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Sunday, January 22, 2017

Arthur Bliss - Meditations on a Theme by John Blow; Metamorphic Variations (David Lloyd-Jones)


Information

Composer: Arthur Bliss
  • (01-08) Meditations on a Theme by John Blow
  • (09-22) Metamorphic Variations

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
David Lloyd-Jones, conductor
Date: 2010
Label: Naxos
http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.572316

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Review

Bliss’s finest music beautifully played and in superior sound

If Sir Arthur Bliss wrote a finer work than the Meditations on a Theme of John Blow (1955), I would like to hear it. A beautifully balanced set of expanded variations on a theme from the Sinfonia to Blow’s setting of Psalm 23, Bliss’s score is a glowing exhibition of his compositional prowess. Its sequence of Introduction, five Meditations, Interlude and Finale bear superscriptions from the psalm – excepting the scherzando third meditation, “Lambs” – which colour the characters of each section. But, as Giles Easterbrook notes in the booklet, there is a parallel expressive strand running throughout the work, of memorial to the fallen of the Great War in which Bliss had served and his brother was killed. And somehow it achieves greater weight than Morning Heroes.

The inspiration behind Metamorphic Variations (1972) was George Dannatt’s triptych Tantris, based on the Tristan legend. Composed nine years after Bliss’s retirement from large-scale composition, this kaleidoscopic score turned into his largest abstract orchestral piece. Its 14 variations each bear a descriptive title – eg “Ballet”, “Assertion”, “Speculation” – collectively comprising a tour de force of the octogenarian composer’s art.

Meditations has been recorded before: Rignold splendidly on Lyrita, Sir Charles Groves and the RLPO (Carlton – nla) consistently swifter until the Interlude and Finale, Handley (HMV, not I think reissued on CD) impeccably shaped, yet the newcomer is beautifully played, well paced and boasts the finest sound to date. Handley’s BBC SO Metamorphic Variations was coupled with the Groves Meditations and remains the tautest version but Lloyd Jones scores in terms of performance and superior sound. Recommended.

-- Guy Rickards, Gramophone

More reviews:
ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 9 / SOUND QUALITY: 9
BBC Music Magazine  PERFORMANCE: **** / SOUND: ****

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Arthur Bliss (2 August 1891 – 27 March 1975) was an English composer and conductor. After the First World War, he quickly became known as an unconventional and modernist composer, but within the decade he began to display a more traditional and romantic side in his music. In Bliss's later years, his work was respected but was thought old-fashioned, and it was eclipsed by the music of younger colleagues such as William Walton and Benjamin Britten. Since his death, his compositions have been well represented on record, and many of his better-known works remain in the repertoire of British orchestras.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Bliss

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David Lloyd-Jones (born 19 November 1934 in London) is a British conductor. He is also an editor and translator, especially of Russian operas. In 1978, Lloyd-Jones founded and became the first Music Director of Opera North, forming its orchestra, the English Northern Philharmonia (now the Orchestra of Opera North), of which he became Artistic Director. In the recording studio, Lloyd-Jones has specialised in British and Russian music, often for Hyperion and Naxos.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lloyd-Jones_(conductor)

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