Bliss: Miracle in the Gorbals

Day 263

Bliss: Miracle in the Gorbals

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden

Constant Lambert

Having used the last week or so to fill in some of the gaps of major composers who have not so far featured in this project - there are still some important names to catch up with before the year is out - I return to a thematic approach for the next section of listening and will explore some ballet music. I have already covered some of the obvious composers already this year and as I am still on track to listen to different composer each day I can’t revisit them, but there is plenty more to go at. 

I know little of the music of Sir Arthur Bliss. I enjoy his early piece, Rout, for wordless soprano and small ensemble but other than that is it only some of the ceremonial and film music that it is at all familiar,

Miracle in the Gorbals was written for the Sadlers Well Ballet during the war and first performed by them in 1944 conducted by Constant Lambert, who conducted this recording of the suite drawn from the full-length ballet. I enjoyed it as a typical piece of British music of the 1930s and 1940s - vigorous and melodic with some hints of modernism but all safely within an established musical idiom. To be honest, however, it didn’t leave a lasting impression - I suspect that it was very effective as ballet music but I am not sure that is sustains enough interest on its own.  It may well be that I say the same thing about several of the ballet scores in this part of the project.