Arthur Bliss (1891-1975) : The Early Reception of the Colour Symphony: Part 2

Criticism: Many newspapers and musical journals sent their music critics to the 1922 Gloucester Three Choirs Festival. A list of many of them is given in the Gloucester Journal (9 September 1922) I have selected a number of examples which give a wide cross-section of opinion on the premiere of A Colour Symphony. However, one common theme is the confusion introduced into this work by the ‘colour scheme.’ 

The reviewer (A.P. Higham) in the Bristol-based Western Daily Express (8 September 1922) gives an admirable summary of the Symphony. He writes that Bliss has tried to ‘express the aesthetic emotions suggested by colour impressions.’ However the Higham is at pains to point out that Bliss is not dogmatic about this ‘programme.’ ‘On the contrary, he has allowed it to be said that whilst he feels the influence of colours through the medium of music, he does not make other people see with him, but is content to let them take his work from a purely musical point of view. After a detailed analysis of the work, he notes that the symphony is an 'extremely difficult problem for the performers.’ This difficulty was not helped by Bliss only having two rehearsals.

Higham’s general impression of A Colour Symphony was hardly encouraging. He seemed unable to discern the formal basis of each movement. He regards the tone-colour scheme as being too difficult to understand at ‘one sitting.’  But his critique gets worse – ‘the composer has evolved from his own inner consciousness something that is too abstruse for even the London Symphony Orchestra to interpret’. He concludes by stating that the Symphony ‘is clever’ and that it may ‘win the admiration of those who like cataclysmical outbursts’ – however he says that for the ‘rank-and-file of music lovers it must for some time remain an enigma.’

The critic of the Morning Post (8 September 1922) suggested that ‘Mr. Bliss’ ‘Colour Symphony, is frankly an experiment. He certainly shows much ingenuity in devising dissonances, but whether they produce any definite impression of colour is another matter.’ He concludes by wondering ‘whether experiments of this sort should be carried out in a Cathedral is a question on which there may be more than one opinion.'

The Westminster Gazette (R.J. Buckley) was totally unimpressed: ‘What the composer’s exact aim may be is problematical – not beauty assuredly and without beauty music has nothing attractive for some of us.’

The Daily Mail (8 September 1922) gives a succinct account of the new symphony. ‘...there are strong influences noticeable in this music. The temptation to keep on saying 'Stravinsky' was irresistible to some, and such a moment as the violently hammered close of the scherzo brought back 'The Rite of Spring.' The reviewer suggests that  ‘we can brush aside the 'colour' titles’...they do not help, and if there is anything in these analogies of colour, the titles apply equally to hundreds of other symphonies.’ His impression of the music was mixed – after a ‘disappointing’ first movement the scherzo had an ‘extraordinarily gay turbulence.’  He considered that the slow movement was in ‘pastoral vein’ and has ‘a range of poetry beyond any previous work of the composer’.  The finale was ‘a climax of proper daring and brilliance’. Finally the reviewer insisted that ‘the symphony left no one indifferent; and expressions of active dislike were free in the precincts and at the hotel luncheon tables,’ however he imagined that ‘the Three Choirs audience were bound to be a little baffled’.

An ultra-conservative view was taken by South Wales News: ‘Mr Bliss is a disciple or leader of the modernist school, which sets at defiance all established rules and practices of the art.’   He felt that the ‘result was beautiful in parts but completely bizarre and disturbing’. He considered that the performance suggested ‘a musicians’ workshop where experiments are being tried in unusual combinations of the sounds of instruments of the orchestra.’ He concluded by saying that the ‘old musicians shake their heads.’

An interesting review appeared in the Birmingham Daily Post. (8 September 1922). He begins by suggesting that ‘many ears accustomed to mellifluousness must have ached long before its thirty minutes of dissonance had expired. The Bliss Symphony lives in dissonances and ends its life in a blaze of them.’ However, this is not negative criticism.  He continues by noting that ‘it is the most remarkable work of symphonic proportions produced in recent years. It is the work of a live force, a composer to be reckoned with, whether or not we take kindly to his idiom...there can be no doubting the mastery with which Bliss uses the idiom he has chosen, for every point tells, and not a note can be said to run to waste...’

All respect has to be given to the views of the Manchester Guardian’s critic Samuel Langford writing the day following the concert. Concentrating on the ‘colour’ references.  He begins by noting that ‘those who expected a revelation or a miracle of association between colour and music in the 'Colour Symphony’ of Arthur Bliss would be disappointed. Bliss works through an association of ideas which are already familiar, and though it is claimed for him that he has a definite sensibility to the suggestions of colour in music, the listener will find this symphony quite lucid without calling upon any but the most normal associations of thought.’

Contrasted to other reviewers Langford considers that Bliss ‘delights in tunes, though they are not popular or fashionable to-day’ yet he feel that the work ‘rather eschews development as such, and assimilates to the sectional manner of dance music’.

After a detailed commentary on the four movements, he concludes by suggesting that ‘A Colour Symphony’ ‘is a great quickening to the English school of music to have such a man alive. The general public, despite its protests to the contrary, is apt to take all music of any difficulty with too much seriousness... but it will do much to leaven the dead lump of English music.’

Mr F. Bonavia writing in the Daily Telegraph (8 September 1922) suggested that in ‘his new 'Colour Symphony' Mr. Bliss uses his great skill to finer purpose than ever before. He has always been pointed and witty, but in the Symphony there is also a tenderness and delicacy that were lacking before’. Like a number of subsequent reviewers he notes that the Symphony is ‘unquestionably indebted to Stravinsky for some of his materials’ however he states that Bliss has ‘not attempted to borrow another man's tools and copy the other's style. He has refined and improved upon the older man's method, until it bears a totally different complexion and is capable of expressing ideas and feelings wholly foreign to the Russian. His never-failing sureness of touch, like the wealth of resource shown in every one of the four movements is a delight’.

However, once again Bonavia is alarmed by the work’s title. Wittily, he proposes that in relation to the ‘Red of the second movement which is the colour of rubies, wine revelry, furnaces, courage and magic, ‘it may be objected that red is also the colour of poppies, tomatoes, orangeade, shame and shyness, and there is apparently no sound reason why red should suggest one set of objects and feelings rather than another.

With thanks to the Arthur Bliss Society where this essay was first published in 2013

To be continued...