Elgar’s Enigma Variations began as a parlour game – a series of musical portraits of the composer’s nearest and dearest. It grew into the warmest, tenderest and most stirring masterpiece in all of British music: who isn’t moved by the profound emotion of Nimrod?

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Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Elgar’s Enigma Variations

Cadogan Hall 

Perhaps one of the most inexplicably neglected names in twentieth-century classical music, Sir Arthur Bliss (whose Piano Concerto is featured on 24 October) was, in his day, an admired composer of music for the concert hall, stage and screen, his achievements recognised when he was made Master of the Queen’s Music after the Second World War. In the 1920s and 30s he embraced the modernism of Stravinsky and leading French composers before moving towards a more traditionally English and Romantic style tinged with continental hues.

BBC Philharmonic: Discovering Bliss

Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall

This colourful all-English programme takes off with William Walton’s music for the climactic aerial duel of Guy Hamilton’s classic 1969 movie. Walton was originally booked to compose the entire film score before MGM’s studio executives abruptly side-lined him in favour of Ron Goodwin. Walton’s battle scene was the only section that remained of his music but it’s also the film’s most memorable moment, capturing the altitudinous, rapid-firing action with breathless energy. Walton’s near contemporary, Sir Arthur Bliss, wrote his Cello Concerto for the great Russian virtuoso Mstislav Rostropovich, who gave its premiere at the Aldeburgh Festival in 1970. One of Bliss’s last major works, it’s an appealing mix of lyricism and the composer’s trademark rhythmic drive. Our soloist is Guy Johnston, a former BBC Young Musician winner and now one of the world’s leading cellists.*

Bliss

Events

Past events

Apr 16, 2025

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Elgar’s Enigma Variations · Cadogan Hall

Feb 26, 2025

BBC Philharmonic: Discovering Bliss · Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall

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