John Blow is undeniably the most distinguished English composer after Purcell in the last years of the seventeenth century. If just too variable to stand extended comparison with the great ‘Orpheus’, his expanding discography reveals a composer with a tongue of his own, an individuality of expression which is often extraordinarily well handled and a profile as a church composer seriously rivalling Purcell’s own. Indeed, Blow’s distinction rests primarily on his position as the major musical figure in the royal ‘establishment’, reflected in 34 unbroken years as Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal, arguably England’s last great ‘school’ of composition before the current century and certainly, under Blow’s helm, the last as a burgeoning centre of innovation. But even if, as John Caldwell puts it, his “star waned” as the prestige of church music declined with James II and William and Mary, he seems to have given English music a sense of continuity when it was badly needed.
In choosing a range of Blow’s best and most representative anthems, Peter Holman and David Hill have had quite a task on their hands: Blow was even more prolific than Purcell in this domain. They have sensibly cast their critical eyes over those works written in the ‘golden’ age of Charles II, several of whose reputations go before them (and in the process, overlooking occasional pieces such as I was glad, written for the inauguration of Wren’s St Paul’s in 1697). The dignity and sobriety of the fine coronation anthem God spake sometime in visions is a joy to behold and it is given a grand and spacious reading here. David Hill, ever the choral director to sustain and shape a line, is peerless in the opening paragraph. Simon Preston’s account is springy and energized but does not retain the same degree of momentum, though the consummatory “Amen, alleluia” is perhaps more dramatic. Here, as in other distinguished works like I beheld and lo!, the success of these new performances is determined by deft recognition of the structural strengths and solecisms of Blow’s music. As with a number of Purcell’s symphony anthems, Blow cannot always find the exit and needs a helping hand to get back on track. Hill has a breezy approach in such circumstances which serves him well, as in the overlong, if imaginative O give thanks unto the Lord. He is helped too by a pleasing integration between soloists, choir and instruments – caused as much by the sensitivity of soloists as adept recording – which ensures that occasional formal disparity does not find an ally in the textural isolation of ‘groups’ from one another.
Blow’s particular attraction is the disarming tunefulness of The Lord is my shepherd in the tradition of airiness which Pelham Humfrey had introduced to the chapel from his French sojourn, and touchingly performed by excellent soloists (even if the work does tail off rather towards the end). So, too, the idiomatic simplicity of expression of Turn thee unto me, where the fine treble soloist is complemented by a cathedral choir whose feel for the work’s gentle and intimate contours has a resigned elegance. In a similar vein is the tormented O Lord I have sinned, a work which has a distinctive Purcellian flavour with its chromatic inflexions and unpredictable contrapuntal movement. Yet it fails to plumb the depths as in the similar type of piece which became something of a Purcell speciality. Indeed, for all Blow’s quality there are several works here that just miss the mark despite their distinctive place in English Restoration musical life (for example, tracks 2 and 4 on the second disc). Listeners will find themselves thinking of Purcellian solutions, though as often (take Cry aloud, for instance) we can see Purcell’s achievement in perspective: he was not always in a class of his own. Whether or not such a state of affairs warrants two discs is arguable, but thanks to some persuasive musicianship, there is no doubt that this is an important addition to Hyperion’s The English Orpheus series.'