Bliss’s work interleaves the scriptural texts with a commentary of orchestral material and poem settings for soloists and chorus. The choice of poets seems idiosyncratic. Using two 17th-century divines (Henry Vaughan and George Herbert) predictably fits with the tastes of the period, but then to encounter Dylan Thomas is a shock. That said, Bliss weaves these disparate elements into a convincing and unique whole. The three Herbert texts Bliss uses (Easter, I Got Me Flowers, The Call) will be familiar to those who know the Five Mystical Songs of Vaughan Williams, but they are treated in a sensitive but utterly different way. The Thomas setting (And Death Shall Have No More Dominion) matches the force of the text and is one of the high points of the score.

Davis and his BBC forces are adept at bringing out the subtleties of Bliss’s multi-hued tonal palette, which is well captured by the Chandos engineers. The sweet-toned soloists combine with the well-drilled chorus in effectively conveying the texts.

Two smaller works fill out the program. Introduction and Allegro was written in 1926 after the composer had heard a number of American orchestras, including the Philadelphia under Stokowski, to whom he dedicated the work. Its quasi-baroque inflections would have appealed to the dedicatee. Bliss’s 1969 arrangement of God Save the Queen unusually sets three stanzas, allowing him to include some ebullient fanfares and interludes, without approaching the solemnity of the well-known Gordon Jacob version.

If British mid-century modern is your thing, do sample these gems.