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
History of music in Paris and songs. Choral polyphony is a musical genre which was introduced in the 15th century in the Western church music culture. At Notre-Dame, this culture became intertwined as its construction progressed. Composition of music and poetry was a culture that prevailed in the cathedral among its canons and dignitaries. In the cathedral, polyphony and organ music were reserved for solemn occasions at a time when acoustics were not well developed. Organizing of the music group in the cathedral was such that the polyphonic vocal choir singing musicians were set behind the tapestries whereas the organ was placed in the nave.