Gerald Cumberland on Arthur Bliss: A Humorous Paragraph or Two

In his volume of witty essays, reminiscences and anecdotes, Set Down in Malice (1918) Gerald Cumberland (1879-1926) (pseudonym of Charles Frederick Kenyon) discussed a wide variety of artists, writers and composers. At the time of writing this book, Cumberland was music and drama critic at the Daily Critic.

I am a great fan of composer Arthur Bliss: his music is inspiring, well wrought and always interesting. It is fascinating to read this short, but perfectly entertaining comment. The two pieces of doggerel are enchanting.

MR ARTHUR BLISS IS generally regarded as quite the cleverest of the younger composers. His chief desire, I imagine, is to cut a figure. He certainly cuts one. One hears of him travelling in Bavaria - or is it in Bulgaria? He attends public dinners and makes aggressive speeches. He is very much “in.”

“A page of Mr Bliss’s

Is worth a hundred kisses.

Even a single bar

Goes much too far.”

That is what a lady wrote on the back of a menu card and pushed across the table to me. A few minutes later Mr Bliss rose to his feet, walked behind his chair, pushed it against the table, placed his hands firmly on the chair’s back, drew himself up nobly, and “delivered” a speech… Mr Bliss may be many things, but he is not an after-dinner speaker. He lacks -what does he lack? A certain poise? Urbanity?

“Mr Bliss is never for very long urbane

Because people might judge him suburbane."

To him the most serious moment of a dinner is when the chairman says: “Mr Bliss.” It is also the most serious moment for other people. One cowers. Or one fingers one’s glass. With an air of almost concealed vindictiveness, he tells of the manners and customs of some foreign folk who, it would seem, manage all these things better than we do: “these things” are music, social intercourse, what-not. His voice, tinged with undeniable aristocracy, goes interminably on. Soon he will get to his point, we say. Soon. Soon. What is his point? Lo! he has sat down. What has he been saying? Does anyone know? Anything a propos?

Gerald Cumberland Set Down in Malice, New York, Brentano's, 1919