“Martin Suckling wrote Meditation (after Donne) as part of the 2018 centenary commemorations of World War One. Paul Conway says that it “marks the event with a musical response to the legacy of war and the feelings of commemoration, loss, anger and peace it evokes”. The piece is scored for chamber orchestra and sampled bell sounds. The composer describes the work as “a simple song for orchestra, with performers and audience surrounded by a constantly evolving tapestry of tolling bells created by live electronics”. Although one inevitably misses the multi-directional effect of a live performance, the work has an extraordinary power to move. The music echoes the plea for a shared humanity in John Donne’s Meditation XVII: “no man is an island, entire of itself […] any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”.
To my mind, Suckling’s work and Clyne’s elegy are the most substantial pieces in this very fine programme. [...]
All in all, this is a very fine disc, well played and recorded. It deserves serious recommendation.”