Editing Arthur Bliss (section)

===Early compositions===
[[File:Arthur-Bliss-1921.jpg|thumb|upright|Bliss, caricatured in 1921 by F. Sancha]]
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.<ref name=burn/> 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 Six]].<ref name=dnb/> Among these are a concerto for wordless tenor voice, piano and strings (1920),{{refn|Bliss later revised the work, dropping the vocal part.<ref name=times/>|group= n}} and ''Rout'' for wordless soprano and chamber ensemble (subsequently revised for orchestra), which received a double encore at its first performance.{{refn|The original version was for soprano, flute, clarinet, harp, string quartet, bass, glockenspiel, and side-drum, but Bliss later arranged it for full orchestra, in which form it was subsequently given as an interlude during the 1921 season of the [[Ballets Russes]].<ref name=mt1>Evans, Edwin. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/913374 "Arthur Bliss".] ''[[The Musical Times]]'', January 1923, pp. 20–23; accessed 21 March 2011 {{subscription required}}</ref>|group= n}}

In 1919, he arranged incidental music from Elizabethan sources for ''[[As You Like It]]'' at [[Royal Shakespeare Theatre|Stratford-on-Avon]], and conducted a series of Sunday concerts at [[Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith]], where he also conducted Pergolesi's opera ''[[La serva padrona]].''<ref name=mt1/> [[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.<ref name=mt2>Evans, Edwin. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/913374 "Arthur Bliss".] ''[[The Musical Times]]'', February 1923, pp. 95–99, accessed 21 March 2011 {{subscription required}}</ref>

''[[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.<ref name=times/> 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";<ref>Langford, Samuel. "Bliss's Colour Symphony", ''The Manchester Guardian'', 8 September 1922, p. 9</ref> ''[[The Times]]'' praised it highly (though doubting whether 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.<ref>"The Three Choirs Festival", ''The Times'', 8 September 1922, p. 13</ref> After the third performance of the work, at the [[Queen's Hall]] under [[Henry Wood|Sir Henry Wood]], ''The Times'' wrote, "Continually changing patterns scintillate … till one is hypnotised by the ingenuity of the thing."<ref>"Bliss's 'Colour Symphony.' Queen's Hall Concert", ''The Times'', 12 March 1923, p. 15</ref> Elgar, who attended the first performance, complained that the work was "disconcertingly modern."<ref>Program notes of the [[Fort Wayne Philharmonic Orchestra]]'s February 2010 performance</ref>

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.<ref name=times/> While there he met Gertrude "Trudy" Hoffmann (1904–2008), youngest daughter of [[Ralph Hoffmann|Ralph]] and [[Gertrude Hoffmann (actress)|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.<ref name=dnb/>

[[File:Bliss-by-Gertler.jpg|thumb|left|Bliss in 1932 by [[Mark Gertler (artist)|Mark Gertler]]]]
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"<ref name=times56>Howes, Frank, "Sir Arthur Bliss – A modern romantic",'' The Times'', 27 April 1956, p. 3</ref> He wrote two major works with American orchestras in mind, the'' Introduction and Allegro'' (1926), dedicated to the [[Philadelphia Orchestra]] and [[Leopold Stokowski]], and ''Hymn to Apollo'' (1926) for the [[Boston Symphony]] and [[Pierre Monteux]].<ref name=dnb/>

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."<ref>Bliss (1970), p. 96, ''quoted in'' Palmer, Christopher. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/954592 "Aspects of Bliss".] ''The Musical Times'', August 1971, pp. 743–745, accessed 22 March 2011 {{subscription required}}</ref>

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."<ref name=grove/> 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]]'',<ref name=times/> and a ballet score to his own scenario based on a chess game. Choreographed by [[Ninette de Valois]], ''[[Checkmate (ballet)|Checkmate]]'' was still in the repertoire of the [[The Royal Ballet|Royal Ballet]] in 2011.<ref>[http://www.brb.org.uk/masque/index.htm?act=production&urn=4901 "Checkmate".] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110113170327/http://www.brb.org.uk/masque/index.htm?act=production&urn=4901 |date=13 January 2011 }} Birmingham Royal Ballet, accessed 21 March 2011.</ref>

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.<ref>Kennedy (1989), p. 96</ref><ref name=palmer>Palmer, Christopher. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/954592 "Aspects of Bliss".] ''The Musical Times'', August 1971, pp. 743–745; accessed 21 March 2011 {{subscription required}}</ref> His last large-scale work of the 1930s was his [[Piano Concerto (Bliss)|Piano Concerto]], composed for the pianist [[Solomon (pianist)|Solomon]], who gave the world premiere at the [[1939 New York World's Fair|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.<ref name=dnb/>