Mark Bebbington - The Complete Piano Music of Sir Arthur Bliss, Vol. 1 '2012

Tracks list

Tracklist

01. Valses fantastiques: I. Allegretto amabile
02. Valses fantastiques: II. Poco più andante
03. Valses fantastiques: III. Poco lento e molto espressivo
04. Valses fantastiques: IV. Introduction. Moderato
05. Toccata
06. Intermezzo
07. Study
08. Piano Sonata: I. Moderato marcato
09. Piano Sonata: II. Adagio sereno
10. Piano Sonata: III. Allegro
11. May-Zeeh
12. Suite for Piano: I. Overture. Allegro
13. Suite for Piano: II. Polonaise. Alla polacca
14. Suite for Piano: III. Elegy
15. Suite for Piano: IV. Variations
16. Miniature Scherzo



Volume One of the first ever complete recording of the solo piano music by Sir
Arthur Bliss, and includes world premiere recordings of many of Bliss’s
early piano works. Volume 2 will be released at the end of the year.

Although Bliss is largely remembered today for his magnificent collection of
orchestral and chamber works – many of them dating from his period as
Master of the Queen’s Music from 1953 until his death in 1975 –
his piano music has been scandalously and unaccountably neglected.

”There is absolutely no accounting for the neglect of this wonderful body
of piano music”, says Bebbington. “The piano music charts his growth
as a composer better than any of his other music….and the big piano works
– the Piano Sonata and 1925 Suite, for example – are every bit the
equal of his more popular and well known scores, for example, A Colour Symphony
and Morning Heroes. Bliss ranks alongside Bridge as perhaps the only British
composer of last century who represents an individual musical personality, yet
with a full awareness of European, American and Russian musical developments;
there is nothing remotely insular or ‘British’ in the piano music
of Bliss. Here we find the influences of Stravinsky, Alban Berg…..Charlie
Chaplin and George Gershwin – all filtered through one of the most
strikingly individual voices from this country.”

Bebbington first became interested in Bliss following a chance meeting a few
years ago with the chairman of The Arthur Bliss Society. Under the
Society’s watchful guidance, photocopies of Bliss’ early,
unpublished piano works were made available to him. And so the seeds of an
integrale recording were sown. To mark the issue of this two CDs to be released
in two separate volumes, The Bliss Trust is publishing for the first time the
complete cycle of the composer’s solo piano music.

The music on Volume 1 is a fantastic mix of styles and influences –
beginning with Bliss’s earliest piano work, a charming and previously
unrecorded salon Waltz ”May-Zeeh” (1910), with a touching dedication
to an early girlfriend,

A far cry from the zany works of his youth is the monumental Piano Sonata of
1952. The sheer pianistic complexity of this magnificent work owes much to the
awesome keyboard reputation of its dedicatee, Noel Mewton-Wood. Newton-Wood was
something of a cult figure during his short, brilliant, but ill-starred life.
His early pianistic precocity singled him out for nurturing by leading British
composers of the day – including Bliss and Tippett – but his huge
talent was dogged by manic depression and he committed suicide in 1953 at the
age of 31. The Piano Sonata was written for Newton-Wood as a heartfelt thank you
to him for his pioneering performances of Bliss’s earlier Piano Concerto
(1938) and it shares with that work both an epic grandeur and pianistic panache
and flamboyance.

The remaining works on Bebbington’s CD which was recorded in
Birmingham’s Symphony Hall during August 2010 and January 2011 include
many gems along the way – a malevolent virtuoso Toccata from 1925, every
bit the equal of Prokoviev’s work of the same name and dedicated to his
new American wife Gertrude Hoffmann; a delicious, previously unrecorded
Intermezzo, also dating from his late teens, which shows clearly the influence
of Brahms on the young Bliss and the wonderful, Ravel inspired Valses
Fantastiques (1912) – a homage to the French composer’s Valses
Nobles et Sentimentales and also a recorded premiere.

The Suite of 1925 is one of Bliss’s most substantial solo piano works;
the overall feel of the music is strongly neo-classical, but as with so much of
Bliss’s piano music, there is a sense of unease that belies the overall
optimistic mood. There is, then, no doubting the tragic character of the third
movement Elegy, headed ‘F.K.B. Thiepval, 1916’, a reference to the
death of his beloved brother Kennard who was killed in action.

Bliss’s autobiography As I Remember contains a striking early
reminiscence….. “I like to imagine that the first sounds of music I
ever heard came from my mother’s fingers as she practised the
piano.” It is ironic that Bliss is now so little remembered for his piano
works – when clearly the sound of the instrument was shaping those early
years. With this first ever integrale of his piano music, a comprehensive
evaluation of one of this country’s great composers – and, in
particular the true significance of Bliss’s contribution to
twentieth-century piano repertoire – can now take place.

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