Conceived in 1951 as a vehicle for the great Kathleen Ferrier, Bliss’s splendidly effective and abundantly characterful scena The Enchantress takes its text from the Second Idyll of Theocritus in a free adaptation by the composer’s poet friend, Henry Reed (1914 86). There’s formidable competition from Chandos’s own 1989 recording (7/91) featuring the contralto Linda Finnie in partnership with the Ulster Orchestra under Vernon Handley (who always was one of the composer’s most loyal champions), but Sarah Connolly’s thrillingly commanding and excitingly involving portrayal of the spurned Simaetha (who resorts to witchcraft to lure back her lover Delphis) demands to be heard, and she enjoys polished and committed backing from the excellent BBC SO under Andrew Davis.

Both remaining items were commissioned by the Feeney Trust, Meditations on a Theme by John Blow in 1955 and Mary of Magdala in 1962. First heard at the 1963 Three Choirs Festival in Worcester, the latter (here receiving its premiere recording) proved to be Bliss’s final collaboration with his favourite librettist, Christopher Hassall (1912 63), and bears a dedication to his memory. Intertwined with two poems by Edward Sherburne (1618-1702) and Rowland Watkins (1614 64), it’s an adaptation of the text from the Gospel of St John describing Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the risen Jesus. The resulting, immaculately crafted cantata exhibits an enviable discernment, intimacy of feeling, luminosity of texture and gentle radiance that are most gratifying (wonderfully tender woodwind-writing in the last section). Connolly is in lustrous voice once again, and there are notable contributions from the BBC Symphony Chorus and bass James Platt.

Bliss himself thought the Meditations one of his very best things, and there’s much to admire in this ambitious and shrewdly plotted set of variations based on a tune from John Blow’s 1677 verse anthem The Lord is my shepherd. Especially exquisite is the silk-spun delicacy of Meditation 3 (‘Lambs’) and serene poise of Meditation 5 (‘In green pastures’) – and, from 2'04" in the concluding processional, who could fail to respond to the violins’ exuberant decoration of that majestic quotation of Blow’s theme in its entirety? At the same time, there’s no missing the sinister undertow that frequently rises to the surface in this music, most potently so in the work’s penultimate Interlude (‘Through the valley of the shadow of death’) and just before the end of the work. Davis presides over a keenly idiomatic and agreeably purposeful account of this substantial and moving score that most closely resembles Handley’s rewarding August 1979 recording with the CBSO (Warner, 8/80).

Aficionados will naturally want to investigate this excellent release and can rest assured that both Ralph Couzens’s engineering and Andrew Burn’s annotation leave nothing to be desired.