Terry Barfoot
“It is a great honour to become a Vice-President of the Arthur Bliss Society. I well remember hearing Rudolf Schwarz conduct the Meditations on a Theme by John Blow more than twenty years ago, and immediately being struck that here was one of the great works of British music. To this day it firmly remains one of my favourite orchestral compositions. I believe that Bliss is a composer who is under-valued in our national musical life, and that it is important that his music should be more widely known and more frequently performed. In this regard the work of the Arthur Bliss Society plays a crucial role, since those of us fortunate enough to have discovered the rewards of this repertoire should seek to share our awareness and enthusiasm at every opportunity.
Again and again the music of Sir Arthur Bliss meets his own exacting demands: ‘If I were to define my musical goal, it would be to try for an emotion truly and clearly felt, and caught for ever in a formal perfection.’ ”
From the Chairman
Terry Barfoot died on 12 August 2020. Terry Barfoot was a well known figure in the musical life of southern England. He gave pre-concert lectures at Portsmouth Guildhall and The Lighthouse, Poole, and for many years gave presentations at music clubs and festivals throughout the country. He worked regularly at Oxford University, where in summer 2009 he gave a series of lectures on the music of Vaughan Williams. Terry wrote for various publications, including Classical Music, Opera Now, BBC Music Magazine and MusicWeb, while for seven years he was editor of the Classical Music Repertoire Guide. His book Opera: A History was published by The Bodley Head, and subsequently issued as an Arrow paperback. He contributed to The International Dictionary of Opera, published in Chicago, and to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. He wrote programme notes for many of the leading British festivals and orchestras, including the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, for whom he was Publications Consultant. He also wrote CD insert notes for EMI, Chandos, Virgin Classics, Regis and ASV. Other projects included a lecture on Elgar’s The Kingdom at the Three Choirs Festival, Hereford, and on The Apostles for the national conference of the Elgar Society. He lectured on Beethoven at a conference in Cologne, and worked on the Razumovsky Quartets with the Brodowski String Quartet. He led a week-long conference on Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen at Périgueux in France, on Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten at Earnley, Chichester, and led opera tours to Budapest and Prague. In 2010 he toured Amsterdam and Berlin, as well as organising several conferences in the U.K. with a particular focus on British music, including that of Bliss. With his own company, Arts in Residence, he promoted musical events at agreeable locations in Britain and in Europe.