Arthur Bliss
Encyclopedia
Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss, CH, KCVO (2 August 189127 March 1975) was an English composer and conductor.
Bliss's musical training was cut short by the First World War, in which he served with distinction in the army. In the post-war years he quickly became known as an unconventional and modernist composer, but within the decade he began to display a more traditional and romantic side in his music. In the 1920s and 1930s he composed extensively not only for the concert hall, but also for films and ballet.
In the Second World War, Bliss returned to England from the US to work for the BBC
and became its director of music. After the war he resumed his work as a composer, and was appointed Master of the Queen's Music
.
In Bliss's later years, his work was respected but was thought old-fashioned, and it was eclipsed by the music of younger colleagues such as William Walton
and Benjamin Britten
. Since his death, his compositions have been well represented on record, and many of his better-known works remain in the repertoire of British orchestras.
, and his second wife, Agnes Kennard née Davis (1858–1895). Agnes Bliss died in 1895, and the boys were brought up by their father, who instilled in them a love for the arts. Bliss was educated at Bilton Grange preparatory school, Rugby
and Pembroke College, Cambridge
, where he studied classics
, but also took lessons in music from Charles Wood
. Other influences on him during his Cambridge days were Edward Elgar
, whose music made a lasting impression on him, and E.J. Dent.
Bliss graduated in classics and music in 1913 and then studied at the Royal College of Music
in London for a year. At the RCM he found his composition tutor, Sir Charles Stanford
, of little help to him, but found inspiration from Ralph Vaughan Williams
and Gustav Holst
and his fellow-students, Herbert Howells
, Eugene Goossens
and Arthur Benjamin
. In his brief time at the college he got to know the music of the Second Viennese School
and the repertory of Diaghilev
's Ballets Russes
, with music by modern composers such as Debussy
, Ravel
and Stravinsky
.
When the First World War broke out, Bliss joined the army, and fought in France as an officer in the Royal Fusiliers until 1917 and then in the Grenadier Guards
for the rest of the war. His bravery earned him a mention in despatches, and he was twice wounded and once gassed. His younger brother Kennard was killed in the war, and the emotional impact of his death affected Bliss deeply. The music scholar Byron Adams writes, "Despite the apparent heartiness and equilibrium of the composer's public persona, the emotional wounds inflicted by the war were deep and lasting." In 1918, Bliss converted to Roman Catholicism.
. Among these are a concerto for wordless tenor voice, piano and strings (1920), and Rout for wordless soprano and chamber orchestra, which received a double encore at its first performance. In 1919, he arranged incidental music from Elizabethan sources for As You Like It
at Stratford-on-Avon
, and conducted a series of Sunday concerts at Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, where he also conducted Pergolesi's opera La serva padrona
. Viola Tree
's production of The Tempest
at the Aldwych Theatre
in 1921, interspersed incidental music by Thomas Arne and Arthur Sullivan
, with new music by Bliss for an ensemble of male voices, piano, trumpet, trombone, gongs and five percussionists dispersed through the theatre.
The Times
wrote that "Bliss was acquiring a reputation as a tearaway" by the time he was commissioned, through Elgar's influence, to write a large-scale symphonic work (A Colour Symphony
) for the Three Choirs Festival
of 1922. The work was well received; in The Manchester Guardian, Samuel Langford
called Bliss "far and away the cleverest writer among the English composers of our time"; The Times
praised it highly (though doubting if much was gained by the designation of the four movements as purple, red, blue and green) and commented that the symphony confirmed Bliss's transition from youthful experimenter to serious composer. After the third performance of the work, at the Queen's Hall
under Sir Henry Wood
, The Times wrote, "Continually changing patterns scintillate … till one is hypnotised by the ingenuity of the thing." Elgar, who attended the first performance, complained that the work was "disconcertingly modern."
In 1923 Bliss's father, who had remarried, decided to retire in the US. He and his wife settled in California
. Bliss went with them and remained there for two years, working as a conductor, lecturer, pianist and occasional critic. While there he met Gertrude "Trudy" Hoffmann (1904–2008), youngest daughter of Ralph and Gertrude Hoffmann. They were married in 1925. The marriage was happy and lasted for the rest of Bliss's life; there were two daughters. Soon after the marriage, Bliss and his wife moved to England.
From the mid 1920s onwards Bliss moved more into the established English musical tradition, leaving behind the influence of Stravinsky and the French modernists, and in the words of the critic Frank Howes, "after early enthusiastic flirtations with aggressive modernism admitted to a romantic heart and [has] given rein to its less and less inhibited promptings" He received two major commissions from American orchestras, the Introduction and Allegro (1926) for the Philadelphia Orchestra
and Leopold Stokowski
and Hymn to Apollo (1926) for the Boston Symphony and Pierre Monteux
.
Bliss began the 1930s with Pastoral (1930). In the same year he wrote Morning Heroes, a work for narrator, chorus and orchestra, written in the hope of exorcising the spectre of the First World War: "Although the war had been over for more than ten years, I was still troubled by frequent nightmares; they all took the same form. I was still there in the trenches with a few men; we knew the armistice had been signed, but we had been forgotten; so had a section of the Germans opposite. It was as though we were both doomed to fight on till extinction. I used to wake with horror."
During the decade Bliss wrote chamber works for leading soloists including a Clarinet Quintet for Frederick Thurston
(1932) and a Viola Sonata for Lionel Tertis
(1933). In 1935, in the words of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
, "he firmly established his position as Elgar's natural successor with the Romantic, expansive and richly scored Music for Strings." Two dramatic works from this decade remain well known, the music for Alexander Korda
's 1936 film of H. G. Wells
's Things to Come
, and a ballet score to his own scenario based on a chess game. Choreographed by Ninette de Valois
, Checkmate
was still in the repertoire of the Royal Ballet in 2011.
By the late 1930s, Bliss was no longer viewed as a modernist; the works of his juniors William Walton
and the youthful Benjamin Britten
were increasingly prominent, and Bliss's music began to seem old-fashioned. His last large-scale work of the 1930s was his Piano Concerto, composed for the pianist Solomon who gave the world premiere at the World's Fair
in New York in June 1939. Bliss and his family attended the performance and then stayed on in the US for a holiday. While they were there, the Second World War broke out. Bliss initially stayed in America, teaching at the University of California, Berkeley
. He felt impelled to return to England to do what he could for the war effort, and in 1941, leaving his wife and children in California, he made the hazardous Atlantic crossing.
's overseas music service in May 1941, but was plainly under-employed. Bliss then suggested to Adrian Boult
, who was at that time both the chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra
and the BBC's director of music, that he should take over as director of music. Bliss wrote candidly to his wife: "I want more power as I have a lot to give which my comparatively minor post does not allow me to use fully." Boult was delighted by the proposal, since this would free him to devote himself to more conducting. Bliss served as director of music at the BBC from 1942 to 1944, laying the foundations for the launch of the Third Programme
after the war. During the war, he also served on the music committee of the British Council
together with Vaughan Williams and William Walton.
In 1944, when Bliss's family returned from the US, he resigned from the BBC and returned to composing, having written nothing since his String Quartet in 1941. He composed more film music, and two ballets, Miracle in the Gorbals (1944), and Adam Zero (1946).
In 1948, Bliss turned his attention to opera, with The Olympians
. He and the novelist and playwright J. B. Priestley
had been friends for many years, and they agreed to collaborate on an opera, despite their lack of any operatic experience. Priestley's libretto was based on a legend that "the pagan deities, robbed of their divinity, became a troupe of itinerant players, wandering down the centuries". The opera portrays the confusion that results when the actors unexpectedly find themselves restored to deity. The opera opened the 1949–50 Covent Garden
season. It was directed by Peter Brook
, with choreography by Frederick Ashton
. The doyen of English critics, Ernest Newman
, praised it highly: "here is a composer with real talent for opera ... in Mr. Priestley he has been fortunate enough to find an English Boito
", but generally it received a polite rather than a rapturous reception. Priestley attributed this to the failure of the conductor, Karl Rankl
to learn the music or to cooperate with Brook, and to lack of rehearsal of the last act. The critics attributed it to Priestley's inexperience as an opera librettist, and to the occasional lack of "the soaring tune for the human voice" in Bliss's music. After the Covent Garden run of ten performances, the company presented the work in Manchester
, but did not revive it in subsequent years; it received a concert performance and broadcast in 1972.
. After the death of Sir Arnold Bax
he was appointed Master of the Queen's Music
in 1953, to the relief of Walton, who feared he would be asked to take the post. In The Times, Howes commented, "The duties of a Master of the Queen's Music are what he chooses to make of them, but they include the composition of ceremonial and occasional music". Bliss, who composed quickly and with facility, was able to discharge the many duties of the post, providing music as required for state occasions, from the birth of a child to the Queen, to the funeral of Winston Churchill
, to the investiture of the Prince of Wales
. Howes commended Bliss's Processional for the 1953 coronation, and A Song of Welcome, Bliss's first official pièce d'occasion.
In 1956, Bliss headed the first delegation by British musicians to the Soviet Union since the end of the Second World War. The party included the violinist Alfredo Campoli
, the oboist Léon Goossens
, the soprano Jennifer Vyvyan
and the pianist Gerald Moore
. Bliss returned to Moscow in 1958, as a member of the jury of the International Tchaikovsky Competition
, with fellow jurors including Emil Gilels
and Sviatoslav Richter
.
In addition to his official functions, Bliss continued to compose steadily throughout the 1950s. His works from that decade include his Second String Quartet (1950); a scena, The Enchantress (1951), for the contralto
Kathleen Ferrier
; a Piano Sonata (1952); and a Violin Concerto (1955), for Campoli. The orchestral Meditations on a Theme by John Blow (1955) was a particularly deep-felt work, and Bliss regarded it highly among his output. In 1959 and 1960 he collaborated with the librettist Christopher Hassall
on an opera for television, based on the scriptural story of Tobias and the Angel . It won praise for the way in which Bliss and Hassall had understood and adapted to the more intimate medium of television, though some critics 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. He had written extensively on the subject since the 1920s, and in 1969 he publicly censured the BBC for its plan to cut its classical music budget and disband several of its orchestras. He was delegated by his colleagues Walton, Britten, Peter Maxwell Davies
and Richard Rodney Bennett
to make a strong protest to William Glock
, the BBC's controller of music. In the 1970s, he looked to the future of Britain's orchestras by working with the young players of the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra for some years.
Bliss continued to compose into his eighth and ninth decades, in which his works included the Cello Concerto (1970) for Mstislav Rostropovich
, the Metamorphic Variations for orchestra (1972), and a final cantata, Shield of Faith (1974), for soprano, baritone, chorus and organ, celebrating 500 years of St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle
, setting poems chosen from each of the five centuries of the Chapel's existence.
Bliss died at his London home, at the age of 83.
, especially in the first and last numbers."
Bliss followed these works with three compositions for larger forces, a Concerto (1920) and Two Orchestral Studies (1920). The Concerto, for piano, voice and orchestra, was experimental, and Bliss later revised it, removing the vocal part. The Melée Fantasque (1921) showed Bliss's skill in writing glittering orchestration.
Of the works of Bliss's maturity, Burn comments that many of them were inspired by external stimuli. Some by the performers for whom they were written, such as the concertos for piano (1939), violin (1955) and cello (1970); some by literary and theatrical partners, such as the film music, ballets, cantatas and The Olympians; some by painters, such as the Serenade and the Metamorphic Variations; some by classical literature, such as Hymn to Apollo (1926), The Enchantress and Pastoral. Of Bliss's works after the Second World War, his opera, The Olympians is generally considered a failure. The idiom was judged to be old-fashioned. A contemporary critic, in a broadly favourable review, wrote, "Bliss has wisely cleared his idiom of modern harmonic astringency. He uses quite a lot of common chords and progressions; in fact, he has gone back to the harmony of the musical gods. The result, inevitably, is a certain air of reminiscence."
Among the late works, the Cello Concerto is one of the more frequently played. When its dedicatee, Rostropovich gave the first performance, at the 1970 Aldeburgh Festival
, Britten, who conducted the performance, regarded it as a major work, and persuaded Bliss to change its title from "Concertino" to Concerto. It is an approachable piece, of which Bliss said, "There are no problems for the listener – only for the soloist".
Both Palmer and Burn comment on a sinister vein that sometimes breaks out in Bliss's music, in passages such as the Interlude "Through the valley of the shadow of Death" in The Meditations on a Theme of John Blow, and the orchestral introduction to The Beatitudes. In Burn's words, such moments can be profoundly disquieting. Palmer comments that the musical forerunner of such passages is probably "the extraordinary spectral march-like irruption" in the Scherzo of Elgar's Second Symphony
.
In a centenary assessment of Bliss's music, Burn singles out for mention, "the youthful vigour of A Colour Symphony"," the poignant humanity of Morning Heroes", "the romantic lyricism of the Clarinet Quintet", "the drama of Checkmate, Miracle in the Gorbals and Things to Come", and "the spiritual probing of the Meditations on a Theme of John Blow and Shield of Faith." Other works of Bliss classed by Palmer as among the finest are the Introduction and Allegro, the Music for Strings, the Oboe Quintet, A Knot of Riddles and the Golden Cantata.
, Cambridge
, Edinburgh
, Glasgow
, Lancaster, London
and Princeton. The London Symphony Orchestra
appointed him its honorary President in 1958. In 1963, he received the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society
.
Bliss's archive is kept at Cambridge University Library
. There is an Arthur Bliss Road in Newport, an Arthur Bliss Gardens in Cheltenham and a block of flats, Sir Arthur Bliss Court, in Mitcham
, South London.
The Arthur Bliss Society was founded in 2003 to further the knowledge and appreciation of Bliss's music. The society's website includes listings of forthcoming performances of Bliss's works; in March 2011 the following works were listed as scheduled for performance in the UK and U.S.: Ceremonial Prelude; Clarinet Quartet (2 performances); Four Songs for Voice, Violin and Piano ; Music for Strings; Pastoral (Lie strewn the white flocks); Royal Fanfares; Seven American Poems; String Quartet No. 2 (5 performances); Things to Come Suite (2 performances); Things to Come March.
Many of Bliss's works have been recorded. He was a capable conductor, and was in charge of some of the recordings. The Library of Cambridge University maintains a complete Bliss discography. In March 2011 it contained details of 281 recordings: 120 orchestral, 56 chamber and instrumental, 58 choral and vocal, and 47 stage and screen works. Among the works that have received multiple recordings are A Colour Symphony (6 recordings); the Cello Concerto (6); the Piano Concerto (6); Music for Strings (7); the Oboe Quintet (7); the Viola Sonata (The vioin sonata was given its first recorded in 2010) (7); and Checkmate (complete ballet and ballet suite (9)).
Bliss was a modest man, with no inflated ideas about his importance. On receiving the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society in 1963, he said, "I don't claim to have done more than light a small taper at the shrine of music. I do not upbraid Fate for not having given me greater gifts. Endeavour has been the joy". A hundred years after Bliss's birth, Byron Adams wrote,
Girl in a Broken Mirror A documentary featuring the ballet The Lady of Shallot performed by school pupils from Leicestershire and the LSSO conducted by Eric Pinkett.
Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss, CH, KCVO (2 August 189127 March 1975) was an English composer and conductor.
Bliss's musical training was cut short by the First World War, in which he served with distinction in the army. In the post-war years he quickly became known as an unconventional and modernist composer, but within the decade he began to display a more traditional and romantic side in his music. In the 1920s and 1930s he composed extensively not only for the concert hall, but also for films and ballet.
In the Second World War, Bliss returned to England from the US to work for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
and became its director of music. After the war he resumed his work as a composer, and was appointed Master of the Queen's Music
Master of the Queen's Music
Master of the Queen's Music is a post in the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. The holder of the post originally served the monarch of England.The post is roughly comparable to that of Poet Laureate...
.
In Bliss's later years, his work was respected but was thought old-fashioned, and it was eclipsed by the music of younger colleagues such as William Walton
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
and 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...
. Since his death, his compositions have been well represented on record, and many of his better-known works remain in the repertoire of British orchestras.
Early years
Bliss was born in Barnes, a London suburb, the eldest of three sons of Francis Edward Bliss (d. 1930), a businessman from MassachusettsMassachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, and his second wife, Agnes Kennard née Davis (1858–1895). Agnes Bliss died in 1895, and the boys were brought up by their father, who instilled in them a love for the arts. Bliss was educated at Bilton Grange preparatory school, Rugby
Rugby School
Rugby School is a co-educational day and boarding school located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain.-History:...
and Pembroke College, Cambridge
Pembroke College, Cambridge
Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college has over seven hundred students and fellows, and is the third oldest college of the university. Physically, it is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from almost every century since its...
, where he studied classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
, but also took lessons in music from Charles Wood
Charles Wood (composer)
Charles Wood was an Irish composer and teacher.Born in Armagh, Ireland, he was the fifth child and third son of Charles Wood Sr. and Jemima Wood. His father was a tenor in the choir of the nearby St. Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh , and later worked as the Diocesan Registrar of the church...
. Other influences on him during his Cambridge days were Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
, whose music made a lasting impression on him, and E.J. Dent.
Bliss graduated in classics and music in 1913 and then studied at 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 for a year. At the RCM he found his composition tutor, Sir Charles Stanford
Charles Villiers Stanford
Sir Charles Villiers Stanford was an Irish composer who was particularly notable for his choral music. He was professor at the Royal College of Music and University of Cambridge.- Life :...
, of little help to him, but found inspiration from Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
and Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
and his fellow-students, Herbert Howells
Herbert Howells
Herbert Norman Howells CH was an English composer, organist, and teacher, most famous for his large output of Anglican church music.-Life:...
, Eugene Goossens
Eugène Aynsley Goossens
Sir Eugene Aynsley Goossens was an English conductor and composer.-Biography:He was born in Camden Town, London, the son of the Belgian conductor and violinist Eugène Goossens and the grandson of the conductor Eugène Goossens...
and Arthur 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 his brief time at the college he got to know the music of the Second Viennese School
Second Viennese School
The Second Viennese School is the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils and close associates in early 20th century Vienna, where he lived and taught, sporadically, between 1903 and 1925...
and the repertory of Diaghilev
Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev , usually referred to outside of Russia as Serge, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.-Early life and career:...
's Ballets Russes
Ballets Russes
The Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company from Russia which performed between 1909 and 1929 in many countries. Directed by Sergei Diaghilev, it is regarded as the greatest ballet company of the 20th century. Many of its dancers originated from the Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg...
, with music by modern composers such as Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
, Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
and Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
.
When the First World War broke out, Bliss joined the army, and fought in France as an officer in the Royal Fusiliers until 1917 and then in the Grenadier Guards
Grenadier Guards
The Grenadier Guards is an infantry regiment of the British Army. It is the most senior regiment of the Guards Division and, as such, is the most senior regiment of infantry. It is not, however, the most senior regiment of the Army, this position being attributed to the Life Guards...
for the rest of the war. His bravery earned him a mention in despatches, and he was twice wounded and once gassed. His younger brother Kennard was killed in the war, and the emotional impact of his death affected Bliss deeply. The music scholar Byron Adams writes, "Despite the apparent heartiness and equilibrium of the composer's public persona, the emotional wounds inflicted by the war were deep and lasting." In 1918, Bliss converted to Roman Catholicism.
Early compositions
Although he had begun composing while still a schoolboy, Bliss later suppressed all his juvenilia, and, with the single exception of his 1916 Pastoral for clarinet and piano, reckoned the 1918 work Madam Noy as his first official composition. With the return of peace, his career took off rapidly as a composer of what were, for British audiences, startlingly new pieces, often for unusual ensembles, strongly influenced by Ravel, Stravinsky and the young French composers of Les sixLes Six
Les six is a name, inspired by The Five, given in 1920 by critic Henri Collet in an article titled "" to a group of six composers working in Montparnasse whose music is often seen as a reaction against the musical style of Richard Wagner and impressionist music.-Members:Formally, the Groupe des...
. Among these are a concerto for wordless tenor voice, piano and strings (1920), and Rout for wordless soprano and chamber orchestra, which received a double encore at its first performance. In 1919, he arranged incidental music from Elizabethan sources for As You Like It
As You Like It
As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the folio of 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility...
at Stratford-on-Avon
Royal Shakespeare Theatre
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre is a 1,040+ seat thrust stage theatre owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company dedicated to the British playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is located in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon - Shakespeare's birthplace - in the English Midlands, beside the River Avon...
, and conducted a series of Sunday concerts at Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, where he also conducted Pergolesi's opera La serva padrona
La serva padrona
La serva padrona is an opera buffa by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi to a libretto by Gennaro Antonio Federico, after the play by Jacopo Angello Nelli. The opera is only 45 minutes long and was originally performed as an intermezzo between the acts of a larger serious opera...
. Viola Tree
Viola Tree
Viola Tree was an English actress, singer, playwright and author. Daughter of the actor Herbert Beerbohm Tree, she made many of her early appearances with his company at His Majesty's Theatre...
's production of 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,...
at the Aldwych Theatre
Aldwych Theatre
The Aldwych Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Aldwych in the City of Westminster. The theatre was listed Grade II on 20 July 1971. Its seating capacity is 1,200.-Origins:...
in 1921, interspersed incidental music by Thomas Arne and Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
, with new music by Bliss for an ensemble of male voices, piano, trumpet, trombone, gongs and five percussionists dispersed through the theatre.
The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
wrote that "Bliss was acquiring a reputation as a tearaway" by the time he was commissioned, through Elgar's influence, to write a large-scale symphonic work (A Colour Symphony
A Colour Symphony
A Colour Symphony, Op. 24, F. 106, was written by Arthur Bliss in 1921–22. It was his first major work for orchestra and remains one of his best known...
) for the Three Choirs Festival
Three Choirs Festival
The Three Choirs Festival is a music festival held each August alternately at the cathedrals of the Three Counties and originally featuring their three choirs, which remain central to the week-long programme...
of 1922. The work was well received; in The Manchester Guardian, Samuel Langford
Samuel Langford
Samuel Langford was an influential English music critic of the early twentieth century.Trained as a pianist, Langford became chief music critic of The Manchester Guardian in 1906, serving in that post until his death...
called Bliss "far and away the cleverest writer among the English composers of our time"; The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
praised it highly (though doubting if much was gained by the designation of the four movements as purple, red, blue and green) and commented that the symphony confirmed Bliss's transition from youthful experimenter to serious composer. After the third performance of the work, at the Queen's Hall
Queen's Hall
The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect T.E. Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. From 1895 until 1941, it was the home of the promenade concerts founded by Robert...
under Sir Henry Wood
Henry Wood
Henry Wood was a British conductor.Henry Wood may also refer to:* Henry C. Wood , American Civil War Medal of Honor recipient* Henry Wood , English cricketer...
, The Times wrote, "Continually changing patterns scintillate … till one is hypnotised by the ingenuity of the thing." Elgar, who attended the first performance, complained that the work was "disconcertingly modern."
In 1923 Bliss's father, who had remarried, decided to retire in the US. He and his wife settled in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Bliss went with them and remained there for two years, working as a conductor, lecturer, pianist and occasional critic. While there he met Gertrude "Trudy" Hoffmann (1904–2008), youngest daughter of Ralph and Gertrude Hoffmann. They were married in 1925. The marriage was happy and lasted for the rest of Bliss's life; there were two daughters. Soon after the marriage, Bliss and his wife moved to England.
From the mid 1920s onwards Bliss moved more into the established English musical tradition, leaving behind the influence of Stravinsky and the French modernists, and in the words of the critic Frank Howes, "after early enthusiastic flirtations with aggressive modernism admitted to a romantic heart and [has] given rein to its less and less inhibited promptings" He received two major commissions from American orchestras, the Introduction and Allegro (1926) for the Philadelphia Orchestra
Philadelphia Orchestra
The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...
and Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...
and Hymn to Apollo (1926) for the Boston Symphony and Pierre Monteux
Pierre Monteux
Pierre Monteux was an orchestra conductor. Born in Paris, France, Monteux later became an American citizen.-Life and career:Monteux was born in Paris in 1875. His family was descended from Sephardi Jews who came to France in the wake of the Spanish Inquisition. He studied violin from an early age,...
.
Bliss began the 1930s with Pastoral (1930). In the same year he wrote Morning Heroes, a work for narrator, chorus and orchestra, written in the hope of exorcising the spectre of the First World War: "Although the war had been over for more than ten years, I was still troubled by frequent nightmares; they all took the same form. I was still there in the trenches with a few men; we knew the armistice had been signed, but we had been forgotten; so had a section of the Germans opposite. It was as though we were both doomed to fight on till extinction. I used to wake with horror."
During the decade Bliss wrote chamber works for leading soloists including a Clarinet Quintet for Frederick Thurston
Frederick Thurston
Frederick John Thurston was an English clarinettist.From the age of 7 he was taught by his father and he won an open scholarship to the Royal College of Music, becoming a pupil of Charles Draper...
(1932) and a Viola Sonata for Lionel Tertis
Lionel Tertis
Lionel Tertis, CBE was an English violist and one of the first viola players to find international fame.Tertis was born in West Hartlepool, the son of Polish-Jewish immigrants, and initially studied the violin in Leipzig and at the Royal Academy of Music in London...
(1933). In 1935, in the words of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is the largest single reference work on Western music. The dictionary has gone through several editions since the 19th century...
, "he firmly established his position as Elgar's natural successor with the Romantic, expansive and richly scored Music for Strings." Two dramatic works from this decade remain well known, the music for Alexander Korda
Alexander Korda
Sir Alexander Korda was a Hungarian-born British producer and film director. He was a leading figure in the British film industry, the founder of London Films and the owner of British Lion Films, a film distributing company.-Life and career:The elder brother of filmmakers Zoltán Korda and Vincent...
's 1936 film of H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
's Things to Come
Things to Come
Things to Come is a British science fiction film produced by Alexander Korda and directed by William Cameron Menzies. The screenplay was written by H. G. Wells and is a loose adaptation of his own 1933 novel The Shape of Things to Come and his 1931 non-fiction work, The Work, Wealth and Happiness...
, and a ballet score to his own scenario based on a chess game. Choreographed by Ninette de Valois
Ninette de Valois
Dame Ninette de Valois, OM, CH, DBE, FRAD, FISTD was an Irish-born British dancer, teacher, choreographer and director of classical ballet...
, Checkmate
Checkmate (Bliss)
Checkmate is a one act ballet created by the choreographer Ninette de Valois and composer Arthur Bliss. The idea for the ballet was proposed by Bliss, and subsequently produced by de Valois for the Vic-Wells Ballet. It was first performed on 15 June 1937 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris...
was still in the repertoire of the Royal Ballet in 2011.
By the late 1930s, Bliss was no longer viewed as a modernist; the works of his juniors William Walton
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
and the youthful 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...
were increasingly prominent, and Bliss's music began to seem old-fashioned. His last large-scale work of the 1930s was his Piano Concerto, composed for the pianist Solomon who gave the world premiere at the World's Fair
1939 New York World's Fair
The 1939–40 New York World's Fair, which covered the of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park , was the second largest American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. Many countries around the world participated in it, and over 44 million people...
in New York in June 1939. Bliss and his family attended the performance and then stayed on in the US for a holiday. While they were there, the Second World War broke out. Bliss initially stayed in America, teaching at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
. He felt impelled to return to England to do what he could for the war effort, and in 1941, leaving his wife and children in California, he made the hazardous Atlantic crossing.
1940s
At first, Bliss found little useful work to do in England. He joined the BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's overseas music service in May 1941, but was plainly under-employed. Bliss then suggested to Adrian Boult
Adrian Boult
Sir Adrian Cedric Boult CH was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was...
, who was at that time both the chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra
BBC Symphony Orchestra
The BBC Symphony Orchestra is the principal broadcast orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation and one of the leading orchestras in Britain.-History:...
and the BBC's director of music, that he should take over as director of music. Bliss wrote candidly to his wife: "I want more power as I have a lot to give which my comparatively minor post does not allow me to use fully." Boult was delighted by the proposal, since this would free him to devote himself to more conducting. Bliss served as director of music at the BBC from 1942 to 1944, laying the foundations for the launch of the Third Programme
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...
after the war. During the war, he also served on the music committee of the British Council
British Council
The British Council is a United Kingdom-based organisation specialising in international educational and cultural opportunities. It is registered as a charity both in England and Wales, and in Scotland...
together with Vaughan Williams and William Walton.
In 1944, when Bliss's family returned from the US, he resigned from the BBC and returned to composing, having written nothing since his String Quartet in 1941. He composed more film music, and two ballets, Miracle in the Gorbals (1944), and Adam Zero (1946).
In 1948, Bliss turned his attention to opera, with The Olympians
The Olympians
The Olympians is an opera in three acts by Arthur Bliss to a libretto by J. B. Priestley, first performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden on 29 September 1949, conducted by Karl Rankl in a production by Peter Brook....
. He and the novelist and playwright J. B. Priestley
J. B. Priestley
John Boynton Priestley, OM , known as J. B. Priestley, was an English novelist, playwright and broadcaster. He published 26 novels, notably The Good Companions , as well as numerous dramas such as An Inspector Calls...
had been friends for many years, and they agreed to collaborate on an opera, despite their lack of any operatic experience. Priestley's libretto was based on a legend that "the pagan deities, robbed of their divinity, became a troupe of itinerant players, wandering down the centuries". The opera portrays the confusion that results when the actors unexpectedly find themselves restored to deity. The opera opened the 1949–50 Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
season. It was directed by 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:...
, with choreography by Frederick Ashton
Frederick Ashton
Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton OM, CH, CBE was a leading international dancer and choreographer. He is most noted as the founder choreographer of The Royal Ballet in London, but also worked as a director and choreographer of opera, film and theatre revues.-Early life:Ashton was born at...
. The doyen of English critics, Ernest Newman
Ernest Newman
Ernest Newman was an English music critic and musicologist. Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians describes him as "the most celebrated British music critic in the first half of the 20th century." His style of criticism, aiming at intellectual objectivity in contrast to the more subjective...
, praised it highly: "here is a composer with real talent for opera ... in Mr. Priestley he has been fortunate enough to find an English Boito
Arrigo Boito
Arrigo Boito , aka Enrico Giuseppe Giovanni Boito, pseudonym Tobia Gorrio, was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist and composer, best known today for his libretti, especially those for Giuseppe Verdi's operas Otello and Falstaff, and his own opera Mefistofele...
", but generally it received a polite rather than a rapturous reception. Priestley attributed this to the failure of the conductor, Karl Rankl
Karl Rankl
Karl Rankl was a British conductor and composer of Austrian birth. A pupil of the composers Schoenberg and Webern, he conducted at opera houses in Austria, Germany and Czechoslovakia until fleeing from the Nazis and taking refuge in England in 1939.Rankl was appointed musical director of the...
to learn the music or to cooperate with Brook, and to lack of rehearsal of the last act. The critics attributed it to Priestley's inexperience as an opera librettist, and to the occasional lack of "the soaring tune for the human voice" in Bliss's music. After the Covent Garden run of ten performances, the company presented the work in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, but did not revive it in subsequent years; it received a concert performance and broadcast in 1972.
Later years
In 1950, Bliss was knightedKnight Bachelor
The rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...
. After the death of Sir Arnold Bax
Arnold Bax
Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, KCVO was an English composer and poet. His musical style blended elements of romanticism and impressionism, often with influences from Irish literature and landscape. His orchestral scores are noted for their complexity and colourful instrumentation...
he was appointed Master of the Queen's Music
Master of the Queen's Music
Master of the Queen's Music is a post in the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. The holder of the post originally served the monarch of England.The post is roughly comparable to that of Poet Laureate...
in 1953, to the relief of Walton, who feared he would be asked to take the post. In The Times, Howes commented, "The duties of a Master of the Queen's Music are what he chooses to make of them, but they include the composition of ceremonial and occasional music". Bliss, who composed quickly and with facility, was able to discharge the many duties of the post, providing music as required for state occasions, from the birth of a child to the Queen, to the funeral of Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, to the investiture of the Prince of Wales
Charles, Prince of Wales
Prince Charles, Prince of Wales is the heir apparent and eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Since 1958 his major title has been His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. In Scotland he is additionally known as The Duke of Rothesay...
. Howes commended Bliss's Processional for the 1953 coronation, and A Song of Welcome, Bliss's first official pièce d'occasion.
In 1956, Bliss headed the first delegation by British musicians to the Soviet Union since the end of the Second World War. The party included the violinist Alfredo Campoli
Alfredo Campoli
Alfredo Campoli was an Italian-born British violinist, often known simply as Campoli. He was noted for the beauty of the tone he produced from the violin.-Biography:...
, the oboist Léon Goossens
Léon Goossens
Léon Jean Goossens CBE, FRCM was a British oboist.He was born in Liverpool and studied at the Royal College of Music...
, the soprano Jennifer Vyvyan
Jennifer Vyvyan
Jennifer Vyvyan was a British classical soprano who had an active international career in operas, concerts, and recitals from 1948 up until her death in 1974. She possessed a beautifully clear, steady voice with considerable flexibility in florid music...
and the pianist Gerald Moore
Gerald Moore
Gerald Moore CBE was an English pianist best known for his career as one of the most in-demand accompanists of his day, accompanying many of the world's most famous musicians...
. Bliss returned to Moscow in 1958, as a member of the jury of the International Tchaikovsky Competition
International Tchaikovsky Competition
The International Tchaikovsky Competition is a classical music competition held every four years in Moscow, Russia for pianists, violinists, and cellists between 16 and 30 years of age, and singers between 19 and 32 years of age...
, with fellow jurors including Emil Gilels
Emil Gilels
Emil Grigoryevich Gilels was a Soviet pianist, widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.His last name is sometimes transliterated Hilels.-Biography:...
and Sviatoslav Richter
Sviatoslav Richter
Sviatoslav Teofilovich Richter was a Soviet pianist well known for the depth of his interpretations, virtuoso technique, and vast repertoire. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.-Childhood:...
.
Contralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
Kathleen Ferrier
Kathleen Ferrier
Kathleen Mary Ferrier CBE was an English contralto who achieved an international reputation as a stage, concert and recording artist, with a repertoire extending from folksong and popular ballads to the classical works of Bach, Brahms, Mahler and Elgar...
; a Piano Sonata (1952); and a Violin Concerto (1955), for Campoli. The orchestral Meditations on a Theme by John Blow (1955) was a particularly deep-felt work, and Bliss regarded it highly among his output. In 1959 and 1960 he collaborated with the librettist Christopher Hassall
Christopher Hassall
Christopher Vernon Hassall was an English actor, dramatist, librettist, lyricist and poet, who found his greatest fame in a memorable musical partnership with the actor and composer Ivor Novello after working together in the same touring company...
on an opera for television, based on the scriptural story of Tobias and the Angel . It won praise for the way in which Bliss and Hassall had understood and adapted to the more intimate medium of television, though some critics thought Bliss's music competent but unremarkable.
In 1961, Bliss and Hassall collaborated on a cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
, The Beatitudes, commissioned for the opening of the new Coventry Cathedral
Coventry Cathedral
Coventry Cathedral, also known as St Michael's Cathedral, is the seat of the Bishop of Coventry and the Diocese of Coventry, in Coventry, West Midlands, England. The current bishop is the Right Revd Christopher Cocksworth....
. 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
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...
's War Requiem
War Requiem
The War Requiem, Op. 66 is a large-scale, non-liturgical setting of the Requiem Mass composed by Benjamin Britten mostly in 1961 and completed January 1962. Interspersed with the traditional Latin texts, in telling juxtaposition, are settings of Wilfred Owen poems...
. 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. He had written extensively on the subject since the 1920s, and in 1969 he publicly censured the BBC for its plan to cut its classical music budget and disband several of its orchestras. He was delegated by his colleagues Walton, Britten, Peter Maxwell Davies
Peter Maxwell Davies
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...
and Richard Rodney Bennett
Richard Rodney Bennett
Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, CBE is an English composer renowned for his film scores and his jazz performance as much as for his challenging concert works...
to make a strong protest to William Glock
William Glock
Sir William Frederick Glock was a British music critic and musical administrator.-Biography:Glock was born in London. He read history at the University of Cambridge and was an organ scholar at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge...
, the BBC's controller of music. In the 1970s, he looked to the future of Britain's orchestras by working with the young players of the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra for some years.
Bliss continued to compose into his eighth and ninth decades, in which his works included the Cello Concerto (1970) for Mstislav Rostropovich
Mstislav Rostropovich
Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, KBE , known to close friends as Slava, was a Soviet and Russian cellist and conductor. He was married to the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya. He is widely considered to have been the greatest cellist of the second half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest of...
, the Metamorphic Variations for orchestra (1972), and a final cantata, Shield of Faith (1974), for soprano, baritone, chorus and organ, celebrating 500 years of St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle
St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle
St George's Chapel is the place of worship at Windsor Castle in England, United Kingdom. It is both a royal peculiar and the chapel of the Order of the Garter...
, setting poems chosen from each of the five centuries of the Chapel's existence.
Bliss died at his London home, at the age of 83.
Early works
The musicologist Christopher Palmer was censorious of those who to sought to characterise Bliss's music as "an early tendency to enfant terribilisme yielding very quickly to a compromise with the Establishment and a perpetuating of the Elgar tradition". Nonetheless, as a young man Bliss was certainly regarded as avant garde. Madam Noy, a "witchery" song, was first performed in June 1920. The lyric is by an anonymous author, and the setting is for soprano with flute, clarinet, bassoon, harp, viola, and bass. In a 1923 study of Bliss, Edwin Evans wrote that the piquant instrumental background to the gruesome story established the direction that Bliss was to take. The second Chamber Rhapsody (1919) is "an idyllic work for soprano, tenor, flute, cor anglais, and bass, the two voices vocalising on 'Ah' throughout, and being placed as instruments in the ensemble." Bliss contrasted the pastoral tone of that work with Rout (1920) an uproarious piece for soprano and instrumental ensemble; " the music conveys an impression such as one might gather at an open window at carnival time … the singer is given a series of meaningless syllables chosen for their phonetic effect". In his next work, Conversations for violin, viola, cello, flute and oboe (1921), Bliss chose a deliberately prosaic subject. It consists of five sections, entitled "Committee Meeting," "In the Wood," "In the Ball-room," "Soliloquy," and "In the Tube at Oxford Circus." Evans wrote of this work that although the instrumentation is ingenious, "much of [the] interest is polyphonicPolyphony
In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....
, especially in the first and last numbers."
Bliss followed these works with three compositions for larger forces, a Concerto (1920) and Two Orchestral Studies (1920). The Concerto, for piano, voice and orchestra, was experimental, and Bliss later revised it, removing the vocal part. The Melée Fantasque (1921) showed Bliss's skill in writing glittering orchestration.
Mature works
Of Bliss's early works, Rout is occasionally performed, and has been recorded, but the first of his works to enter the repertoire (at least in the UK) is the Colour Symphony. Each of the four movements represents a colour: "purple, the colour of amethysts, pageantry, royalty, and death; red, the colour of rubies, wine, revelry, furnaces, courage, and magic; blue, the colour of sapphires, deep water, skies, loyalty, and melancholy; and green, the colour of emeralds, hope, joy, youth, spring, and victory." The first and third are slow movements, the second a scherzo, and the fourth fugal, described by the Bliss specialist Andrew Burn as "a compositional tour de force, a superbly constructed double fugue, the initial subject slow and angular for strings, gradually becoming an Elgarian ceremonial march, the second a bubbling theme for winds." Burn observes that in three works written soon after his marriage, the Oboe Quintet (1927), Pastoral (1929) and Serenade (1929) "Bliss's voice assumed the mantle of maturity … all are imbued with a quality of contentment reflecting his serenity."Of the works of Bliss's maturity, Burn comments that many of them were inspired by external stimuli. Some by the performers for whom they were written, such as the concertos for piano (1939), violin (1955) and cello (1970); some by literary and theatrical partners, such as the film music, ballets, cantatas and The Olympians; some by painters, such as the Serenade and the Metamorphic Variations; some by classical literature, such as Hymn to Apollo (1926), The Enchantress and Pastoral. Of Bliss's works after the Second World War, his opera, The Olympians is generally considered a failure. The idiom was judged to be old-fashioned. A contemporary critic, in a broadly favourable review, wrote, "Bliss has wisely cleared his idiom of modern harmonic astringency. He uses quite a lot of common chords and progressions; in fact, he has gone back to the harmony of the musical gods. The result, inevitably, is a certain air of reminiscence."
Among the late works, the Cello Concerto is one of the more frequently played. When its dedicatee, Rostropovich gave the first performance, at the 1970 Aldeburgh Festival
Aldeburgh Festival
The Aldeburgh Festival is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the Aldeburgh area of Suffolk, centred on the main concert hall at Snape Maltings...
, Britten, who conducted the performance, regarded it as a major work, and persuaded Bliss to change its title from "Concertino" to Concerto. It is an approachable piece, of which Bliss said, "There are no problems for the listener – only for the soloist".
Both Palmer and Burn comment on a sinister vein that sometimes breaks out in Bliss's music, in passages such as the Interlude "Through the valley of the shadow of Death" in The Meditations on a Theme of John Blow, and the orchestral introduction to The Beatitudes. In Burn's words, such moments can be profoundly disquieting. Palmer comments that the musical forerunner of such passages is probably "the extraordinary spectral march-like irruption" in the Scherzo of Elgar's Second Symphony
Symphony No. 2 (Elgar)
Sir Edward Elgar's Symphony No. 2 in E major, Op. 63, was completed on 28 February 1911 and was premiered at the London Musical Festival at the Queen's Hall by the Queen's Hall Orchestra on 24 May 1911 with the composer conducting...
.
In a centenary assessment of Bliss's music, Burn singles out for mention, "the youthful vigour of A Colour Symphony"," the poignant humanity of Morning Heroes", "the romantic lyricism of the Clarinet Quintet", "the drama of Checkmate, Miracle in the Gorbals and Things to Come", and "the spiritual probing of the Meditations on a Theme of John Blow and Shield of Faith." Other works of Bliss classed by Palmer as among the finest are the Introduction and Allegro, the Music for Strings, the Oboe Quintet, A Knot of Riddles and the Golden Cantata.
Honours, legacy and reputation
In addition to his knighthood, Bliss was appointed KCVO (1969) and CH (1971). He received honorary degrees from the universities of BristolUniversity of Bristol
The University of Bristol is a public research university located in Bristol, United Kingdom. One of the so-called "red brick" universities, it received its Royal Charter in 1909, although its predecessor institution, University College, Bristol, had been in existence since 1876.The University is...
, Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
, Glasgow
University of Glasgow
The University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...
, Lancaster, London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
and Princeton. The London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...
appointed him its honorary President in 1958. In 1963, he received the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society
Royal Philharmonic Society
The Royal Philharmonic Society is a British music society, formed in 1813. It was originally formed in London to promote performances of instrumental music there. Many distinguished composers and performers have taken part in its concerts...
.
Bliss's archive is kept at Cambridge University Library
Cambridge University Library
The Cambridge University Library is the centrally-administered library of Cambridge University in England. It comprises five separate libraries:* the University Library main building * the Medical Library...
. There is an Arthur Bliss Road in Newport, an Arthur Bliss Gardens in Cheltenham and a block of flats, Sir Arthur Bliss Court, in Mitcham
Mitcham
Mitcham is a district in the south west area of London, in the London Borough of Merton. A suburban area, Mitcham is located on the border of Inner London and Outer London. It is both residentially and financially developed, well served by Transport for London, and home to Mitcham Town Centre,...
, South London.
The Arthur Bliss Society was founded in 2003 to further the knowledge and appreciation of Bliss's music. The society's website includes listings of forthcoming performances of Bliss's works; in March 2011 the following works were listed as scheduled for performance in the UK and U.S.: Ceremonial Prelude; Clarinet Quartet (2 performances); Four Songs for Voice, Violin and Piano ; Music for Strings; Pastoral (Lie strewn the white flocks); Royal Fanfares; Seven American Poems; String Quartet No. 2 (5 performances); Things to Come Suite (2 performances); Things to Come March.
Many of Bliss's works have been recorded. He was a capable conductor, and was in charge of some of the recordings. The Library of Cambridge University maintains a complete Bliss discography. In March 2011 it contained details of 281 recordings: 120 orchestral, 56 chamber and instrumental, 58 choral and vocal, and 47 stage and screen works. Among the works that have received multiple recordings are A Colour Symphony (6 recordings); the Cello Concerto (6); the Piano Concerto (6); Music for Strings (7); the Oboe Quintet (7); the Viola Sonata (The vioin sonata was given its first recorded in 2010) (7); and Checkmate (complete ballet and ballet suite (9)).
Bliss was a modest man, with no inflated ideas about his importance. On receiving the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society in 1963, he said, "I don't claim to have done more than light a small taper at the shrine of music. I do not upbraid Fate for not having given me greater gifts. Endeavour has been the joy". A hundred years after Bliss's birth, Byron Adams wrote,
External links
- The Lied and Art Song Texts Page created and maintained from Emily Ezust Texts of vocal settings in alphabetic order.
- The Arthur Bliss society
- Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra website
- and Allegro A short audio extract from the 1970 recording by the LSSO conducted by Bliss
- Review of Cello Concerto
- Arthur Bliss @ Boosey & Hawkes
- "Music from the Western Front", performance by Chamber DomaineChamber DomaineChamber Domaine is a British chamber music ensemble. The ensemble gave its highly praised South Bank and Wigmore Hall debuts in 1999 and since then has performed at leading festivals and concert series in the United Kingdom, Europe and North America....
, which includes the Bliss Piano Quartet in A from 1915, given at Gresham CollegeGresham CollegeGresham College is an institution of higher learning located at Barnard's Inn Hall off Holborn in central London, England. It was founded in 1597 under the will of Sir Thomas Gresham and today it hosts over 140 free public lectures every year within the City of London.-History:Sir Thomas Gresham,...
, 26 September 2007 (available as an MP3 or MP4 download, as well as a text file).
Videos
- The Lady of Shalott rehearsal sequence from 1975 A short video of the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eric Pinkett.
- The Lady of Shalott Played on the piano by Sir Arthur Bliss
Girl in a Broken Mirror A documentary featuring the ballet The Lady of Shallot performed by school pupils from Leicestershire and the LSSO conducted by Eric Pinkett.