Arthur Bliss Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss , CH , KCVO ( 2 August 189127 March 1975 ) was an English composer and conductor . Bliss ' s musical training was cut short by the First World War , in which he served with distinction in the army . In the post - war years he quickly became known as an unconventional and modernist composer , but within the decade he began to display a more traditional and romantic side in his music . In the 1920s and 1930s he composed extensively not only for the concert hall , but also for films and ballet . In the Second World War , Bliss returned to England from the US to work for the BBC and became its director of music . After the war he resumed his work as a composer , and was appointed Master of the Queen ' s Music . In Bliss ' s later years , his work was respected but was thought old - fashioned , and it was eclipsed by the music of younger colleagues such as William Walton and Benjamin Britten . Since his death , his compositions have been well represented on record , and many of his better - known works remain in the repertoire of British orchestras . Biography . Early years . Bliss was born in Barnes , a London suburb , the eldest of three sons of Francis Edward Bliss ( d . 1930 ) , a businessman from Massachusetts , and his second wife , Agnes Kennard " née " Davis ( 1858 – 1895 ) . Agnes Bliss died in 1895 , and the boys were brought up by their father , who instilled in them a love for the arts . Bliss was educated at Bilton Grange preparatory school , Rugby and Pembroke College , Cambridge , where he studied classics , but also took lessons in music from Charles Wood . Other influences on him during his Cambridge days were Edward Elgar , whose music made a lasting impression on him , and E . J . Dent . Bliss graduated in classics and music in 1913 and then studied at the Royal College of Music in London for a year . At the RCM he found his composition tutor , Sir Charles Stanford , of little help to him , but found inspiration from Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst and his fellow - students , Herbert Howells , Eugene Goossens and Arthur Benjamin . In his brief time at the college he got to know the music of the Second Viennese School and the repertory of Diaghilev ' s Ballets Russes , with music by modern composers such as Debussy , Ravel and Stravinsky . When the First World War broke out , Bliss joined the army , and fought in France as an officer in the Royal Fusiliers until 1917 and then in the Grenadier Guards for the rest of the war . His bravery earned him a mention in despatches , and he was twice wounded and once gassed . His younger brother Kennard was killed in the war , and his death affected Bliss deeply . The music scholar Byron Adams writes , " Despite the apparent heartiness and equilibrium of the composer ' s public persona , the emotional wounds inflicted by the war were deep and lasting . " In 1918 , Bliss converted to Roman Catholicism . Early compositions . Although he had begun composing while still a schoolboy , Bliss later suppressed all his juvenilia , and , with the single exception of his 1916 " Pastoral " for clarinet and piano , reckoned the 1918 work " Madam Noy " as his first official composition . With the return of peace , his career took off rapidly as a composer of what were , for British audiences , startlingly new pieces , often for unusual ensembles , strongly influenced by Ravel , Stravinsky and the young French composers of Les six . Among these are a concerto for wordless tenor voice , piano and strings ( 1920 ) , and " Rout " for wordless soprano and chamber ensemble ( subsequently revised for orchestra ) , which received a double encore at its first performance . In 1919 , he arranged incidental music from Elizabethan sources for " As You Like It " at Stratford - on - Avon , and conducted a series of Sunday concerts at Lyric Theatre , Hammersmith , where he also conducted Pergolesi ' s opera " La serva padrona . " Viola Tree ' s production of " The Tempest " at the Aldwych Theatre in 1921 , interspersed incidental music by Thomas Arne and Arthur Sullivan , with new music by Bliss for an ensemble of male voices , piano , trumpet , trombone , gongs and five percussionists dispersed through the theatre . " The Times " wrote that " Bliss was acquiring a reputation as a tearaway " by the time he was commissioned , through Elgar ' s influence , to write a large - scale symphonic work ( " A Colour Symphony " ) for the Three Choirs Festival of 1922 . The work was well received ; in " The Manchester Guardian " , Samuel Langford called Bliss " far and away the cleverest writer among the English composers of our time " ; " The Times " praised it highly ( though doubting if much was gained by the designation of the four movements as purple , red , blue and green ) and commented that the symphony confirmed Bliss ' s transition from youthful experimenter to serious composer . After the third performance of the work , at the Queen ' s Hall under Sir Henry Wood , " The Times " wrote , " Continually changing patterns scintillate … till one is hypnotised by the ingenuity of the thing . " Elgar , who attended the first performance , complained that the work was " disconcertingly modern . " In 1923 Bliss ' s father , who had remarried , decided to retire in the US . He and his wife settled in California . Bliss went with them and remained there for two years , working as a conductor , lecturer , pianist and occasional critic . While there he met Gertrude " Trudy " Hoffmann ( 1904 – 2008 ) , youngest daughter of Ralph and Gertrude ( Wesselhoeft ) Hoffmann . They were married in 1925 . The marriage was happy and lasted for the rest of Bliss ' s life ; there were two daughters . Soon after the marriage , Bliss and his wife moved to England . From the mid - 1920s onwards Bliss moved more into the established English musical tradition , leaving behind the influence of Stravinsky and the French modernists , and in the words of the critic Frank Howes , " after early enthusiastic flirtations with aggressive modernism admitted to a romantic heart and [ has ] given rein to its less and less inhibited promptings " He received two major commissions from American orchestras , the " Introduction and Allegro " ( 1926 ) for the Philadelphia Orchestra and Leopold Stokowski and " Hymn to Apollo " ( 1926 ) for the Boston Symphony and Pierre Monteux . Bliss began the 1930s with " Pastoral " ( 1930 ) . In the same year he wrote " Morning Heroes " , a work for narrator , chorus and orchestra , written in the hope of exorcising the spectre of the First World War : " Although the war had been over for more than ten years , I was still troubled by frequent nightmares ; they all took the same form . I was still there in the trenches with a few men ; we knew the armistice had been signed , but we had been forgotten ; so had a section of the Germans opposite . It was as though we were both doomed to fight on till extinction . I used to wake with horror . " During the decade Bliss wrote chamber works for leading soloists including a Clarinet Quintet for Frederick Thurston ( 1932 ) and a Viola Sonata for Lionel Tertis ( 1933 ) . In 1935 , in the words of the " Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians " , " he firmly established his position as Elgar ' s natural successor with the Romantic , expansive and richly scored Music for Strings . " Two dramatic works from this decade remain well known , the music for Alexander Korda ' s 1936 film of H . G . Wells ' s " Things to Come " , and a ballet score to his own scenario based on a chess game . Choreographed by Ninette de Valois , " Checkmate " was still in the repertoire of the Royal Ballet in 2011 . By the late 1930s , Bliss was no longer viewed as a modernist ; the works of his juniors William Walton and the youthful Benjamin Britten were increasingly prominent , and Bliss ' s music began to seem old - fashioned . His last large - scale work of the 1930s was his Piano Concerto , composed for the pianist Solomon , who gave the world premiere at the World ' s Fair in New York in June 1939 . Bliss and his family attended the performance and then stayed on in the US for a holiday . While they were there , the Second World War broke out . Bliss initially stayed in America , teaching at the University of California , Berkeley . He felt impelled to return to England to do what he could for the war effort , and in 1941 , leaving his wife and children in California , he made the hazardous Atlantic crossing . 1940s . At first , Bliss found little useful work to do in England . He joined the BBC ' s overseas music service in May 1941 , but was plainly under - employed . He suggested to Sir Adrian Boult , who was at that time both the chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC ' s director of music , that Boult should step down in his favour from the latter post . Bliss wrote to his wife : " I want more power as I have a lot to give which my comparatively minor post does not allow me to use fully . " Boult agreed to the proposal , which freed him to concentrate on conducting . Bliss served as director of music at the BBC from 1942 to 1944 , laying the foundations for the launch of the Third Programme after the war . During the war , he also served on the music committee of the British Council together with Vaughan Williams and William Walton . In 1944 , when Bliss ' s family returned from the US , he resigned from the BBC and returned to composing , having written nothing since his String Quartet in 1941 . He composed more film music , and two ballets , " Miracle in the Gorbals " ( 1944 ) , and " Adam Zero " ( 1946 ) . In 1948 , Bliss turned his attention to opera , with " The Olympians " . He and the novelist and playwright J . B . Priestley had been friends for many years , and they agreed to collaborate on an opera , despite their lack of any operatic experience . Priestley ' s libretto was based on a legend that " the pagan deities , robbed of their divinity , became a troupe of itinerant players , wandering down the centuries " . The opera portrays the confusion that results when the actors unexpectedly find themselves restored to deity . The opera opened the 1949 – 50 Covent Garden season . It was directed by Peter Brook , with choreography by Frederick Ashton . The doyen of English critics , Ernest Newman , praised it highly : " here is a composer with real talent for opera . . . in Mr . Priestley he has been fortunate enough to find an English Boito " , but generally it received a polite rather than a rapturous reception . Priestley attributed this to the failure of the conductor , Karl Rankl to learn the music or to cooperate with Brook , and to lack of rehearsal of the last act . The critics attributed it to Priestley ' s inexperience as an opera librettist , and to the occasional lack of " the soaring tune for the human voice " in Bliss ' s music . After the Covent Garden run of ten performances , the company presented the work in Manchester , but did not revive it in subsequent years ; it received a concert performance and broadcast in 1972 . Later years . In 1950 , Bliss was knighted . After the death of Sir Arnold Bax he was appointed Master of the Queen ' s Music in 1953 , to the relief of Walton , who feared he would be asked to take the post . In " The Times " , Howes commented , " The duties of a Master of the Queen ' s Music are what he chooses to make of them , but they include the composition of ceremonial and occasional music " . Bliss , who composed quickly and with facility , was able to discharge the many duties of the post , providing music as required for state occasions , from the birth of a child to the Queen , to the funeral of Winston Churchill , to the investiture of the Prince of Wales . Howes commended Bliss ' s " Processional " for the 1953 coronation , and " A Song of Welcome " , Bliss ' s first official " pièce d ' occasion " . In 1956 , Bliss headed the first delegation by British musicians to the Soviet Union since the end of the Second World War . The party included the violinist Alfredo Campoli , the oboist Léon Goossens , the soprano Jennifer Vyvyan and the pianist Gerald Moore . Bliss returned to Moscow in 1958 , as a member of the jury of the International Tchaikovsky Competition , with fellow jurors including Emil Gilels and Sviatoslav Richter . In addition to his official functions , Bliss continued to compose steadily throughout the 1950s . His works from that decade include his Second String Quartet ( 1950 ) ; a scena , " The Enchantress " ( 1951 ) , for the contralto Kathleen Ferrier ; a Piano Sonata ( 1952 ) ; and a Violin Concerto ( 1955 ) , for Campoli . The orchestral " Meditations on a Theme by John Blow " ( 1955 ) was a particularly deep - felt work , and Bliss regarded it highly among his output . In 1959 and 1960 he collaborated with the librettist Christopher Hassall on an opera for television , based on the scriptural story of Tobias and the Angel . It won praise for the way in which Bliss and Hassall had understood and adapted to the more intimate medium of television , though some critics thought Bliss ' s music competent but unremarkable . In 1961 , Bliss and Hassall collaborated on a cantata , " The Beatitudes " , commissioned for the opening of the new Coventry Cathedral . Reviews were friendly , but the work has rarely been performed since , and has been eclipsed by another choral work written for Coventry at the same time , Britten ' s " War Requiem " . Bliss followed this with two further large - scale choral works , " Mary of Magdala " ( 1962 ) and " The Golden Cantata " ( 1963 ) . Throughout his life , Bliss was vigilant on the state of music in Britain . He had written extensively on the subject since the 1920s , and in 1969 he publicly censured the BBC for its plan to cut its classical music budget and disband several of its orchestras . He was delegated by his colleagues Walton , Britten , Peter Maxwell Davies and Richard Rodney Bennett to make a strong protest to William Glock , the BBC ' s controller of music . In the 1970s , he looked to the future of Britain ' s orchestras by working with the young players of the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra for some years . Bliss continued to compose into his eighth and ninth decades , in which his works included the Cello Concerto ( 1970 ) for Mstislav Rostropovich , the " Metamorphic Variations " for orchestra ( 1972 ) , and a final cantata , " Shield of Faith " ( 1974 ) , for soprano , baritone , chorus and organ , celebrating 500 years of St . George ' s Chapel , Windsor Castle , setting poems chosen from each of the five centuries of the Chapel ' s existence . Bliss died at his London home , at the age of 83 . His wife Trudy outlived him by 33 years , dying in 2008 at the age of 104 . Music . Early works . The musicologist Christopher Palmer was censorious of those who to 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 " . 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 . " 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 " . 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 polyphonic , especially in the first and last numbers . " 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 . 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 . " 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 . " 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 ( 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 " . 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 . " 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 " . 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 . Palmer comments that the musical forerunner of such passages is probably " the extraordinary spectral march - like irruption " in the Scherzo of Elgar ' s Second Symphony . 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 " . " 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 . " Honours , legacy and reputation . In addition to his knighthood , Bliss was appointed KCVO ( 1969 ) and CH ( 1971 ) . He received honorary degrees from the universities of Bristol , Cambridge , Edinburgh , Glasgow , Lancaster , London and Princeton . The London Symphony Orchestra appointed him its honorary President in 1958 . In 1963 , he received the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society . Bliss ' s archive is kept at Cambridge University Library . There is an Arthur Bliss Road in Newport , an Arthur Bliss Gardens in Cheltenham and a block of flats , Sir Arthur Bliss Court , in Mitcham , South London . The Arthur Bliss Society was founded in 2003 to further the knowledge and appreciation of Bliss ' s music . The society ' s website includes listings of forthcoming performances of Bliss ' s works ; in March 2011 the following works were listed as scheduled for performance in the UK and U . S . : " Ceremonial Prelude " ; Clarinet Quartet ( 2 performances ) ; Four Songs for Voice , Violin and Piano ; " Music for Strings " ; " Pastoral ( Lie strewn the white flocks ) " ; " Royal Fanfares " ; " Seven American Poems " ; String Quartet No . 2 ( 5 performances ) ; " Things to Come " Suite ( 2 performances ) ; " Things to Come " March . Many of Bliss ' s works have been recorded . He was a capable conductor , and was in charge of some of the recordings . The Library of Cambridge University maintains a complete Bliss discography . In March 2011 it contained details of 281 recordings : 120 orchestral , 56 chamber and instrumental , 58 choral and vocal , and 47 stage and screen works . Among the works that have received multiple recordings are " A Colour Symphony " ( 6 recordings ) ; the Cello Concerto ( 6 ) ; the Piano Concerto ( 6 ) ; " Music for Strings " ( 7 ) ; the Oboe Quintet ( 7 ) ; the Viola Sonata ( The vioin sonata was given its first recorded in 2010 ) ( 7 ) ; and " Checkmate " ( complete ballet and ballet suite ( 9 ) ) . Bliss was a modest man , with no inflated ideas about his importance . On receiving the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society in 1963 , he said , " I don ' t claim to have done more than light a small taper at the shrine of music . I do not upbraid Fate for not having given me greater gifts . Endeavour has been the joy " . A hundred years after Bliss ' s birth , Byron Adams wrote , Girl in a Broken Mirror A documentary featuring the ballet " The Lady of Shallot " performed by school pupils from Leicestershire and the LSSO conducted by Eric Pinkett .