Bliss: Meditations On A Theme By John Blow, Metamorphic Variations / Lloyd-Jones

$19.99
Label
Naxos
Release Date
May 25, 2010
Format
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    Featuring ⌄
    • COMPOSER
      BLISS, ARTHUR
    • PERFORMER
      Lloyd-Jones, Bournemouth So
    Product Details ⌄
    • RELEASE DATE
      May 25, 2010
    • UPC
      747313231676
    • CATALOG NUMBER
      8572316
    • LABEL
      Naxos
    • NUMBER OF DISCS
      1
    • GENRE
      Orchestral & Symphonic
    Works ⌄

    1. Introduction: The Lord is my Shepherd - I will fear no evil

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    2. Meditation I: He leadeth me beside the still waters

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    3. Meditation II: Thy rod and staff they comfort me

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    4. Meditation III: Lambs

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    5. Meditation IV: He restoreth my soul

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    6. Meditation V: In green pastures

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    7. Interlude: Through the valley of the shadow of death

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    8. Finale: In the house of the Lord

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    9. Variation 1: Elements

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    10. Variation 2: Ballet

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    11. Variation 3: Assertion

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    12. Variation 4: Speculation

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    13. Variation 5: Interjections

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    14. Variation 6: Scherzo I

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    15. Variation 7: Contemplation

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    16. Variation 8: Polonaise

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    17. Variation 9: Funeral Processions

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    18. Variation 10: Cool Interlude

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    19. Variation 11: Scherzo II

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    20. Variation 12: Duet

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    21. Variation 13: Dedicated to G.D. and A.D.

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones

    22. Variation 14: Affirmation

      Composer: Arthur Bliss

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones


Arthur Bliss is a hard composer to place. He maintained a very high standard of craftsmanship throughout his long career (he died at 84 in 1975, and wrote music for more than half a century), but his idiom was more "20th-century tonal English" than overtly personal. He became Master of the Queen's Musick, a position difficult for non-British listeners to take seriously, but evidently he enjoyed the job. There is, in fact, a certain heraldic quality to his writing, most evident in A Color Symphony, and there's an aristocratic fastidiousness that's quite evident in the two pieces on this disc, even when they rise to passionate climaxes.

The Meditations on a Theme by John Blow may well be Bliss' orchestral masterpiece. It's a gravely beautiful piece, well-contrasted, frequently touching, and unforgettably scored. The actual tune doesn't appear in full until the end, when it emerges with unforced majesty as the inevitable culmination of the half-hour's prior journey. Metamorphic Variations, a very late piece written just a couple of years before Bliss' death, is a touch less richly colored, and it takes a while to warm up; but the work's latter half (the sequence running, in order, Polonaise, Funeral Procession, Cool Interlude, Scherzo II, Duet) is marvelous, and the gently affirmative ending is unaffectedly poetic.

David Lloyd-Jones has made several fine Bliss recordings for Naxos, and this is another. The Bournemouth Symphony plays beautifully throughout and is very well recorded. Indeed, Naxos' Bliss series represents one of the label's more noteworthy efforts on behalf of any British composer--but is anyone noticing? This series remains somewhat "under the radar", but it surely deserves the attention of all serious collectors.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com