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Programme Note

Although Bliss has produced music in many genres and for innumerable combinations of instruments, he wrote comparatively little for the pianoforte. This work, written in America in 1925, shows a masterly understanding of the piano's resources, more particularly in the pedalled notes and sonorities of the first Interlude. This piece bears the Bliss imprint; short notes on strong beats, use of three staves to encompass the harmonic and percussive thought which was developed to its final limit in the Piano Sonata of 1952, trills, syncopation and a 'ragtime' idiom.

The second Interlude is dedicated to Ethel Roe Eichheim.

© George Dannatt