Est 1923

Bryars Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Gavin Bryars

Label: Point Music

Media Format: Cassette

Media Runtime: 0

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: 438 823-4PTH

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Jesus' Blood never failed me yet Gavin Bryars, Composer
(Anonymous) Orchestra
Chorus
Gavin Bryars, Composer
Hampton Quartet
Michael Riesman, Conductor
Tom Waits, Singer

Composer or Director: Gavin Bryars

Label: Point Music

Media Format: Digitial Cassette

Media Runtime: 0

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: 438 823-5PTH

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Jesus' Blood never failed me yet Gavin Bryars, Composer
(Anonymous) Orchestra
Chorus
Gavin Bryars, Composer
Hampton Quartet
Michael Riesman, Conductor
Tom Waits, Singer

Composer or Director: Gavin Bryars

Label: Point Music

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 75

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: 438 823-2PTH

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Jesus' Blood never failed me yet Gavin Bryars, Composer
(Anonymous) Orchestra
Chorus
Gavin Bryars, Composer
Hampton Quartet
Michael Riesman, Conductor
Tom Waits, Singer
Jesus' Blood never failed me yet is built on the idea of untainted religious conviction: the fragile, trusting voice of a tramp, recorded solo then converted into a tape-loop and treated to a seamless, slowly evolving harmonic accompaniment. Although strong in visual suggestion the song itself (recorded in 1970) was actually discarded from material originally intended for a film about tramps in London. Gavin Bryars acquired the tape from filmmaker Alan Powers, composed a chordal backing and married it to a separate 16mm film centring around the idea of an old man walking towards the camera. Performances followed (both with and without the film), and the first phase of the work' s evolution climaxed in a recording made for Brian Eno's Obscure label back in 1975. Michael Nyman was one of the participating performers, while the LP coupling—Bryars's The Sinking of the Titanic incorporated material conducted by John Adams. It was a significant first release for an exciting new label, but Jesus' Blood never failed me yet didn't really appeal beyond a relatively small band of initiates. It has taken CD superior media coverage and the now-widely accepted, variously 'minimalist' musical languages of Philip Glass (the current recording's executive producer), Reich, even Gorecki, to pave the way for a wider acceptance of Bryars's masterpiece.
In calling it a masterpiece, I don't believe that I'm overstating the case. The sum-effect of the work, whether in 1975 or 1993, is rather akin to having the main protagonist placed within a variety of visual contexts: a park bench, perhaps, or a shop doorway, a city thoroughfare, or a field at dusk. For me, each setting seems to reflect the one essential idea simple faith in the midst of life.
But the two versions are in fact quite unalike For the first 25 minutes of the re-make, Bryars keeps his design very much as it was: the old man alone, backed first by a quietly supportive string quintet, then by winds, brass and pizzicato guitar. However, we're en route not for 25, but nearly 75 minutes of continuous music, and the succeeding sections greatly expand on the relatively modest textures of Bryars's original. Cellos, basses, horns trombones, contrabassoon and varieties of percussion carry the piece through five phases, each clothing the voice in a new swathe of sonority—warm, lustrous, sympathetic and deeply nostalgic. The tam-tam is often prominent, as the organ is later on; but the real difference between the old and the new reveals itself in the last 21 or so minutes of the revision, where the grainy voice of Tom Waits casually enters into a posthumous duet (the tramp had died years before), the folksy 'pro' set alongside the tramp's private, restrained musings. Ultimately, Waits is the only voice that survives.
At first, I recoiled, thinking the newcomer too stylized by far. But then, as the work gradually drew towards its high-reaching, ethereal close and Waits himself wandered into the aural distance the idea suddenly dawned: the old man may have died, but his faith lives on. The effect is ultimately poignant, a fitting conclusion to a beautiful work minimalist in its basic musical language, but universal in its message and impact.'

Bryars Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet

Jesus' Blood never failed me yet

Bryars Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet

Jesus' Blood never failed me yet

Bryars Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet

Jesus' Blood never failed me yet

Discover the world's largest classical music catalogue with Presto Music. 

Stream on Presto Music | Buy from Presto Music

Gramophone Print

  • Print Edition

From £6.67 / month

Subscribe

Gramophone Digital Club

  • Digital Edition
  • Digital Archive
  • Reviews Database
  • Full website access

From £8.75 / month

Subscribe

                              

If you are a library, university or other organisation that would be interested in an institutional subscription to Gramophone please click here for further information.