ABSTRACT
Arthur Bliss’s first visit in 1923–1925 was a happy affair which saw his reputation being established in America and his marriage to Gertrude Hoffmann, who was to provide him lifelong support and family stability, and who after his death was instrumental in keeping his name and music alive. Bliss never found it easy to compose in America, which for him had too many distractions, though he did manage to produce some fine works, notably The Women of Yueh, String Quartet in B flat, Seven American Poems. The Ballads of the Four Seasons was Bliss’s first American work and his first in setting the poems of Li-Po in a translation by Japanese scholar Shigeyoshi Obata. Bliss was in Santa Barbara in January 1924 and during the summer he found himself involved in a half-amateur and half-professional performance of the play Beggar on Horseback by Kaufman and Connely, which was presented as the inaugural performance of the new theatre in Santa Barbara.
