Arthur Bliss's Colour Symphony

Abstract

As it stands at present Bliss's Colour Symphony is a revision made in 1932 of a work dating from 1922. The historical background of the work is the Three Choirs Festival, and especially Elgar, at whose suggestion Bliss produced a work for the Gloucester Meeting. This is Bliss's first symphony. In the chronological list of his works it comes after theMêlée Fantasquefor orchestra and theIncidental Music to The Tempest. It was followed by the string quartet of 1924, the manuscript of which was lost, and the next composition for full orchestra was theHymn to Apollo, dated 1926. Between the time when the Colour Symphony was written and that when it was revised, Bliss had written a number of works not only musically important but significant because they showed a rather different manner of expression and way of thinking. Among these works wasMorning Heroes, a large-scale choral and orchestral composition, in reality a choral symphony (1930). It was afterMorning Heroeswas finished that Bliss turned once more to the Colour Symphony. He took it in hand afresh and feeling that his grasp of orchestral manipulation had become stronger, he refashioned the whole work, leaving only the third movement in its original shape. In its actual state, therefore, the work is fundamentally different from the original.