Bliss - Works for Brass Band
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Label: Chandos
Cat No: CHSA5344
Format: Hybrid SACD
Number of Discs: 1
Genre: Orchestral
Release Date: 9th August 2024
Contents
Works
Adam Zero: Suite (arr. Robert Childs)Checkmate: 4 Dances (arr. Eric Ball)
Kenilworth
The Belmont Variations (arr. Frank Wright)
The Royal Palaces: Suite (arr. Michael Halstenson)
Things to Come: Suite (arr. Phillip Littlemore)
Welcome the Queen (arr. Michael Halstenson)
Artists
Black Dyke BandConductor
John WilsonWorks
Adam Zero: Suite (arr. Robert Childs)Checkmate: 4 Dances (arr. Eric Ball)
Kenilworth
The Belmont Variations (arr. Frank Wright)
The Royal Palaces: Suite (arr. Michael Halstenson)
Things to Come: Suite (arr. Phillip Littlemore)
Welcome the Queen (arr. Michael Halstenson)
Artists
Black Dyke BandConductor
John WilsonAbout
Sir Arthur Bliss contributed two staples of the brass band repertoire - Kenilworth and The Belmont Variations, the enduring success of which inspired arrangers to turn to his other compositions, such as Eric Ball’s Four Dances from the ballet Checkmate and Phillip Littlemore’s suite from the film score for Things to Come. Three new arrangements have been made especially for this album: Robert Childs’s suite from the ballet Adam Zero and Michael Halstenson’s arrangements of Welcome the Queen and music from The Royal Palaces. Collectively this programme reflects the essence of Bliss’s compositional style: the inherent drama of his scores for film, ballet, and television and his flair for the ceremonial, especially in the context of his position as Master of the Queen’s Music.
Black Dyke Band, tracing its continuous history back to 1855, is the most recorded band in the world, having produced a discography of more than 350 recordings to date. It is also the most successful contesting band in the world, having won the European Championships thirteen times, the British Open thirty times and the National Championships of Great Britain twenty-four times. In 2023, the Band appointed the conductor John Wilson as its Honorary President.
Black Dyke Band, tracing its continuous history back to 1855, is the most recorded band in the world, having produced a discography of more than 350 recordings to date. It is also the most successful contesting band in the world, having won the European Championships thirteen times, the British Open thirty times and the National Championships of Great Britain twenty-four times. In 2023, the Band appointed the conductor John Wilson as its Honorary President.
Sound/Video
Paused
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1Welcome the Queen
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2Kenilworth. 1. At the Castle Gates
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3Kenilworth. 2. Serenade on the Lake
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4Kenilworth. 3. March: Kenilworth
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5Suite from 'Adam Zero'. I. Fanfare Overture
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6Suite from 'Adam Zero'. II. Dance of Spring
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7Suite from 'Adam Zero'. III. Approach of Autumn
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8Suite from 'Adam Zero'. IV. Dance of Summer
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9Suite from 'Adam Zero'. V. Fanfare Coda
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10Suite from 'Things to Come'. 1. Ballet for Children
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11Suite from 'Things to Come'. 2. Machines
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12Suite from 'Things to Come'. 3. Reconstruction
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13Suite from 'Things to Come'. 4. March
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14The Belmont Variations. Moderato - Theme -
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15The Belmont Variations. Variation I -
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16The Belmont Variations. Variation II. Lightly and staccato (scherzando) -
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17The Belmont Variations. Variation III. Slow and expressive -
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18The Belmont Variations. Variation IV. In waltz time, with light accompaniment -
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19The Belmont Variations. Variation V. Brilliant and rhythmic -
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20The Belmont Variations. Variation VI. Quiet and smooth -
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21The Belmont Variations. Finale. In stately and brilliant polonaise rhythm
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22Music from 'The Royal Palaces'. Queen Victoria's Call to the Throne
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23Music from 'The Royal Palaces'. The Ballroom in Buckingham Palace
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24Music from 'The Royal Palaces'. Joust of the Knights in Armour
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25Music from 'The Royal Palaces'. Melodrama: The Murder of Rizzio in Holyrood House
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26Music from 'The Royal Palaces'. The Royal Palace Theme
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27Four Dances from 'Checkmate'. 1. Dance of the Four Knights
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28Four Dances from 'Checkmate'. 2. The Red Knight's Mazurka
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29Four Dances from 'Checkmate'. 3. Ceremony of the Red Bishops
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30Four Dances from 'Checkmate'. 4. Finale - Checkmate.
Europadisc Review
Although he started his compositional career (influenced by Diaghilev’s Ballets russes as much as the Second Viennese School) as something of a modernist, by the mid-1930s Arthur Bliss had become more of a traditionalist. By the time he was appointed Master of the Queen’s Music in late 1953, his music was already being overshadowed by that of younger colleagues like Britten and Walton, and by the time of his death in 1975 he was widely regarded as anachronistic. In the years since, however, Bliss has been making something of a comeback, thanks not least to the Chandos label, which has issued recordings ranging from orchestral works (including A Colour Symphony and the Violin Concerto) and choral pieces to the film scores in which he was a British pioneer.
The title of Chandos’s latest contribution to the Bliss revival, ‘Works for Brass Band’, is slightly misleading, as only two of the seven were originally composed for that medium. But the others – music from his ballets, film scores and television music – are all presented in skilful, effective and thoroughly idiomatic arrangements. It helps that the performers are among the crème de la crème of the brass band world: the Black Dyke Band, an illustrious ensemble whose history can be traced back for the best part of two centuries, and which still regularly comes out tops in band competitions. Add to that the prolific, award-winning conductor John Wilson and you have a sure-fire recipe for success.
Of the two works originally conceived for brass band, the earlier is Kenilworth (1936), a short suite inspired by a visit to the famous castle in Warwickshire as well as by Walter Scott’s eponymous 1821 novel. Bliss had been attracted to the idiom on a visit to Westhoughton, near Bolton, and you can hear his affection for it in these movements inspired by Elizabeth I’s visit to Kenilworth: the brilliant fanfares of ‘At the Castle Gates’, the lyrical ‘Serenade on the Lake’, and above all the sheer ebullience of the concluding March. The Black Dyke players rise magnificently to some very demanding tonguing passages as the suite reaches its climax.
Over 25 years later, Bliss returned to the world of brass bands with The Belmont Variations, an ambitious set of six variations with Finale inspired by a stay at his American wife’s family in Belmont, Massachusetts, where Bliss was stranded at the outbreak of World War II. There’s an undercurrent of wistfulness to this work, composed as the test piece for the finals of the 1963 National Brass Band Championships, and most evident in the theme itself and in the first, third and sixth variations, offset by the quiet but lively interplay of Variation II, the waltz-like Variation IV (with some exquisite solos for cornet, euphonium and trombone), the short but energetic Variation V, and the rousing polonaise of the Finale.
Bliss’s early exposure to the Ballets russes instilled a lifelong love of ballet, and his own earliest work in the genre was also inspired by another of his passions, chess. Checkmate was composed for Ninette de Valois, and premiered on 15 June 1937 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Eric Ball’s 1978 arrangement of four dances from this, one of Bliss’s finest scores, is placed last on the present album, and there’s a real thrill as the red pieces (knights, bishops and king) take on the forces headed by the Black Queen. The menace that comes to the surface reflects the growing unease felt in the late 1930s as the world neared a state of war once again, and Wilson directs a gripping and (in its closing bars) menacing performance, splendidly played by the band’s forces.
Less well-known is the 1946 ballet Adam Zero, an ‘ages of man’ tale which served as a vehicle for Robert Helpmann at Covent Garden. Helpmann’s subsequent withdrawal from the production with injury hampered the work’s success, but Bliss arranged a concert suite, and in 2023 Robert Childs arranged his own suite for brass which concentrates on three of the seasons that punctuate the work, bookended by a Fanfare Overture and Fanfare Coda. Here it is the central ‘Approach of Autumn’, with doleful solos and impressionistic touches to the scoring, that makes the deepest impact, though there is an abundance of infectious energy in the surrounding movements.
Bliss’s score for Alexander Korda’s 1936 film Things to Come (based on H.G. Wells’s The Shape of Things to Come) is one of his most celebrated works, and Philip Littlemore’s 2016 suite of four movements taken from the composer’s own concert suite includes its most memorable moments. The opening ‘Ballet for Children’ sparkles gaily, the nostalgia-laden ‘Reconstruction’ brings out all the Black Dyke’s skill and technical control in expressive legato playing, and there’s plenty of post-apocalyptic menace in ‘Machines’ and the concluding March, as mankind looks with a mixture of trepidation and optimism towards the future.
There’s a distinctly royal flavour to the album’s remaining works. The opening Welcome the Queen was composed for a 1954 Associated British Pathé film marking the conclusion of Elizabeth II’s coronation tour of the Commonwealth. An uplifting, fanfare-like quick march framing a more serene central section, all most effectively scored in this new brass version by Michael Halstenson, who also arranged the five-movement suite of music from The Royal Palaces. This was a score Bliss composed for the TV programme The Royal Palaces of Britain, first broadcast on Christmas Day 1966. It encompasses not just majesty but spectacle (‘Joust of the Knights in Armour’) and even chilling melodrama (‘The Murder of Rizzio in Holyrood House’). Like all the works on this album, it benefits enormously from expert arrangement, stunning execution and fastidious direction from Wilson. Demonstration quality sound and informative notes by Bliss expert Andrew Burn seal the deal on an outstanding disc.
Reviews
An album devoted to brass band music is rare on a classical label. When the conductor is John Wilson, steeped in this tradition, and the band is one of the world’s best, it is worth noticing. ... The playing is authoritative, atmospheric and virtuosic. That Bliss is still out of fashion remains a mystery. This wonderful album may help restore his reputation. Fiona MaddocksThe Observer 21 July 2024
I don’t know whose idea this album was, but it was a good one. ... Of course, there are brass bands all over the world but none, somehow, manage to evoke the nation’s indigenous culture quite as effectively as an English brass band. And Black Dyke is one of the best. ... The ensemble balance is superb, the internal voicing clear and detailed, the execution punchy, delicate, breezily confident and heartfelt by turn. ... A wonderful album in every way, highly recommended. Jeremy NicholasGramophone September 2024
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