Editing Arthur Bliss (section)

==Music==
{{See also|List of compositions by Arthur Bliss}}

===Early works===
The musicologist Christopher Palmer was censorious of those who 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".<ref name=palmer/> 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."<ref name=mt1/> 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".<ref name=mt1/> 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 [[polyphony|polyphonic]], especially in the first and last numbers."<ref name=mt1/>

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.<ref name=mt2/>

===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."<ref name=chandos>Burn, Andrew (2006). Notes to Chandos CD CHAN 10380</ref> 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."<ref name=burn/>

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 Concerto (Bliss)|piano]] (1938), 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''.<ref name=burn/> 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."<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/936226 "The Olympians"], ''The Musical Times'', October 1949, pp. 367–368</ref>

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".<ref>Burn, Andrew (1991). Notes to Chandos CD CHAN 8818</ref>

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.<ref name=burn/><ref name=palmer/> Palmer comments that the musical forerunner of such passages is probably "the extraordinary spectral march-like irruption" in the Scherzo of Elgar's [[Symphony No. 2 (Elgar)|Second Symphony]].<ref name=palmer/>

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''."<ref name=burn/> 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.''<ref name=palmer/>