Belmont Variations - Score & Parts

Sir Arthur Bliss. Very unmistakably great English brass band music. Theme and six variations & finale. Theme - moderato 3/4 Var. 1 - 6/8 Var. 2 - 2/4 scherzando Var. 3 - 4/4 Slow & expressive Var. 4 - 3/4 in Waltz time (one in the bar) Cadenza for Cornet, Euph. & Trombone. Var. 5 - 2/4 brilliant & rhythmic Var. 6 - 6/8 quiet & smooth (in 6) trombone trio, then quartet. Finale - 3/4 - In stately & brilliant polonaise rhythm. Duration 11.15 Named after the town in Massachusetts where the composer's wife was born, and written in 1963. Arthur Bliss spent the last three months of 1935 in making an extensive tour of investigation into some of the lesser known aspects of English musical life to report upon these in a series of articles for The Listener, and it was on this tour that he encountered for the first time the evocative and staggering sounds produced by an amateur brass band. To write for such a body of players would reflect both his delight in scoring for brass and his enthusiasm in producing music for virtuoso soloists even if, in this medium, the would be nameless; thus the Kenilworth Suite came to be written within 12 months, the Belmont Variations some 17 years later, in 1963. The Variations, named Belmont after the birthplace in Massachusetts, USA, of his wife, was conceived as a test piece for the National Finals at the Albert Hall in 1963. After a four-bar introduction, an original theme is stated on Horns, Flugel and Baritones; then come the first four Variations, of which the fourth is a waltz, surprisingly concluded with an ad lib Cadenza for Cornet, Euphonium and Trombone, this being followed by the last two Variations marked 'brilliant and rhythmic' and 'quiet and smooth'. The work is concluded by a lengthy Finale in Polonaise rhythm.