Arthur Bliss thought Bliss's music competent but unremarkable. In 1961, Bliss and Hassall collaborated on a cantata, "The Beatitudes", commissioned for the opening of the new Coventry Cathedral. Reviews were friendly, but the work has rarely been performed since, and has been eclipsed by another choral work written for Coventry at the same time, Britten's "War Requiem". Bliss followed this with two further large-scale choral works, "Mary of Magdala" (1962) and "The Golden Cantata" (1963). Throughout his life, Bliss was vigilant on the state of music in Britain, about which he had written extensively since the 1920s. In 1969 he publicly censured
The Phantom of the Opera (1962 film) of the film were "too intense." These scenes were edited out, and more acceptable scenes replaced them or extended the running time. In common with Hammer's usual practice, when shown in British cinemas in 1962, the film was paired with "Captain Clegg", another of the studio's films. The music in this movie features Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, arguably the most famous piece of organ music ever composed, and one that has become commonly associated with horror films. "The Monthly Film Bulletin" wrote: "The absurd, much-filmed story crumbles—at any rate here—once the "ingénue" is reconciled to