily, Bliss was decent conductor in general and a very good one of his own music so these live BBC off-air recordings are a genuinely valuable and indeed precious survey of many of his finest scores – all are receiving their first commercial releases. SOMM provided a similarly significant service for Gustav Holst in 2024 and this new release is the equal of that set in terms of the quality of presentation and historical value. Lani Spahr is responsible once again for the sound restoration which is pretty much exactly as you would expect; decent mono broadcast sound (post performance announcements and/or applause are retained except for the Mêlée Fantasque studio broadcast) with the instrumental balances perfectly acceptable even if there are occasional quirks. Spahr’s great skill is to create a very stable aural picture which allows the listener’s ear to quickly adjust to the slightly thin string tone, relatively narrow sound stage and compressed dynamic range. All of the performances date from the 1960’s with four featuring in the BBC/Henry Wood Proms.
Disc 1 opens with the 1961 Proms performance of A Colour Symphony played by the London Symphony Orchestra. Just six years earlier Decca had taken the same performers into the Kingsway Hall and recorded them using their new ffrr (Full Frequency Range Recording) technique. This was still a little way short of the astonishing recordings Decca achieved from the late 1950’s onwards but it is audibly more sophisticated than the BBC broadcast technology as evidenced here. But in no way should that deter curious listeners from hearing this live performance. There is a distinct extra edge and bite to the Proms performance. In part this may be a question of balance – brass are prominently forward and the famous double timpani cannonades in the work’s closing pages register as dynamically and excitingly as they ever have. Bliss writes tricky music so perhaps his slightly steadier tempo for the Scherzo – “Red” is a sensible safety-first choice. The climaxes in the slow movement Blue are noticeable for being more vehement and dramatic but with lovely woodwind pastoral solos while both the outer movements are similarly paced to the Decca recordings but with perhaps a fraction more alertness that live performance will bring.
The Piano Concerto in B flat comes from another Proms performance five years later – this time to mark the composer’s 75th birthday in 1966. Bliss never made a commercial recording of this work so there is extra value here which is furthered by the presence on the piano stool of the great John Ogdon. This is a big-boned virtuosic work that is ideally suited to the technique and temperament of Ogdon. The excellent SOMM liner written by Stephen Lloyd and Lewis Foreman quotes Bliss as saying that he “felt indeed positively youthful; perhaps that rejuvenation was accentuated by the exuberantly fine performance that John Ogdon gave of my Piano Concerto that night”. Given the alignment of performer and work no surprise to read that Ogdon retained this demanding work in his active repertoire.
Bliss’ choice of the word “exuberant” is wholly apt. The recording is noticeably finer than the 1961 one. Perhaps the strings are still a little thin-toned but the orchestral picture as a whole is better integrated with a perfectly decent piano/accompaniment balance. But it is the performance that is the thing here. Over the years this work has had a number of recordings going right back to the first pianist Solomon in 1943 through to Piers Lane for Hyperion in 2019 which I reviewed here. For my money the most all-round satisfying performance remains that by Peter Donohoe on Naxos reviewed by Ian Lace here. Re-reading that review I see that Rob Barnett admired Donohoe but he said it would have to give precedence to this Ogdon version “if ever a presentable BBC original tape can be found”. Well here it is and while the Naxos recording will remain first choice for those requiring a modern recording to reveal all the detail and power of the work, Ogdon is rather special. Alongside the Noel Mewton-Wood historic performance, this Ogdon version with Bliss conducting could arguably be considered the reference recording. The sound does suffer from occasionally breaking up – to my inexpert ear this sounds like a brief fluctuation in the original radio signal – but again Lani Spahr minimises the passing impact this has on the listening experience. Ogdon is clearly in his element – the opening double octaves that apparently caused Solomon palpitations at the premiere are performed with all the swagger and panache that Bliss surely intended. But Ogdon is much more than just pianistic bombast playing the lyrical passages with floating elegance and fluid phrasing. The BBC Symphony Orchestra sound inspired by both composer and pianist so no surprise this receives a rapturous reception from the enthusiastic Proms audience. Rather delightfully SOMM have included a brief speech of thanks Bliss gave from the podium at this concert – to yet more energetic applause. This concerto is the most performed score by Bliss at the Proms featuring 11 times since 1939 although it has not been heard since 1991 and before that this version was the most recent. The fall-off in performances is indicative not just of this work but a general lack of engagement with the attractive and impressive music by Bliss since his death.
The generously-filled disc 1 [76:44] is completed by the March: The Phoenix ‘Homage to France August 1944’. Bliss had the happy knack of being able to write effective ceremonial and occasional music – a facility he was able to put to good use when he became Master of the Queen’s Music after Bax’s death in 1953. This march pre-dates that appointment but pre-echoes that style of music. In the extensive Bliss discography it is something of a rarity too. The only other (earlier) recording was made by Constant Lambert conducting the Philharmonia in 1946 – a performance that has re-appeared in various CD compilations including a Dutton double disc collection that included the studio version of the Colour Symphony mentioned above. Lambert is nearly a minute sprightlier than the BBC SO/Maida Vale broadcast version from 1965 given here. I prefer Bliss’ heavier, more ominous take on this music and of course the actual recording from 1965 is markedly better than the historical earlier version.
The second disc opens with a work that I consider to be Bliss’ masterpiece – the extraordinarily personal and moving Morning Heroes. Written more than a decade after the end of World War I, this was Bliss’ powerful response to his own experiences of trench warfare including being shot and gassed as well as the loss of his brother. The score is dedicated “to the memory of my brother, Francis Kennard Bliss and all other comrades killed in battle”. In the time between the end of the war and the work’s composition Bliss had been haunted by frequent nightmares where; “we were doomed to fight on till extinction, I used to wake with horror”. Morning Heroes has an unusual form and structure. In five movements, Bliss chose poems and prose that reflected man’s experience of war across the ages culminating in his own harrowing involvement in the Great War. A large mixed chorus features in four of the five movements and while there are no vocal soloists an orator speaks two extended texts in the opening and closing movements. The performance heard here is the only time the work has been played at the Proms (something of a startling fact given the work’s power and impact) on August 16th 1968. As the only available version of the composer conducting this key work this performance commands attention and consideration but in its own right it is very fine and – as I always find this piece to be – deeply moving. As orator – note not narrator or speaker – actor Donald Douglas is very very good. The liner refers to a “heroic style [that] was a consequence of not being miked”. Having heard Brian Blessed both in concert and on disc being – for me – overly ‘shouty’ and almost histrionic, I think Douglas finds a kind of declamatory dignity and weight that is ideal. Most recently on disc Samuel West for Chandos with Andrew Davis erred in the direction of understated. The liner mentions other performers who have taken this speaking role but curiously omits to mention John Westbrook who appears with Charles Groves and his Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in their 1975 EMI recording. For many collectors, including myself, this performance has remained the benchmark until now. Douglas – who is still alive in 2025 – was in his mid 30’s when this performance was given and he speaks with ideal clarity, no hint of accent or period pronunciation and great energy. Bliss for his part – both as conductor and composer – moulds the orchestral accompaniment around the words with fluency and rhythmic freedom. Very few works with speaker and orchestra suceed simply because the composer cannot solve the issue of integrating the words and music. Bliss allows the text to flow completely naturally whilst he has the orchestra accompanying or illustrating or emphasising that text – independent yet perfectly complementing. The real miracle is just how relevant and poignant the words and emotions of “Hector’s farewell to Andromache” are and how they resonate – just as Bliss intended – across the millennia. Interesting to note that Bliss is significantly quicker than Groves in both his studio recording and the live performance – again with the BBC SO – released on BBC Radio Classics.
The three central movements introduce the choir and address different universal aspects and experiences of War. Whitman’s The City Arming represents the excited frenzy that often greets the outbreak of conflict. The third movement Vigil is more introspective addressing the soldier’s fears on the eve of battle as well of those left behind at home. The Illiad contributes the text for the fourth movement; Achilles Goes forth to Battle and The Heroes. The liner vitally includes complete texts. Four choirs are listed and they sing with great gusto and commitment but it has to be said without the texts much would be unintelligible. Part of that is due to the actual recording and part due to the complexity and thickness of the writing. Part is also the demanding basic tempo Bliss sets – quickest of any version. The benefit of a large choral group though is the sheer impact and excitement generated by the listing of the heroes in the fourth movement. Andrew Davis’ well trained BBC SO Chorus sound a little well-mannered here albeit tidier than their 1968 compatriots.
Orator and Chorus appear together in the work’s climax and closing movement; Now, Trumpeter for Thy Close. First the orator supported only by threatening timpani speaks the words of Wilfred Owens’ riveting “Spring Offensive” before the choir sing a setting of Robert Nichols’ “Dawn on the Somme” which includes the line; “Oh is it mist, or are these companies of morning heroes who arise…”. Donald Douglas is again excellent although I have to say I am so imprinted by Westbrook for Groves that any different inflection or pacing registers. Westbrook’s sensitive handling of lines such as “some say God caught them even before they fell”, or the closing “Why speak they not of comrades that went under” remain unbearably moving. Likewise the choirs do not quite manage to expand in tone and volume to embrace the visionary ecstasy of Nichols’ closing lines. Bliss with his natural sense of drama does not allow the work to end in a blaze of bright-eyed glory. He was there in those trenches after all so instead the final comment is left to a quiet pensive even bereft orchestra. By Proms standards the reception is relatively muted, but this is a great work performed with unsentimental power. Douglas is superb, Bliss sensitive but never sentimental and the BBC SO fine. The only disappointment is the slightly ragged choral work.
This generous set is completed by two slighter but no less enjoyable works. The Concerto for Two Pianos is an arrangement made by Bliss along with Clifford Phillips for two pianos/three hands. Pianist Cyril Smith had suffered a stroke in 1956 paralysing one arm so this pre-existing work was adapted to allow him and his duet partner Phyllis Sellick to continue to perform. The original four hand version can be heard on the Donohoe/Naxos disc of the Piano Concerto. The adaptation is quite brilliant at masking the sense of anything ‘missing’. The work itself is a pleasing, compact one-movement/three section score and it originated as a concertante work from the early 1920’s. As such it retains all the characteristics of the young Bliss – vibrant rhythms and piquant harmonies. For all his natural flair at ceremonial music, Bliss never sounds ‘English’ or nationalistic and this is one of his most French sounding scores. The performance here is once again vibrant and boisterous but with a coolly languorous central larghetto tranquillo so characteristic of Bliss. The same soloists made an EMI studio recording in stereo with the CBSO the year after this live performance which – due to the better technical stereo recording – is probably preferable. Timings again suggest a little extra adrenalin in live performance quickens things up.
The closing work – Mêlée Fantasque can also be heard in a near-contemporaneous studio performance conducted by Bliss, this time on a Lyrita compilation recorded in 1971. Again the benefits of a fine detailed studio stereo recording would probably lean the listener towards that performance but that should not detract from the quality of this performance – again quicker than the studio version. This is another early score which the liner suggests was a forerunner to Bliss’ striking ballet scores of the following decades. There is no narrative as such – it is simply a quite substantial [11:50 here] work that revels in the potential of a modern symphony orchestra. Its relative neglect – as with most Bliss – is probably down to the difficulty of the work and quite how and where to place it in modern concert programmes.
Admirers of the music of Sir Arthur Bliss have little to complain about as far as his discography is concerned. Over the years labels such as Chandos, Naxos and before that EMI (in its pre-Warner guise) ensured that most if not all of his major works have been recorded in genuinely fine versions. That said, this comprehensive coverage has never translated into a wider popularity – something I find perverse given that this is exciting, attractive and powerful music written in just about every genre. Evidence for this relative indifference is shown by the lack of new recordings to mark this 50th anniversary. As so often, all credit therefore to SOMM for disinterring this group of genuinely impressive live recordings presented with their usual high standard of documentation and audio restoration. The Piano Concerto is the performance that stands as an equal to any in the catalogue and is a major addition to the Bliss discography. The remaining performances add perspective, knowledge and appreciation of both the composer as conductor and the works themselves.
A fine tribute to a still under-appreciated composer of genuine stature.
Nick Barnard
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Details
A Colour Symphony F.106 (rev.1932)
London Symphony Orchestrarec.2 August 1961, Royal Albert Hall, London
Piano Concerto in B flat F.108 (1938)
John Ogdon (piano), BBC Symphony Orchestra
rec.2 August 1966, Royal Albert Hall, London
March: The Phoenix F.(1944)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
rec. 24 November 1965, Studio 1 Maida Vale, London
Morning Heroes F.32 (1930)
Donald Douglas (orator), BBC Chorus and Choral Society, Alexandra Choir, Croydon Philharmonic Society
BBC Symphony Orchestra
rec. 16 August 1968, Royal Albert Hall, London
Concerto for 2 Pianos F.110 (arr. for 3 hands 1968)
Cyril Smith & Phyllis Sellick (pianos), BBC Symphony Orchestra
rec. 16 August 1969, Royal Albert Hall, London
Mêlée Fantasque F.119 (rev.1965)
BBC Northern Orchestra
rec. 2 October 1966 Milton Hall, Deansgate Manchester
