JAVS Spring 2023

Example 9. The beginning of the viola cadenza. Arthur Bliss, Sonata for Viola and Piano, mvt. III, mm. 224–25.

Example 10. Arthur Bliss, Sonata for Viola and Piano, mvt IV, mm. 39–40. The first movement’s main theme is combined with the triplets from the third movement.

Along with several new cadenza-like passages passed between piano and viola, Bliss stitches together and reworks material from the previous three movements in this concluding movement. For some composers, this sort of review movement is superfluous, yet here, because of Bliss’s extreme polythematicsm, it is a welcome chance to hear again—and for Bliss to develop—the themes. Bliss again goes further than merely repeating the themes; he combines them to build a larger-than life feeling, enhancing the work’s overbearing sense of tragedy. The crucial moment occurs at the beginning of the movement’s final section (ex. 10, mm. 37–62). Bliss places the first movement’s main melody together with the triplet arpeggios from the third movement and adds a sinister A–B-flat motion in the bass. The borrowed material from the first and third movements along with the mood from the second movement create an oppressive, dirge-like march towards the end. It’s a chilling effect. Against this, the viola strives to counteract the dirge’s depressive energy by reaching ever higher (up to an A, two octaves above the open A), but it eventually succumbs, collapsing onto a low D, its final note. This ending section, with its combination of themes and high-tension melodic lines, produces a doom-filled sense of inevitability, the aftermath of the cataclysm from the second movement.

Conclusion Bliss felt that the viola’s “rather restless and tragic personality makes it an ideal vehicle for romantic and oratorical expression.” His uses the instrument to bring forth a swirling array of emotions and imbues every element of the work—from its large-scale, cyclical form to the motivic unity across its themes—with a deftness of compositional craft and artistic creativity that gives it an appealing freshness. The Sonata is both uniquely tailored to the instrument and also a commanding artistic statement on its own. It is undoubtedly heavy, from both an expressive and a performing perspective, which perhaps has led to its underperformed status. Additionally, its grandiosity and technical demands make it accessible to only advanced students or professionals. However, for less advanced students, the second or third movements could be performed on their own, as they offer a great introduction to this style. Bliss also provides several helpful ossia options for the highest passages. Of the many works resulting from Tertis’s collaborations with composers, Bliss’s Sonata ranks among the most virtuosic in terms of its technical demands and its broad expressive palate, and it contains some of the most

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

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