Bliss, Arthur (1891 - 1975)

[Serial_Apologist]

A reminder that Bliss's Meditations on a Theme by John Blow, in the BBC Chorus and Orchestra recording under Andrew Davis, has its outing at 3.35pm today as part of the Afternoon Concert.

[BBMmk2]

A reminder that Bliss's Meditations on a Theme by John Blow, in the BBC Chorus and Orchestra recording under Andrew Davis, has its outing at 3.35pm today as part of the Afternoon Concert.

Ah good. That new Bliss recording looks mightily tempting.

[Master Jacques]

Didn't quite know where to put this, but it is about Bliss. I am currently reading Paul Spicer's new biography of the composer (for review purposes) and was intrigued to hear about the architectural wonders of the house Bliss had designed in Somerset (by Peter Harland) during the 1930s, and where he lived and worked for the remainder of his life.

Looking it up online (Grade II listed), I was amazed to find that this very week it has gone on the market, and there are lots of photos of it here, substantially unchanged from the composer's own time:

https://www.wowhaus.co.uk/2023/05/15/1930s-peter-harland-modern-house-in-pen-selwood-somerset/

What a remarkable home it is.

[teamsaint]

Didn't quite know where to put this, but it is about Bliss. I am currently reading Paul Spicer's new biography of the composer (for review purposes) and was intrigued to hear about the architectural wonders of the house Bliss had designed in Somerset (by Peter Harland) during the 1930s, and where he lived and worked for the remainder of his life.

Looking it up online (Grade II listed), I was amazed to find that this very week it has gone on the market, and there are lots of photos of it here, substantially unchanged from the composer's own time:

https://www.wowhaus.co.uk/2023/05/15/1930s-peter-harland-modern-house-in-pen-selwood-somerset/

What a remarkable home it is.

Hmmm.straight to PB…..lucky to get a review at all IMO

Also, there should be a better Amazon listing at this stage, really. Odd. Hey ho, hope it is a good book, and gets the coverage that it deserves, whatever that is.

Oh yes, nice place Blissy had there. I’m about £2.5m shy of the asking price, I reckon !!
Thanks for flagging the book and the house up MJ. Very interesting.

[Master Jacques]

Hmmm.straight to PB…..lucky to get a review at all IMO

I don't even get the paperback: just a watermarked digital download. That's how it is, these days.

At least I get my reviewing fee, and yes - though not without its quirks, it is a lively read, with much intelligent discussion of the music itself, which goes a long way with me at least.

Nice place indeed ... the architect also designed the Finzi farmhouse, which Paul Spicer tells us has been more mucked about since, making the Bliss house very special (and doubtless very expensive, as you suggest!)

(I've just spotted that I share my place of birth with Paul Spicer, and - this I already knew, of course - with John Ireland. So he's bound to get a good review from me!)

[teamsaint]

I don't even get the paperback: just a watermarked digital download. That's how it is, these days.

At least I get my reviewing fee, and yes - though not without its quirks, it is a lively read, with much intelligent discussion of the music itself, which goes a long way with me at least.

Nice place indeed ... the architect also designed the Finzi farmhouse, which Paul Spicer tells us has been more mucked about since, making the Bliss house very special (and doubtless very expensive, as you suggest!)

We generally send out either advance review copies or finished copies, and if we are serious about getting reviews we release in HB wherever we can. It is a very niche market of course, though they Tippett book did exceptionally well, given the modest potential market.
Like the cover of the book.
The house is yours for £3 m, which looks good compared to , say, some places in outer London !!

[Pulcinella]

Does anyone know/has anyone read Paul Spicer's book on Howells?
It seems to be at a silly price now:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Herbert-Howells-Border-Lines-Spicer/dp/1854112333

[Master Jacques]

Yes, it's very readable, and very reliable of course on Howells' music. Small print runs, instant OOP, high prices.

[Master Jacques]

One amusing passage from Paul Spicer's new book on Bliss, is this reprint of a letter (actually from his son in law) purporting to be from the BBC's accountancy department, when Bliss was Director of Music. Bliss replied in some detail: the gist was, that this sort of communication wasn't a very long way from some of the suggestions he did have to hear!

‘For considerable periods the four oboes had nothing to do. Their number should be reduced and the work spread more evenly over the whole of the concert, thus eliminating peaks of activity. All the twelve violins were playing identical notes. This seems unnecessary duplication… Much effort was absorbed in the playing of demisemiquavers. This seemed an unnecessary refinement. It is recommended that all notes should be rounded off to the nearest semiquaver. If this were done it would be possible to use trainees and lower-grade operators more extensively. No useful purpose is served by repeating on the horns a passage which has already been handled by the strings. It is estimated that if all redundant passages were eliminated, the whole concert time of two hours could be reduced to twenty minutes and there would have been no need for an interval.’

Evidently, our current BBC and Arts Council barbarisms are not new, though horribly close to this level of absurdity.

[smittims]

I've seen that spoof letter attributed to other authors on other occasions. It seems to be one of those jokes that goes the rounds, like the one purporting to be Toscanini's comment on the difficulties of working with Pavarotti . Whoever inserted those names seems not to have checked his dates.

[Master Jacques]

I've seen that spoof letter attributed to other authors on other occasions. It seems to be one of those jokes that goes the rounds, like the one purporting to be Toscanini's comment on the difficulties of working with Pavarotti . Whoever inserted those names seems not to have checked his dates.

Interesting, smittims. Paul Spicer quotes the letter (from Bliss's son in law Christopher Sellick) and Bliss's detailed humorous reply at length. He has not "inserted" any names, but quotes the original letters precisely as published in Gregory Roscow's Selected Writings of Arthur Bliss 1920–1975 (OUP, Oxford, 1991). Which isn't to say that Sellick's letter didn't draw on earlier models, of course: neither Roscow nor Spicer have anything to say about that.

[Pulcinella]

Yes, it's very readable, and very reliable of course on Howells' music. Small print runs, instant OOP, high prices.

I've just borrowed Spicer's book on Howells from U of York library, but I'm sadly unimpressed. It is very poorly (i.e., badly/incorrectly) punctuated, and early on (p10) we meet one of my bêtes noires:

His family all hailed from the Forest of Dean area for generations back, and the importance of this to Howells's makeup and personality cannot be underestimated.

Oh yes it can.



I hope the book on Bliss is better (but no-one seems to bother proofreading anything these days, so expectations are not high).

[Pulcinella]

Paul Spicer's biography is highly recommended in both September's Gramophone (review by Nigel Simeone, our makropulos) and September's BBC MM (5 stars from Andrew Green).

[Master Jacques]

I hope the book on Bliss is better (but no-one seems to bother proofreading anything these days, so expectations are not high).

It could certainly have done with more rigorous editing, as to repetitions, as I point out in my [pending] Opera review, but there aren't many misspellings or typos. My main worry about the Bliss book is exactly the kind of quasi-biographical romancing to which you - quite rightly - object. But I don't think it spoils the book's value too much, as Spicer's musical judgement is very reliable.

[smittims]

I've found many errors in recent books, of a type which lead me to suspect that they're dictated into a computer which is supposed to recognise and type out the words, but which types something that 'sounds like' the word spoken . Thus one sees, for example, a well-known composer's name repeatedly misspelt in the same way.