MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

Buy through MusicWeb
for £12 postage paid World-wide.

Musicweb Purchase button

Sound Samples and Downloads

Arthur BLISS (1891-1975)
A Colour Symphony ((1921-22, rev. 1932) [32:29]
Metamorphic Variations (1972) [35:11]
BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra/Barry Wordsworth
rec. Brangwyn Hall, Swansea, 5-6 January 1991. DDD
full track-list below
NIMBUS NI 5294 [70.32]

Experience Classicsonline



 
It has been twenty years since the sessions for this disc. When first issued in Bliss’s centenary year the range of Bliss available was very narrow. Things are different now – a welcome transformation though we still await the great work that is The Beatitudes.
 
How does this CD at mid-full price hold up against other discs? Firstly let it be noted that there are no other similarly coupled discs so if you are intent on the famous Colour Symphony and his last major orchestral work then you will need this CD. As for the orchestra they are every bit the fine instrument that later resulted in them being used extensively by Nimbus and increasingly by Chandos. Let’s leave the composer’s own historic mono recording (Dutton Laboratories CDLXT2501, 1995 – originally Decca LP LXT 5170, 1955) of the Symphony in its own specialist compound. While Hickox is splendidly recorded – and incidentally with the same orchestra - (Chandos CHAN 10380, 2006). David Lloyd-Jones with the English Northern Philharmonia (Naxos 8.553460, 1996) is also very fine the real protagonists are Vernon Handley and the Ulster Orchestra (Chandos Classics CHAN 10221, 1987) and Sir Charles Groves and the Royal Philharmonic in analogue on EMI Classics British Composers 50999 586589. Groves’ laureate recording is, in the final and most demanding analysis, preferable in terms of expansive gravity, rapturous energy and honed rhythmic definition. Barry Wordsworth is no Bliss one-off. He also in 1994 recorded the Blow Meditations, Cello Concerto (Robert Cohen) and the Introduction and Allegro for Argo now reissued by Decca. His engaging way with the more feral moments in the first movement of the Symphony, in the sweetly serenading ‘Blue’ and the subtly built and lissom euphoric mood of the ‘Green’ finale. are strengths As for the large-scale Metamorphic Variations this has been well recorded by David Lloyd-Jones on Naxos. We should also remember the pioneering broadcast preserved on the now deleted CD Carlton BBC Radio Classics 15656 9168-2 issued in 1996. The intricate and intriguing Variations are haunting but represent a slow-burn even among Bliss fanatics. Bliss’s orchestral technique had been stropped to a finely honed edge and there is little of the congestion occasionally experienced in the writing of the symphony. That said there is a tendency to congealed density in the rowdily triumphant and at times Mahlerian Affirmation - finale. The Interjections movement muses on his own Music for Strings and on Britten’s Grimes interludes. Those castanets in Polonaise still come as a surprise. This was the work’s first commercial recording. It’s well worth exploring but do not expect to be instantly seduced – it abjures glamour in favour of the philosophically reflective and that is exactly how it ends.
 
The notes and the artwork are by the late George Dannatt who together with his wife was the dedicatee of the Variations.
 
Rob Barnett
 

 

A Colour Symphony
I Purple 6.17
II Red 7.26
III Blue 10.21
IV Green 8.25

Metamorphic Variations
I Elements 3.50
II Ballet 1.43
III Assertion 2.30
IV Speculation 1.51
V Interjections 3.29
VI Scherzo I 2.33
VII Contemplation 2.42
VIII Polonaise 3.26
IX Funeral Processions 3.57
X Cool Interlude 2.48
XI Scherzo II 1.39
XII Duet (John Senter - cello) 2.04
XIII Dedication 0.54
XIV Affirmation 4.14

 

 

 

 


 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.