A Colour Symphony - Arthur Bliss

English Northern Philharmonia conducted by David Lloyd-Jones
I - Purple. Andante maestoso: 0:00
II - Red. Allegro vivace: 6:22
III - Blue. Gently flowing: 13:25
IV - Green. Moderato: 23:35
Bliss's "A Colour Symphony", composed between 1921-22, was the composer's first major orchestral work and its success at home and in the United States of America did much to establish him as both a national and international composer of significance. It was commissioned by the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival at the instigation of Elgar, who had encouraged Bliss during the previous decade.
Bliss in his fascinating autobiography, "As I Remember", recalled how the invitation arose: "[Elgar] had asked several musicians to have lunch with him... I had no idea who else might have been invited... When I arrived I found Adrian Boult, Anthony Bernard, Eugene Goossens, John Ireland, and W. H. Reed, who was the leader of the London Symphony Orchestra at that time. The luncheon went a bit awkwardly with Elgar at his most nervous; then, when the coffee came, he suddenly told us the reason of our being gathered there. He wanted Howells... Goossens and myself each to write a new work for the Gloucester Festival of 1922."
For some time Bliss was stumped about what form his new piece might take, and in writing about this hiatus in his autobiography he touched on a key aspect of his artistic sensibility that marked his entire career: "I have always found it easier to write "dramatic" music than "pure" music. I like the stimulus of words, or a theatrical setting, a colourful occasion or the collaboration of a great player. There is only a little of the spider about me, spinning his own web from his inner being. I am more of a magpie type. I need what Henry James termed a "trouvaille" or a "donnee"."
For weeks Bliss sat staring at a blank sheet of manuscript, then "one day, looking over a friend's library, I picked up a book on heraldry and started reading about the symbolic meanings associated with the primary colours. At once I saw the possibility of so characterizing the four movements of a symphony, that each should express a colour as I personally perceived it... Hence its title Colour Symphony with the sub-titles to the movements of Purple, Red, Blue, Green."
"Purple", Bliss suggested, reflected "The Colour of Amethysts, Pageantry, Royalty and Death." With its three themes leading to a climax then reappearing in reverse order, the music suggests a slow processional march approaching then receding from sight. Regal trumpet fanfares, erupting out of the texture like shafts of light from a prism, usher in the movement's climax.
A fiery, explosive scherzo characterizes "Red: the Colour of Rubies, Wine, Revelry, Furnaces, Courage and Magic". There are two trios: the first in a flowing 6/8 rhythm; the second marked by irregular cross-rhythms also has "blues" harmonies, a reminder that jazz was the popular music of the time. Bliss suggested that the movement ends in "a blaze of scarlet flame".
"Blue: the Colour of Sapphires, Deep Water, Skies, Loyalty and Melancholy", is a pensive movement with woodwind arabesques playing like zephyr over a repeated rhythm which Bliss likened to "the lapping of water against a moored boat or stone pier". Later in the movement the rhythm takes on an almost tongue-in-cheek syncopated, jazzy character and in the middle of the movement the cor anglais has a melancholy theme set against trilling flutes.
Bliss capped the symphony with a compositional tour-de-force, a double fugue which portrays "Green: the Colour of Emeralds, Hope, Youth, Joy, Spring and Victory." The first fugue subject is an angular string theme, lean and sinewy, leading to a life-affirming majestic march (a parallel in structural terms to the funeral march of the opening movement). The second fugue subject is mercurial and begins on the wind. Tension rises as the fugue subject seems trapped by a pedal-point over which trumpets blaze bi-tonal interjections. Both subjects are eventually combined and lead to a gigantic climax when six timpani hammer out the rhythm of the second fugue subject against a dissonant harmonisation of the first. At the end the cadential discords give way to an exultant, shining added 6th chord.
The first performance in Gloucester Cathedral on 7th September 1922 was not a happy experience for Bliss, who conducted the London Symphony Orchestra; there was insufficient rehearsal time and inadequate space for all the players on the platform. It was hardly surprising that he felt the performance was unsatisfactory. The work was too modern for many in the audience (including Elgar), but the perceptive critics praised it. As the critic of The Times aptly commented: "one feels a razor-edge mind is at work." Indeed it is, and Bliss's own description of the finale holds true for the whole work, for this is young man's music, "as spring-like as anything I can write - growing all the time".
Source: bit.ly/2DcrbF3

[@MedtnerLin]

I'm a simple person. I see Arthur Bliss's A Colour Symphony, I click LIKE.

[@DavidA-ps1qr]

It's fantastic you like this piece. But simple it isn't. But please, please don't let me stop you from enjoying this superb composition :-)

[@Minabezerai]

I wish I could see this live, but there's criminally few recordings of it! Love it! Keep it up Sergio. Grazie!

[@henryjenkins4836]

This is an amazing channel. I appreciate the music, art, and the effort put into the description. Thank you!

[@DavidA-ps1qr]

This is a very underestimated work by Bliss. But having said that, most of his music remains that way today. He was good enough to become Master of The Queen's Music in 1952. A position he held for over 20 years, following in the footsteps of the likes of Edward Elgar.
This is a very sensitive performance of the piece, full of......dare I say.......Colour.