• Arthur Bliss
  • Toccata for Piano (1925)

  • J Curwen & Sons Ltd (World)
  • Piano
  • 5 min

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 virtuosity of the Toccata. 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 as in the piu mosso section of the Toccata.

This work is dedicated to the composer's wife

© George Dannatt