Bliss: A Colour Symphony / Adam Zero

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Cat No: 8553460

Release Date: 01 January 2000

Label: Naxos / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 730099446020

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: BLISS

Description
Arthur Bliss (1891 -1975)A Colour SymphonyAdam Zero (Ballet in one scene) A Colour Symphony, composed between 1921 and 1922, was Bliss's first major orchestralwork and its success at home and in the United States of America did much to establish him as both anational and international composer of significance. It was commissioned by theGloucester Three Choirs Festival at the instigation of Elgar, who hadencouraged Bliss during the previous decade. Bliss in his fascinatingautobiography, As I Remember, recalled how the invitation arose: '[Elgar]had asked several musicians to have lunch with him... I had no idea who elsemight have been invited... When I arrived I found Adrian Boult, AnthonyBernard, Eugene Goossens, John Ireland, and W. H. Reed, who was the leader ofthe London Symphony Orchestra at that time. The luncheon went a bit awkwardlywith Elgar at his most nervous; then, when the coffee came, he suddenly told usthe reason of our being gathered there. He wanted Howells... Goossens andmyself each to write a new work for the Gloucester Festival of 1922.' For some time Bliss was stumped aboutwhat form his new piece might take, and in writing about this hiatus in hisautobiography he touched on a key aspect of his artistic sensibility that markedhis entire career: 'I have always found it easier to write "dramatic"music than "pure" music. I like the stimulus of words, or atheatrical setting, a colourful occasion or the collaboration of a greatplayer. There is only a little of the spider about me, spinning his own webfrom his inner being. I am more of a magpie type. I need what Henry Jamestermed a "trouvaille" or a "donnee".' For weeks Bliss sat staring at a blanksheet of manuscript, then 'one day, looking over a friend's library, I picked upa book on heraldry and started reading about the symbolic meanings associatedwith the primary colours. At once I saw the possibility of so characterizingthe four movements of a symphony, that each should express a colour as Ipersonally perceived it. ...' Hence its title Colour Symphony with thesub-titles to the movements of Purple, Red, Blue, Green.' 'Purple', Bliss suggested, reflected'The Colour of Amethysts, Pageantry, Royalty and Death.' With its three themesleading to a climax then reappearing in reverse order, the music suggests aslow processional march approaching then receding from sight. Regal trumpetfanfares, erupting out of the texture like shafts of light from a prism, usherin the movement's climax. A fiery, explosive scherzo characterizes 'Red - theColour of Rubies, Wine, Revelry, Furnaces, Courage and Magic'. There are twotrios: the first in a flowing 6/8 rhythm; the second marked by irregularcross-rhythms also has 'blues' harmonies, a reminder that jazz was the popularmusic of the time. Bliss suggested that the movement ends in 'a blaze ofscarlet flame'. 'Blue - the Colour of Sapphires, DeepWater, Skies, Loyalty and Melancholy', is a pensive movement with woodwindarabesque
Tracklisting