John Shirley-Quirk (baritone)
Melos Ensemble Richard Adeney (flute) Peter Graeme (oboe)
Gervase de Peyer (clarinet)
William Waterhouse (bassoon) Barry Tuckwell (horn)
Emanuel Hurwitz (violin) Ivor McMahon (violin) Cecil Aronowitz (viola) Terence Weil (cello) Adrian Beers (double-bass) Osian Ellis (harp)
From the Town Hall
Part 1
Conducted by the Composer
John Shirley-Quirk broadcasts by permission of Glyndebourne Festival Opera
The eighth-century equivalent of the crossword puzzle seems to have been the rhyming riddle which the bard would recite, to his own harp accompaniment, for master and company to guess the answer. The text of Sir Arthur Bliss's A Knot of Riddles, for baritone and chamber orchestra, is taken from the Old English of the Exeter Book (a collection found in Exeter Cathedral), translated by Kevin Crossley-Holland. After each of the seven riddles the singer provides the solution.