Separated by 63 years, two works by former Master of the King’s Music and Master of the Queen’s Music were given at the Barbican by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Elgar’s Variations on an Original Theme (“Enigma”) from 1899 was an overnight success, while Bliss’s The Beatitudes has only occasionally surfaced in performances since its ill-fated première in 1962. On Friday, Sir Andrew Davis, who two years ago conducted Bliss’ oratorio Morning Heroes with these same forces, gave an admirable and thoroughly committed account, which might be enough to prompt a reassessment of The Beatitudes now that it has also just been recorded with Chandos.
Scored for orchestra, chorus with soprano and tenor soloists, the work was planned as one of three commissions (Bliss, Britten and Tippett) to celebrate the opening of the newly rebuilt Coventry Cathedral, replacing the medieval structure destroyed during an air raid in the Second World War. When Britten’s War Requiem needed more rehearsal time in the cathedral, The Beatitudes was elbowed out for a performance in the unsuitable Belgrade Theatre. Only in 2012, a half a century later, was the work first heard at the cathedral.
Like Morning Heroes (and Pastorale), The Beatitudes comprises an anthology of texts and their selection by Christopher Hassall places the work midway between the sacred and secular; settings of three metaphysical poets (Henry Vaughan, George Herbert and Jeremy Taylor), Dylan Thomas and words from Isaiah formed a vigorous foil to the supplicatory Beatitudes of St Matthew. Bliss' choral writing is thoroughly English and distinctively personal, yet here an antagonistic posturing dominates. Dense orchestration and challenging vocal lines too often overwhelm a work that attempts to reconcile modern and pastoral idioms.