The music of Sir Arthur Bliss has been growing more popular, especially in Britain, since it became acceptable not to regard British music of the 20th century as a path up a mountainside leading to Benjamin Britten at the pinnacle. This Chandos release, with Sir Andrew Davis conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra, is a good place to start to try out some of Bliss' music. All of the music comes from the later part of his career, after World War II, and the program includes a work that most, including the composer himself, ...
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The music of Sir Arthur Bliss has been growing more popular, especially in Britain, since it became acceptable not to regard British music of the 20th century as a path up a mountainside leading to Benjamin Britten at the pinnacle. This Chandos release, with Sir Andrew Davis conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra, is a good place to start to try out some of Bliss' music. All of the music comes from the later part of his career, after World War II, and the program includes a work that most, including the composer himself, count as one of his strongest: the Meditations on a Theme of John Blow, F. 118. The work, sonically sumptuous, is recorded here for the first time in the SACD format, and audiophiles may find they want the album for that reason alone. Even for ordinary mortals, this is a beautiful performance of a work that is at once inventively structured (Bliss retains the section title of Blow's vocal work but assembles the full theme only in his finale) and quite passionate by British standards....
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