Search - Bliss, Hickox, Northern Sinfonia :: Pastoral

The 1930s were a decade of great writing for Sir Arthur Bliss. But after producing a successful score for the film Things to Come (1935), he turned to less programmatic music. Music for Strings (1935) was the first to emerge. More abstract, it still retains Bliss's penchant for bright orchestral colors and lucid melodies. Fans of Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Stanford, and Walton will like this very much. Pastoral ("Lie strewn the white flocks"), of 1929, was Bliss's first genuinely successful composition, mixing as it does Bliss's interest in classical poetry and myth. Pastoral ranks very high among British choral works. Paul Cook