Sir Arthur Bliss (1891-1975)
Cello Concerto (1970)
Guy Johnston (cello)
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Andrew Manze
rec. 2024, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool
Available only as a download
Onyx 4269 [25]
By 1970, Sir Arthur Bliss had been very quiet for several years on the compositional front. At seventy-eight years of age he had been in the public eye for fifty years and many people must have thought he had retired from writing music for the bigger canvas. The work he wrote that spring for Mstislav Rostropovich was performed at the summer Aldeburgh Festival with Britten conducting the English Chamber Orchestra. The concert began with Schubert’s Unfinished, the Bliss work (in those days called a concertino, by the way) came before the interval. After the break, Rostropovich and Britten returned for the host’s Cello Symphony. The concert went out live on BBC Radio 3. There was an Intaglio CD floating around once, containing a taping of the Bliss performance. The first London performance happened a couple of years after the Aldeburgh premiere, when Julian Lloyd-Webber played it at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with one of Ruth Gipps’ orchestras. Later in the 1970s for HMV, the Finnish partnership of Arto Noras and Paavo Berglund made a record with the Bournemouth SO (review). Cellists Raphael Wallfisch (Chandos), Robert Cohen (Argo) and Tim Hugh (Naxos) followed up with readings that can all be recommended.
Bliss’s Cello Concerto is the real deal. It is a very fine work and can stand tall amongst the giants of the British twentieth century repertory, even amongst first division works like those by Elgar, Finzi and Walton. Its small discography is surprising to me, and I was excited to download this new recording on the Onyx label. The concert taping was made last year at a concert in Liverpool, which ended with a performance of Holst’s The Planets. I understand the Cello Concerto was inserted into the program quiet late on after Mark Bebbington had to pull out of the originally scheduled Bliss Piano Concertodue to an injury. Onyx is offering the Cello Concerto only as a download. They do not currently couple it with anything else, so the overall timing is just under 25 minutes. These factors may or may not be a factor in your decision to purchase. What I can assure you, however, is that Guy Johnston supported by the RLPO and Andrew Manze give a stunning account of the work that demands to be heard. I do hope Onyx’s release strategy does not deny lovers of the piece the chance to do so.
The concerto is lightly scored with care and delicacy. It can at first perhaps seem quite elusive, rhapsodic and enigmatic, but it has a deep heartfelt serenity and moments of such nobility and grandeur. The writing for the solo cello is very virtuosic. The soloist hardly gets a moment of repose in the whole piece and the technique required is formidable. The first movement is named allegro deciso – I take that to mean “determined”. In the first section, lasting until about 4:42, Bliss is laying out his principal motific ideas. They are strongly formed and assuredly sung out here by Guy Johnston with a full virile tone. At the end of this first part Bliss writes an extended cadenza for the soloist, first with harp in company then starkly alone. This central section with its accompanying epilogue is really the development part of the movement. At 6:51 the music is expressive and mysterious. The pace has slowed, and a celesta plays bell tones as the cello harmonises above. The main theme comes back at 7:21 but in this recapitulation Bliss is still developing the motifs continuously. What beauty as the cello line rises above that bed of sound at 8:45, reaching a plateau of dreaminess to die for (9:30). Bliss’s coda with its pizzicato four note accompaniment is Elgarian in its elegiac loveliness. Guy Johnston’s beauty of line is magnificent and his legato and steadiness of tone are special.
Guy Johnston’s first movement is faster than the four other recorded versions by a good margin. This is most keenly felt at the onset of the movement when Bliss is most vigorous and rhythmic. Johnston’s bravura manner is wonderful and entirely right, I feel. He is equally adept in the more introspective and lyrical moments, too, and these do not feel rushed. Rostropovich’s first movement timing of 11:09 is closer to Johnston’s of 10:58 than his colleagues who range from Noras at 12:08 to Cohen who took 13:43. I wouldn’t want to be without any of the records of this work. That Argo record with Cohen for instance (review) is heavenly in the rapt idyllic stillness of the central scene and the recording complements the new version wonderfully showing how two differing visions of a masterpiece can be equally valid in their own way.
The second movement is a larghetto. The rocking motion at the start varies through the span but never seems to really settle into a convincing calmness. The tone of the music is elegant and delicate. It is a sad song that our soloist sings and how earnestly Guy Johnston sings it. He brings the right amount of gentleness to it, yet he can evoke real poignancy with a stroke, too. I find his assured playing and his sostenuto incredibly convincing. I do also like Arto Noras in this movement he is far more understated than Johnston but how pure, how honest. The sound HMV engineered almost fifty years ago on the South Coast is still impressive, natural and well balanced. The newcomer sounds rich and resonant, and we hear Johnston’s magnificent cello in technicolour close-up. Audiophiles will not be disappointed.
Bliss’s concerto ends with excitement and high energy. The main thrust of the finale is boisterous and exuberant but as usual with Bliss, it is contrasted with a tune of exquisite lyricism and poetry. Conductor Andrew Manze joins Johnston in going for dash and a quicksilver panache of delivery. Once again, the Onyx technical team succeed in getting the dynamics perfectly graded. The soloist is definitely front and foremost, yet I hear all the interesting orchestral embellishments vividly, too. This is a real sonic success.
I have been increasingly impressed with Manze’s prowess on record recently, especially in British music. His Elgar 1 in Germany that I reviewed earlier this year was very good, and his Vaughan Williams needs no special pleading from me. Guy Johnston has also made home repertory a strength as well, with a good representation of British works in his catalogue. I believe this to be Guy Johnston’s finest performance thus far on record and I hope we get the opportunity to hear him again soon.
Philip Harrison
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