William Blezard
Encyclopedia
William Blezard was a talented pianist and composer who was musical director to Noël Coward
, Marlene Dietrich
and Joyce Grenfell
.
parents who worked in one of Padiham's many cotton mill
s as weavers. Like many other local children, as a child he wore clog
s, traditional for the area and not a sign of poverty. His tenor father sang semi-professionally. The mill-owner's daughter spotted his musical talent initially on the harmonium
and persuaded the mill owner, Teddy Higham, to pay for piano lessons. In 1938 he left Clitheroe Royal Grammar School
where he had played Gershwin
's Rhapsody In Blue
, having won a Lancashire county scholarship to the Royal College of Music
in London where he was a pupil of Arthur Leslie Benjamin
.
In 1954 he married musical conductor Joan Kemp Potter, whom he met at the Royal College. She died in 2001. He had cared for her after she had had a severe stroke in 1994. They had a son and daughter, known as Paul and Pookie.
Blezard never stopped working to improve his piano technique. He lost his boyhood stammer and broad Lancashire accent in early adulthood but fought personal demons of doubt and worry all his life.
He and his family lived in a rambling house just off Barnes Common, the living room dominated by his grand piano. Whenever he wanted to emphasise a point, he would leap up to demonstrate on the keys. He never retired and the night before he died he was performing at a charity concert in Barnes.
at the outbreak of the Second World War and became a Morse code
operator in Wick
, Scotland.
. He won the Cobbett Prize for a composition for a Fantasy String Quartet
. He then wrote music for Muir Mathieson
's documentary films, at Denham Film Studios
near the village of Denham
, and many others including "The Cardboard Cavalier", 1949, starring Margaret Lockwood and the film version of Noël Coward
's play "The Astonished Heart
" in 1950 starring Celia Johnson
. Another was Beau Brummell
, 1954, starring Peter Ustinov
, Elizabeth Taylor
and Robert Morley
.
In 1954 Blezard had arranged a performance for two pianos with Donald Swann
and Sydney Carter
. Swann introduced him to Joyce Grenfell, and she engaged him as her musical director. During rehearsals the same year for the show "Joyce Grenfell Requests the Pleasure", Blezard married the conductor Joan Kemp Potter. The show lasted for over a year, ending its West End
run at St Martin's Theatre
. The piano was so bad that Blezard asked the management to buy an upright Bechstein
at Harrods
' sale.
After this production, Grenfell decided that Blezard's piano skills were such that she no longer needed an orchestra as he could play any tune by ear, arrange it in any key or style and transcribe it on to paper without a piano. She wrote in her first, 1976, autobiography, "In Pleasant Places":
From 1954-1974 he composed many of Grenfell's songs and spoof operettas such as Freda and Eric. They performed on stage and television all over Britain, America and Australia. He could play her entire repertoire from memory, even though she often changed the running order at the last moment. To warm up before a show they would improvise fake Debussy and mock Schubert; he learned to play over hailstorms in Melbourne, cowboy films in Sydney, bagpipes in Auckland and the police radio on Grenfell's mike.
Grenfell insisted on Blezard's getting equal credit, and would complain to the organisers if he was left off a poster or not mentioned in a review. She also pushed for higher fees, and persuaded the BBC to increase his fee from 10 to 200 guineas for two Cabaret television shows. Diana Lyddon, stage manager for Grenfell's 1960 British tour, said:
At Grenfell's last performance, at the Waterloo Dinner in Windsor Castle
in June 1973, she insisted she would only dine with the Queen if the Blezards were also invited. The Queen chose the programme, including Blezard's favourite "The Battle March of Delhi", a melodramatic Victorian song involving colonels, marauders and bugles.
Grenfell supported the Blezard family in many ways: she bought them a dishwasher one Christmas; wrote birthday songs for their children, and contributed to his son's first motorbike. Every summer, Joyce and Reggie Grenfell treated William and Joan to a week at the Aldeburgh
Music Festival. For the royal opening of Snape Maltings
concert hall in 1967, Blezard and Grenfell composed a surprise song for Benjamin Britten
who was so overwhelmed that he burst into tears.
In 1957, he worked on two Royal Shakespeare Company
productions with Peter Brook
: Titus Andronicus
and The Tempest
. The same year he was musical director in London and New York for John Osborne
's The Entertainer
, starring Laurence Olivier
as the failed music-hall artist Archie Rice. He performed the same role for Max Wall
20 years later.
On the BBC2 launch in 1964, Blezard was a musical director for the children's programme Play School with Johnny Ball
and Brian Cant
. Anne Reay, one of the producers said:
In 1965 he took over from Burt Bacharach
as Marlene Dietrich
's musical director and toured with her worldwide. He said:
. He also worked with Elisabeth Welch in her one-woman show A Marvellous Party. In 1983 Sheridan Morley
used Blezard as musical director for the show about Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence
, Noël and Gertie, which began a long run with Joanna Lumley
at the King's Head, Islington
. Lumley said:
Blezard was musical director in 1986 for the musical Café Puccini by Robin Ray
with Nichola McAuliffe
at the Wyndham's Theatre
, and then played for Honor Blackman
in The Life and Times of Yvette Guilbert and Dishonorable Ladies. Blezard and Blackman worked together for the next 10 years, Blackman said: "William was my staunch support and brilliant accompanist. No one, but no one will ever be as good."
He also wrote numerous piano and chamber music pieces spanning his entire career which are representative of many genres, styles and touches including Sonatinas, Preludes, Scherzi, numerous character pieces and a set of variations written in his later life dedicated to the American pianist Neil Galanter
. His own favourite composition, written in 1951, was the dark, quasi-mahlerian Duetto (for string ensemble), which his wife Ros Kemp-Potter also considered his most accomplished work. His orchestral music, in which the influence of his hero Maurice Ravel
is easily detectable, particularly in its harmonic patterns, has enjoyed a singificant revival since the late 1990s after a long period of neglect. Most of his major works are now available on commercial recordings. William Blezard was also a prolific arranger, who collaborated on several occasions with pop singer-songwriter Louis Philippe
towards the end of his life.
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
, Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
and Joyce Grenfell
Joyce Grenfell
Joyce Irene Grenfell, OBE was an English actress, comedienne, diseuse and singer-songwriter.-Early life:...
.
Personal life
Blezard was born to working classWorking class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
parents who worked in one of Padiham's many cotton mill
Cotton mill
A cotton mill is a factory that houses spinning and weaving machinery. Typically built between 1775 and 1930, mills spun cotton which was an important product during the Industrial Revolution....
s as weavers. Like many other local children, as a child he wore clog
Clog (shoe)
A clog is a type of footwear made in part or completely from wood.The Oxford English Dictionary defines a clog as a "thick piece of wood", and later as a "wooden soled overshoe" and a "shoe with a thick wooden sole"....
s, traditional for the area and not a sign of poverty. His tenor father sang semi-professionally. The mill-owner's daughter spotted his musical talent initially on the harmonium
Harmonium
A harmonium is a free-standing keyboard instrument similar to a reed organ. Sound is produced by air being blown through sets of free reeds, resulting in a sound similar to that of an accordion...
and persuaded the mill owner, Teddy Higham, to pay for piano lessons. In 1938 he left Clitheroe Royal Grammar School
Clitheroe Royal Grammar School
See Royal Grammar School for the other schools with the name RGS.Clitheroe Royal Grammar School is a co-educational secondary school in Clitheroe, Lancashire that used to be an all boys school...
where he had played Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
's Rhapsody In Blue
Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue is a musical composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band written in 1924, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects....
, having won a Lancashire county scholarship to the Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
in London where he was a pupil of Arthur Leslie Benjamin
Arthur Benjamin
Arthur Leslie Benjamin was an Australian composer, pianist, conductor and teacher. He is best known as the composer of Jamaican Rhumba, composed in 1938.-Biography:...
.
In 1954 he married musical conductor Joan Kemp Potter, whom he met at the Royal College. She died in 2001. He had cared for her after she had had a severe stroke in 1994. They had a son and daughter, known as Paul and Pookie.
Blezard never stopped working to improve his piano technique. He lost his boyhood stammer and broad Lancashire accent in early adulthood but fought personal demons of doubt and worry all his life.
He and his family lived in a rambling house just off Barnes Common, the living room dominated by his grand piano. Whenever he wanted to emphasise a point, he would leap up to demonstrate on the keys. He never retired and the night before he died he was performing at a charity concert in Barnes.
War work
He joined the Royal Air ForceRoyal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
at the outbreak of the Second World War and became a Morse code
Morse code
Morse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...
operator in Wick
Wick, Highland
Wick is an estuary town and a royal burgh in the north of the Highland council area of Scotland. Historically, it is one of two burghs within the county of Caithness, of which Wick was the county town. The town straddles the River Wick and extends along both sides of Wick Bay...
, Scotland.
Post war career
In 1946 he returned to the Royal College, and studied piano with Arthur Benjamin and Frank Merrick, composition with Herbert Howells, and orchestration with Gordon JacobGordon Jacob
Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob was an English composer. He is known for his wind instrument composition and his instructional writings.-Life:...
. He won the Cobbett Prize for a composition for a Fantasy String Quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
. He then wrote music for Muir Mathieson
Muir Mathieson
James Muir Mathieson was a Scottish conductor and composer. Mathieson was almost always described as a "Musical Director" on a large number of British films.-Career:...
's documentary films, at Denham Film Studios
Denham Film Studios
Denham Film Studios were a British film production studio operating from 1936 to 1952.The studios were founded by Alexander Korda, on a 165 acre site near the village of Denham, Buckinghamshire. At the time it was the largest facility of its kind in the UK, but it was merged with Rank's Pinewood...
near the village of Denham
Denham, Buckinghamshire
Denham is a village and civil parish in the South Buckinghamshire district of Buckinghamshire, England. It is north west of Uxbridge and north of junction 1 of the M40 motorway. Denham contains the Buckinghamshire Golf Club.-Origin:...
, and many others including "The Cardboard Cavalier", 1949, starring Margaret Lockwood and the film version of Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
's play "The Astonished Heart
The Astonished Heart
The Astonished Heart is a short play by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings. The play, described at its first production as "a tragedy in six scenes", is told through a series of flashbacks in reverse order...
" in 1950 starring Celia Johnson
Celia Johnson
Dame Celia Elizabeth Johnson DBE was an English actress.She began her stage acting career in 1928, and subsequently achieved success in West End and Broadway productions. She also appeared in several films, including the romantic drama Brief Encounter , for which she received a nomination for the...
. Another was Beau Brummell
Beau Brummell
Beau Brummell, born as George Bryan Brummell , was the arbiter of men's fashion in Regency England and a friend of the Prince Regent, the future King George IV...
, 1954, starring Peter Ustinov
Peter Ustinov
Peter Alexander Ustinov CBE was an English actor, writer and dramatist. He was also renowned as a filmmaker, theatre and opera director, stage designer, author, screenwriter, comedian, humourist, newspaper and magazine columnist, radio broadcaster and television presenter...
, Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
and Robert Morley
Robert Morley
Robert Adolph Wilton Morley, CBE was an English actor who, often in supporting roles, was usually cast as a pompous English gentleman representing the Establishment...
.
In 1954 Blezard had arranged a performance for two pianos with Donald Swann
Donald Swann
Donald Ibrahím Swann was a British composer, musician and entertainer. He is best known to the general public for his partnership of writing and performing comic songs with Michael Flanders .-Life:...
and Sydney Carter
Sydney Carter
Sydney Bertram Carter was an English poet, songwriter, folk musician, born in Camden Town, London. He is best known for the song "Lord of the Dance" , set to the tune of the American Shaker song "Simple Gifts", and the song "The Crow on the Cradle", adapted from an old folk song...
. Swann introduced him to Joyce Grenfell, and she engaged him as her musical director. During rehearsals the same year for the show "Joyce Grenfell Requests the Pleasure", Blezard married the conductor Joan Kemp Potter. The show lasted for over a year, ending its West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
run at St Martin's Theatre
St Martin's Theatre
St Martin's Theatre is a West End theatre, located in West Street, near Charing Cross Road, in the London Borough of Camden. It was designed as one of a pair of theatres with the Ambassadors Theatre by W.G.R...
. The piano was so bad that Blezard asked the management to buy an upright Bechstein
Bechstein
Bechstein is a surname and may refer to:*Johann Matthäus Bechstein , a German naturalist and forester.*Ludwig Bechstein , a German writer....
at Harrods
Harrods
Harrods is an upmarket department store located in Brompton Road in Brompton, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London. The Harrods brand also applies to other enterprises undertaken by the Harrods group of companies including Harrods Bank, Harrods Estates, Harrods Aviation and Air...
' sale.
After this production, Grenfell decided that Blezard's piano skills were such that she no longer needed an orchestra as he could play any tune by ear, arrange it in any key or style and transcribe it on to paper without a piano. She wrote in her first, 1976, autobiography, "In Pleasant Places":
"He is compounded of compressed energy, employed at its best when he is playing the piano, then it is wholly controlled. His familiarity with the keyboard has the naturalness of breathing; and he moves in it with confidence, dexterity and grace
From 1954-1974 he composed many of Grenfell's songs and spoof operettas such as Freda and Eric. They performed on stage and television all over Britain, America and Australia. He could play her entire repertoire from memory, even though she often changed the running order at the last moment. To warm up before a show they would improvise fake Debussy and mock Schubert; he learned to play over hailstorms in Melbourne, cowboy films in Sydney, bagpipes in Auckland and the police radio on Grenfell's mike.
Grenfell insisted on Blezard's getting equal credit, and would complain to the organisers if he was left off a poster or not mentioned in a review. She also pushed for higher fees, and persuaded the BBC to increase his fee from 10 to 200 guineas for two Cabaret television shows. Diana Lyddon, stage manager for Grenfell's 1960 British tour, said:
"The venues were often town halls. They were all under contract to provide a tuned Steinway grand. As I was trying to fix the lighting, Bill would stomp in and say: 'Bloody awful piano again'. The next time we toured together I always checked in advance.
At Grenfell's last performance, at the Waterloo Dinner in Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle is a medieval castle and royal residence in Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, notable for its long association with the British royal family and its architecture. The original castle was built after the Norman invasion by William the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I it...
in June 1973, she insisted she would only dine with the Queen if the Blezards were also invited. The Queen chose the programme, including Blezard's favourite "The Battle March of Delhi", a melodramatic Victorian song involving colonels, marauders and bugles.
Grenfell supported the Blezard family in many ways: she bought them a dishwasher one Christmas; wrote birthday songs for their children, and contributed to his son's first motorbike. Every summer, Joyce and Reggie Grenfell treated William and Joan to a week at the Aldeburgh
Aldeburgh
Aldeburgh is a coastal town in Suffolk, East Anglia, England. Located on the River Alde, the town is notable for its Blue Flag shingle beach and fisherman huts where freshly caught fish are sold daily, and the Aldeburgh Yacht Club...
Music Festival. For the royal opening of Snape Maltings
Snape Maltings
Snape Maltings is part of Snape, Suffolk, U.K., best known for its concert hall, which is one of the main sites of the annual Aldeburgh Festival....
concert hall in 1967, Blezard and Grenfell composed a surprise song for Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
who was so overwhelmed that he burst into tears.
In 1957, he worked on two Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
productions with Peter Brook
Peter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...
: Titus Andronicus
Titus Andronicus
Titus Andronicus is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, and possibly George Peele, believed to have been written between 1588 and 1593. It is thought to be Shakespeare's first tragedy, and is often seen as his attempt to emulate the violent and bloody revenge plays of his contemporaries, which were...
and The Tempest
The Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
. The same year he was musical director in London and New York for John Osborne
John Osborne
John James Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and critic of the Establishment. The success of his 1956 play Look Back in Anger transformed English theatre....
's The Entertainer
The Entertainer (play)
The Entertainer is a three act play by John Osborne, first produced in 1957. His first play, Look Back in Anger, had attracted mixed notices but a great deal of publicity. Having depicted an "angry young man" in the earlier play, Osborne wrote, at Laurence Olivier's request,about an angry middle...
, starring Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
as the failed music-hall artist Archie Rice. He performed the same role for Max Wall
Max Wall
Max Wall , was an English comedian and actor, whose performing career covered music hall, theatre, films and television.-Early years:...
20 years later.
On the BBC2 launch in 1964, Blezard was a musical director for the children's programme Play School with Johnny Ball
Johnny Ball
Johnny Ball is a British television personality, a great populariser of mathematics and the father of BBC Radio 2 DJ Zoë Ball.-Early life:...
and Brian Cant
Brian Cant
Brian Cant is an English actor, television presenter and writer.-Personal life:Born in Ipswich, he currently lives in Buckinghamshire and is married to writer and director Cherry Britton, sister of TV presenter Fern Britton and actor Jasper Britton. They have three children, daughter Rose, and...
. Anne Reay, one of the producers said:
"His job was to improvise music to the action of the presenters – anything from a storm at sea to ice-cream melting. His interpretation was always exuberant."
In 1965 he took over from Burt Bacharach
Burt Bacharach
Burt F. Bacharach is an American pianist, composer and music producer. He is known for his popular hit songs and compositions from the mid-1950s through the 1980s, with lyrics written by Hal David. Many of their hits were produced specifically for, and performed by, Dionne Warwick...
as Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
's musical director and toured with her worldwide. He said:
"We had a row in every Hilton in Europe. But she always made up for it in champagne afterwards."He was with Dietrich in Australia in 1975 when she broke her leg on stage in her final performance. In the 1970s he worked on the TV adult literacy programme On the Move with Rolf Harris
Rolf Harris
Rolf Harris, CBE, AM is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, painter and television personality.Born in Perth, Western Australia, Harris was a champion swimmer before studying art. He moved to England in 1952, where he started to appear on television programmes on which he drew the...
. He also worked with Elisabeth Welch in her one-woman show A Marvellous Party. In 1983 Sheridan Morley
Sheridan Morley
Sheridan Morley was an English author, biographer, critic, director, actor and broadcaster. He was the eldest son of actor Robert Morley and grandson of actress Dame Gladys Cooper, and wrote biographies of both...
used Blezard as musical director for the show about Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence was an English actress, singer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End theatre district of London and on Broadway.-Early life:...
, Noël and Gertie, which began a long run with Joanna Lumley
Joanna Lumley
Joanna Lamond Lumley, OBE, FRGS is a British actress, voice-over artist, former-model and author, best known for her roles in British television series Absolutely Fabulous portraying Edina Monsoon's best friend, Patsy Stone, as well as parts in The New Avengers, Sapphire & Steel, and Sensitive...
at the King's Head, Islington
Islington
Islington is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a district of Inner London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...
. Lumley said:
"It was a tiny cast in a tiny theatre with no dressing rooms but Bill helped make it one of the happiest jobs I ever did. He was a life-enhancer who treated every performance as if it was the Wigmore Hall".
Blezard was musical director in 1986 for the musical Café Puccini by Robin Ray
Robin Ray
Robin Ray was an English actor, musician and broadcaster, the son of comedian Ted Ray and the brother of actor Andrew Ray.-Career:...
with Nichola McAuliffe
Nichola McAuliffe
Nichola McAuliffe is an English television and stage actress and writer, best known for her role as Sheila Sabatini in the sitcom Surgical Spirit.-Background:McAuliffe was born in 1955 in Surrey, England...
at the Wyndham's Theatre
Wyndham's Theatre
Wyndham's Theatre is a West End theatre, one of two opened by the actor/manager Charles Wyndham . Located on Charing Cross Road, in the City of Westminster, it was designed by W.G.R. Sprague about 1898, the architect of six other London theatres between then and 1916...
, and then played for Honor Blackman
Honor Blackman
Honor Blackman is an English actress, known for the roles of Cathy Gale in The Avengers and Bond girl Pussy Galore in Goldfinger .-Early life:...
in The Life and Times of Yvette Guilbert and Dishonorable Ladies. Blezard and Blackman worked together for the next 10 years, Blackman said: "William was my staunch support and brilliant accompanist. No one, but no one will ever be as good."
He also wrote numerous piano and chamber music pieces spanning his entire career which are representative of many genres, styles and touches including Sonatinas, Preludes, Scherzi, numerous character pieces and a set of variations written in his later life dedicated to the American pianist Neil Galanter
Neil Galanter
Neil Galanter is an American pianist in Los Angeles, California, who is a leading specialist in researching and performing the works of Iberian, Belgian, and other European composers including Mompou, Montsalvatge, Blancafort, Espla, and Poot...
. His own favourite composition, written in 1951, was the dark, quasi-mahlerian Duetto (for string ensemble), which his wife Ros Kemp-Potter also considered his most accomplished work. His orchestral music, in which the influence of his hero Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
is easily detectable, particularly in its harmonic patterns, has enjoyed a singificant revival since the late 1990s after a long period of neglect. Most of his major works are now available on commercial recordings. William Blezard was also a prolific arranger, who collaborated on several occasions with pop singer-songwriter Louis Philippe
Louis Philippe
Louis Philippe may refer to:*Louis-Philippe I, King of the French, last King of France*Prince Philippe, Count of Paris, called King Louis Philippe II by some factions*Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans*Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans...
towards the end of his life.
CD recordings
- The Piano Music of William Blezard (2001) played by Eric Parkin, in two volumes;
- Battersea Park Suite on the collection British Light Music Discoveries, (2001);
- The orchestral overture Caramba (1966) released on British Light Overtures (2002);
- Two Celtic Pieces on English Oboe Concertos (2001), played by the English Northern Philharmonia;
- Duetto (1951), played by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia on English String Miniatures, Vol 3 (2001);
- Noel and Gertie by Sir Noel Coward, William Blezard, Original London Cast, and Patricia HodgePatricia HodgePatricia Ann Hodge is an English actor.-Early life:The daughter of the Royal Hotel owner/manager Eric and his wife Marion , Hodge attended Wintringham Girls' Grammar School on Weelsby Avenue in Grimsby and then St...
(2008) - The Oboe d'Amore Collection, Vol. 2, Works by William Blezard, Edwin Carr, Wilfred Josephs, and John McCabe, played by Jennifer Paull (Oboe d'Amore) and Reed Gainsford (Piano) released on Amoris International (1997)