Composer: Arthur Bliss
Performer: Dame Sarah Connolly, James Platt, BBC Symphony Chorus
Orchestra: BBC Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Sir Andrew Davis
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Chandos
Release: 2019
Size: 1.3 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
The Enchantress, F. 157
01. No. 1, Bring Me the Laurel Leaves
02. No. 2, Oh Moon, Shine Fair
03. No. 3, Silent the Sea
04. No. 4, How I Saw Him in the Street
05. No. 5, And Now in the Fire I Fling You
Meditations on a Theme by John Blow, F. 118
06. Introduction. The Lord Is My Shepherd
07. No.1, He Leadeth Me Beside the Still Waters
08. No. 2, Thy Rod and Staff They Comfort Me
09. No. 3, The Lambs
10. No. 4, He Restoreth My Soul
11. No. 5, In Green Pastures
12. Interlude. Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death
13. Finale. In the House of the Lord
Mary of Magdala, F. 31
14. I. Ashen the Sky
15. II. At Last, at Last
16. III. Look There, Look There
17. IV. Why Trouble Ye Her?
18. V. The Proud Aegyptian Queen
19. VI. Surely This Was the Place
20. VII. But What Are Those Two Strangers
21. VIII. But Who Is That Yonder
22. IX. Mary, Mother Was the Pleasant Blower
Bliss composed The Enchantress in 1951, the year of his sixtieth birthday, for Kathleen Ferrier. The text is a free adaptation of the Second Idyll of Theocritus, made by Henry Reed, and well suited to Bliss’s love of classical Greek authors. Meditations on a Theme by John Blow, from 1955, was written for the CBSO, the first in a number of commissions from the John Feeney Trust. Described as a sacred cantata, Mary of Magdala was Bliss’s second Feeney Trust commission, composed during 1962 and 1963. For a libretto, Bliss turned to Christopher Hassall, his collaborator on three previous works, including The Beatitudes. The BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus give of their best under their former chief conductor Sir Andrew Davis, and the contributions from the soloists, Dame Sarah Connolly and James Platt, are outstanding. Recorded in Surround Sound.