Bliss: Meditations on a Theme by John Blow - Metamorphic Variations Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra & David Lloyd-Jones

• 1 Introduction: The Lord is my Shepherd - I will fear no evil 07:29
• 2 Meditation I: He leadeth me beside the still waters 03:27
• 3 Meditation II: Thy rod and staff they comfort me 02:53
• 4 Meditation III: Lambs 02:34
• 5 Meditation IV: He restoreth my soul 02:30
• 6 Meditation V: In green pastures 04:52
• 7 Interlude: Through the valley of the shadow of death 03:58
• 8 Finale: In the house of the Lord 06:04
• 9 Variation 1: Elements 03:39
• 10 Variation 2: Ballet 01:34
• 11 Variation 3: Assertion 02:16
• 12 Variation 4: Speculation 01:48
• 13 Variation 5: Interjections 03:59
• 14 Variation 6: Scherzo I 02:52
• 15 Variation 7: Contemplation 02:25
• 16 Variation 8: Polonaise 03:45
• 17 Variation 9: Funeral Processions 04:07
• 18 Variation 10: Cool Interlude 02:57
• 19 Variation 11: Scherzo II 01:45
• 20 Variation 12: Duet 02:20
• 21 Variation 13: Dedicated to G.D. and A.D. 00:52
• 22 Variation 14: Affirmation 04:31
• Total Runtime 01:12:37

Info for Bliss: Meditations on a Theme by John Blow - Metamorphic Variations

Scored for a large orchestra, including an extensive percussion section, Sir Arthur Bliss’s Metamorphic Variations dates from the end of his creative life. Inspired by the triptych Tantris painted by Bliss’s long-time friend, the late George Dannatt, it is a work of extremes, of enormous power, passion and violence balanced by gentleness, whimsy and delicacy. Meditations on a Theme by John Blow is one of Bliss’s most eloquent and personal scores, a private tribute to a generation cut down in its youth, including his own brother, during World War I.

“...Lloyd-Jones [probes] beyond its obvious aspect as a display piece for the various sections of the orchestra. Indeed his performance makes me feel that the work may have been a kind of self-portrait of its creator...This is certainly a disc that no British music fan should be without.” (Calum MacDonald, BBC Music Magazine)

“If Sir Arthur Bliss wrote a finer work than the Medititations on a Theme of John Blow then I would like to hear it...Bliss's score is a glowing exhibition of his compositional prowess...Meditations has been recorded before...yet the newcomer is beautifully played, well paced and boasts the finest sound to date.” (Gramophone)

“Together with the Colour Symphony...the Meditations on a Theme of John Blow is Bliss's most considerable orchestral work, and arguably his greatest achievement. Its tone is both pastoral and elegiac...It's touchingly effective” (The Guardian)

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
David Lloyd-Jones, conductor

Recorded in the Concert Hall, The Lighthouse, Poole, Dorset, UK, from 11th to 12th May, 2009
Engineered by Phil Rowlands
Produced by Andrew Walton (K&A Productions Ltd.)

David Lloyd–Jones
began his career in 1959 on the music staff of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, followed by conducting engagements for orchestral and choral concerts, opera, broadcasts and television studio opera productions. He has appeared at the Royal Opera House, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera and the Wexford, Cheltenham, Edinburgh and Leeds Festivals, and with the major British orchestras. In 1972 he was appointed Assistant Music Director at English National Opera, and there conducted an extensive repertory. In 1978 he founded a new opera company, Opera North, with its orchestra, the English Northern Philharmonia, of which he became Artistic Director and Principal Conductor. During twelve seasons with the company he conducted fifty different new productions, with numerous orchestral concerts, and festival appearances in France and Germany. He has made many successful recordings, and has an extensive career in the concert-hall and opera-house that takes him to leading musical centres throughout the world. His highly acclaimed cycle of Bax’s symphonies and tone poems for Naxos (The Gramophone Award) was completed in the autumn of 2003. In 2007 he was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Philharmonic Society.

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Founded in 1893, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra has worked with many famous composers, conductors and musicians including Elgar, Sibelius, Holst, Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams and Thomas Beecham; and more recently with Michael Tippett, John Tavener and Peter Maxwell Davies. Principal conductors since the founder Sir Dan Godfrey have included Charles Groves, Constantin Silvestri, Andrew Litton, Marin Alsop and now the dynamic young Ukrainian, Kirill Karabits. The BSO has toured worldwide, performing at Carnegie Hall, New York, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Vienna Musikverein, and Berlin Philharmonie, as well as regular British appearances at the Royal Festival Hall and Royal Albert Hall in London, the Symphony Hall in Birmingham and the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. The BSO is known internationally through over three hundred recordings, and continues to release numerous CDs each year with Naxos. Recent critically acclaimed recordings have included CDs of Bernstein, Bartók, Sibelius, Glass, Adams and Elgar, and three discs featuring arrangements of Mussorgsky, Bach and Wagner by Stokowski were nominated for GRAMMY awards in 2004, 2005 and 2006.

Booklet for Bliss: Meditations on a Theme by John Blow - Metamorphic Variations