Sir Arthur Bliss (1891-1975) was a British composer and conductor. He studied under Wood and Stanford at Cambridge and the Royal College of Music where he met and drew inspiration from Vaughan Williams Holst Howells and Goossens. He was appointed Master of the Queen’s Music in 1953 and wrote music for many state occasions including the Coronation and the Funeral of Winston Churchill. The String Quartet No.1 in Bb Major was first published in 1941. It was actually the third String Quartet Bliss composed but the first two were early works which he withdrew or lost. It was written in America in 1940 and first performed inBerkeley California; it became the last work he wrote before he returned to Britain to help the war effort.

The arrangement for string quartet was made at the request of Alexander Balanescu for the Bicentenary of Mozart's death in 1991. It was first performed by the Balanescu Quartet at the Queen Elizabeth Hall London 1991.Duration 3 minutes. A set of parts is available for sale.

This work was commissioned by the Naxos Recording Company and is the eighth in a series of ten quartets. It was first performed on 10th March 2006 by the Maggini Quartet at St. Gregory’s Centre Canterbury Christ ChurchUniversity Canterbury as part of the Sounds New Festival.Naxos Quartet No. 8 is dedicated to Her Majesty the Queen on her 80th birthday.