JAVS Spring 2023

Bliss believed that “the foundation of all music is emotion” and articulated his goal as trying “for an emotion truly and clearly felt, and caught for ever in formal perfection.” This movement encapsulates the deeply felt emotions of the entire Sonata: heaviness mixed with soaring melodies, tragedy along with the brief moments of beauty, and a compelling, dramatic narrative. It is the emotional heart of the Sonata. Third Movement: Virtuosity When recounting the composition of the Sonata, Bliss wrote that “it was really becoming a concerto for the instrument” and went on to express his unrealized plans to “translate the piano accompaniment into an orchestra tissue.” His impulse for this comes from two sources: the practical, i.e., having a virtuoso performer (Tertis) to present the work and the musical, i.e., the work’s grandiosity, both in thematic variety and overall scope. The third movement is a showcase of virtuosic technique. Bliss entitled it “Furiant,” drawing a loose reference to a type of music with hemiolas and varying subdivisions that has a swirling, unrelenting character. From the violist’s perspective, the music presses the limits of range, speed, rhythmic agility, sound production, and endurance. The movement includes both the fastest and highest notes of the Sonata, ending on a racing arpeggio that reaches beyond the fingerboard (ex. 7). Despite its overt virtuoso quality, hallmarks of Bliss’s compositional technique still shine through. The three part structure mirrors that of the second movement,

with an additional cadenza in the coda. The first large section (mm. 1–120) contains five themes. The main theme (seen in the first two measures of example 7) recurs several times, interleaved by contrasting material. These contrasting themes are sometimes perky (m. 36), chromatic and lyrical (m. 88), or martial (m. 98), and they provide relief from the propulsive main theme. As we saw in the first movement, Bliss takes care to develop his themes, rather than just listing them back-to-back. But the latter still occurs, requiring stylistic agility from the performer (ex. 8). The brief middle part of this movement (mm. 121–162) aligns with the cataclysmic passage from the second movement: a rapid flurry of thirty-second notes followed by snippets of earlier themes that usher a structural return of the opening music. The movement concludes with an electrifying cadenza for viola, marked sempre ff e feroce. Accompanied by a low semitone trill in the piano, the viola growls away with open Cs, triple and quadruple stops, and soaring arpeggios (see ex. 9 for the beginning of the cadenza, ex. 7 for its end). Many violists will notice the similarity between this writing and the fourth movement of Hindemith’s Sonata op. 25 no. 1, written in 1922. This cadenza caps off a movement that contains some of the most impressive and engaging virtuoso string writing found in early-twentieth century British music. Fourth Movement: Conclusion The final movement, entitled Coda, offers a chance for an appropriate summary of the work, Bliss’s writing, and our look into the viola in Bliss’s life.

Example 7. The highest note of the entire sonata. Arthur Bliss, Sonata for Viola and Piano, mvt. III, mm. 252–255.

Example 8. Three different themes in three measures, requiring agility from the violist. Arthur Bliss, Sonata for Viola and Piano, mvt. III, mm. 96–98.

24

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 39, No. 1, Spring 2023