Events 2023
2023 brought two important and unique occasions in the Bliss calendar where members and friends were able to meet.
The first was at the Barbican Concert Hall in London on 26 March for the sensational screening of the 1936 film Things to Come with Bliss’s score played live by the London Symphony Orchestra. The film’s producer, Alexander Korda, had approached H. G. Wells to write a screenplay based on his recent best-selling novel The Shape of Things to Come. In turn, Wells persuaded Bliss that he was the ideal person to write music which could illustrate and enhance his vision of the future, but Wells’s script wasn’t used, the screenplay was rewritten and Bliss’s symphonic score had to be reworked to fit the action on screen. In this evening’s performance, the limitations of timing the music to the action were handled brilliantly by the conductor Frank Strobel and the immediacy of the sound gave the audience experience an extra edge – an exhilarating musical soundscape with dialogue and visuals to match. The LSO had featured on the original soundtrack and the current line-up of musicians obviously relished the opportunity to shine in this 87-year-anniversary ‘re-run’. A triumph!
The AGM Concert, for which we were joined by members of the British Music Society, was preceded by an introduction by Paul Spicer to his soon-to-be-published biography ‘Sir Arthur Bliss: Standing out from the Crowd’. Our speaker declared 
that ‘his starting point was that of a musical agnostic, acting as someone who remained to be convinced of the music’s standing and who would let the scores do their persuasive talking. Morning Heroes featured prominently in the initial discussion, reflecting the lifelong effect on Bliss’s personality and music of the death of his brother Kennard in the First World War’. Eventually, the author found that Bliss’s later music spoke to him most eloquently ‘when he [Bliss] ceased to be so emphatically energetic’ and singled out Meditations on a Theme by John Blow for special praise. We look forward to the publication of this major volume.
The afternoon’s performance, by Chu-Yu Yang (violin) and Eric McElroy (piano), consisted of ‘five finely curated works, cogently introduced and beautifully played’. The programme was chosen and ordered with ‘both symmetry and narrative’ in mind, with three shorter pieces underpinned by two sonatas.
Programme:
Cheryl Frances-Hoad: Bloom
Gerald Finzi: Elegy
Ian Venables: Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 23 (First UK performance)
Ivor Gurney: The Apple Orchard
Arthur Bliss: Violin Sonata
The recital began with Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s Bloom, ‘with lyrical lines in a songlike style which opened up as effortlessly as the blossoms that inspired it. Its mirror image was Ivor Gurney’s The Apple Orchard, performed fourth in the programme, which ‘proved itself to be both an earlier colleague and a perfect companion’.
Gerald Finzi’s Elegy was ‘designed to be part of an unfinished sonata’ and lasts ‘an aching but muscular nine minutes, sustains a passionate central climax and ends in solemn procession… a jewel’.
Ian Venables, President of the Society, was in the audience for this UK première of his Sonata for Violin and Piano Op 23. The sonata is a transcription of his Sonata for Flute and Piano and ‘uses a two-part structure, contrasting a richly melodic opening with the lighter dancing movement which follows’. The performance was ‘excellently delivered and warmly received’.
Arthur Bliss’s Violin Sonata remained unpublished in his lifetime, abandoned after his own injuries and the death of his brother Kennard in the battle of the Somme in 1916. ‘The published edition by Rupert Marshall-Luck was commissioned by the Bliss Trust and first performed in 2010. ‘In a single mighty movement’ which ‘reveals the structural integrity and dedicated passion of this early music… the players took fire in the opening paragraph and showed us clearly why we cherish Bliss’s music. The quiet closing pages remain special in the memory and found particularly sympathetic advocacy from our two performers.
To send us out into the autumn sunshine, Malcolm Arnold’s Moto Perpetuo from his Five Pieces made a tasty encore’.
In August 2022 the Taiwanese première of the Bliss Violin Sonata was performed by Chu-Yu Yang (violin) and Min Duh (piano) at recitals in Taipei and Kaohsiung. The work was also included in concerts in early October given by Chu-Yu Yang (violin) and Eric McElroy (piano), with a programme similar to that of this afternoon’s performance, one in Germany for the Kammermusikfreunde in Tübingen and a second in Austria at the British Embassy in Vienna. The ABS Chairman and Secretary, David Salter and his wife Anne, attended the concert at the British Embassy.