Bliss: Miracle in the Gorbals; Metamorphic Variations

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra | Michael Seal
Chandos CHSA 5370
Chandos.net

This is a release of genuine importance, one that demands the attention of anyone with a serious interest in twentieth-century British music. Arthur Bliss, a composer whose reputation has long rested somewhat uneasily in the shadow of his contemporaries, emerges here in vivid new light through two works that demonstrate the full range of his compositional powers.

Miracle in the Gorbals, perhaps now overshadowed by his earlier ballet Checkmate, was in fact a tremendous hit for Bliss and the Sadler's Wells Ballet company when it premiered in 1944. Its success led to its revival in every season until 1950. Based on a scenario by Michael Benthall—drawing inspiration from Jerome K. Jerome and Dostoyevsky—the ballet unfolds in Glasgow's most infamous slum, where a Christ-like Stranger appears and performs a miracle, reviving a Girl Suicide who has thrown herself into the Clyde in despair. The locals rejoice, but an official (Benthall had in mind a priest), consumed by jealousy, orchestrates the stranger's brutal death at the hands of a razor gang after a failed attempt to discredit him through the local prostitute.

Bliss's score is an arresting achievement, deploying a wide range of styles and harmonic language while ingeniously exploiting leitmotifs for the principal characters. Under Michael Seal's baton, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra delivers a performance with exceptional colour and emotional depth. The raw power of the timpani creates genuine drama, the full orchestral passages generate thrilling excitement, and the music depicting the Girl Suicide captures a sadness that is both profound and harmonically sophisticated. This is music-making that serves the narrative with complete conviction.

The coupling is equally significant. Originally titled Variations for Orchestra, the Metamorphic Variations were composed towards the end of Bliss's life during a late surge of creativity. Here lies the true revelation: two of the sixteen movements were dropped before the first performance by the LSO and Vernon Handley in 1973 and inexplicably remained absent from all subsequent performances until Michael Seal and the BBC Philharmonic reinstated them in February 2025—the day before making this recording. This is therefore the premiere recording of the work as Bliss conceived it, a fact that elevates this release from mere excellence to indispensability.

The Metamorphic Variations proves to be another impressive and substantial work, again making fabulous use of percussion. The Polonaise, with its castanets, is a particular highlight, demonstrating Bliss's flair for instrumental colour and rhythmic vitality. Throughout, the BBC Philharmonic responds with virtuosity and commitment, whilst Chandos provides engineering of their customary superb quality.

This is an exciting, important, and thoroughly enjoyable release that makes a compelling case for the re-evaluation of Arthur Bliss's achievement. Essential listening.