Sir Arnold Bax

[Dundonnell]

Looking forward to my copy of the new Chandos Bax CD arriving on Monday(?). It takes longer for my new CDs to reach Scotland!
Will be very interested to hear the Handley Northern Ballad No.1-which I have never heard before.

I have 'The Happy Forest' in the versions by Lloyd-Jones on Naxos(coupled with the 3rd symphony), by Thomson on Chandos(coupled with 'November Woods', 'The Garden of Fand' and 'Summer Music', and-lo and behold-I seem to have the Downes version as well on LP.
I had forgotten that LP! During the late 1990s and the last few years, as my CD collection expanded, I really ignored my LPs. Now I have my turntable working again I must give the Downes a spin!

I also have the original Handley version of Symphony No.4(my least favourite Bax symphony, I fear), conducting the Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra.

[tjguitar]

Me too but I have listened to it. I am very pleased to have another recording of Northern Ballad No 1. I am delighted with the disc and prefer the selection to Volume 1 but I marginally prefer Boult in the First Northern Ballad (Lyrita) and Thomson in Nympholept. This is still a must purchase for all Bax fans....a great CD.

What did you think of the orchestrated version of "Red Autumn" ?

[vandermolen]

What did you think of the orchestrated version of "Red Autumn" ?

Am listening to it now. It seems very characteristic although a bit diffuse on second hearing (at one point I thought it was turning into La Valse by Ravel!) but it is dramatic, stormily atmospheric and typically Baxian. I shall be returning to it again.

This is a very good CD although, probably my joint favourite Bax tone poem CD, along with the one below, which I strongly recommend, especially at its new reduced price. The older Thomson Chandos CD contains the beautiful and largely unknown "Christmas Eve".

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bax-Orchestral-Works-Vol-5/dp/B0000DIXS1/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1207549004&sr=1-2

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

This is a very good CD although, probably my joint favourite Bax tone poem CD, along with the one below, which I strongly recommend, especially at its new reduced price. The older Thomson Chandos CD contains the beautiful and largely unknown "Christmas Eve".

If I remember correctly, 'Christmas Eve' was coupled originally with the First Symphony. There is a great passage for organ, if I am not mistaken. Yes, beautiful piece.

[vandermolen]

If I remember correctly, 'Christmas Eve' was coupled originally with the First Symphony. There is a great passage for organ, if I am not mistaken. Yes, beautiful piece.

Yes it was. The ending of Christmas Eve is magical as is that of the "Festival Overture" despite its rather unpromising title.

[tjguitar]

Am listening to it now. It seems very characteristic although a bit diffuse on second hearing (at one point I thought it was turning into La Valse by Ravel!) but it is dramatic, stormily atmospheric and typically Baxian. I shall be returning to it again.

This is a very good CD although, probably my joint favourite Bax tone poem CD, along with the one below, which I strongly recommend, especially at its new reduced price. The older Thomson Chandos CD contains the beautiful and largely unknown "Christmas Eve".

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bax-Orchestral-Works-Vol-5/dp/B0000DIXS1/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1207549004&sr=1-2

Yeah, I have all those re-issued Thomson CDs.  V. 5 is one of my favorites. I still need to listen to the latest one (The Truth About Russian Dancers, From Dusk Til Dawn)

[Dundonnell]

If I remember correctly, 'Christmas Eve' was coupled originally with the First Symphony. There is a great passage for organ, if I am not mistaken. Yes, beautiful piece.

One of the joys of belonging to this site is being reminded of a piece one hadn't heard for years and returning to the CD machine. I have just listened to 'Christmas Eve' again on the original CD coupled with Thomson's version of the 1st symphony. The first half struck me as typically Baxian nature-painting, very pleasant but a little soporific but then it becomes more Sibelian and animated and proceeds to a gloriously rousing and emotional peroration with magnificent involvement of the organ.

Thanks for bringing it back to my notice!!

[vandermolen]

One of the joys of belonging to this site is being reminded of a piece one hadn't heard for years and returning to the CD machine. I have just listened to 'Christmas Eve' again on the original CD coupled with Thomson's version of the 1st symphony. The first half struck me as typically Baxian nature-painting, very pleasant but a little soporific but then it becomes more Sibelian and animated and proceeds to a gloriously rousing and emotional peroration with magnificent involvement of the organ.

Thanks for bringing it back to my notice!!

A pleasure Colin. The Festival Overture also starts out in a rather traditional way but turns into something moving by the end.

[Sean]

The prominent thing about Christmas eve is its evidence of Wagner's influence on Bax: there's a strong sense of chord after chord creating itself ex nihilo and without pregiven structure, but with great inevitability. Paean is another one that on paper shouldn't work, but whose motive sounds more fantastic the more it's repeated.

[vandermolen]

The prominent thing about Christmas eve is its evidence of Wagner's influence on Bax: there's a strong sense of chord after chord creating itself ex nihilo and without pregiven structure, but with great inevitability. Paean is another one that on paper shouldn't work, but whose motive sounds more fantastic the more it's repeated.

"Paen" is great fun.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

"Paen" is great fun.

Agreed. A terrible racket, completely OTT, but I always imagine the faces of worthies sitting stony-faced through it...

[vandermolen]

Agreed. A terrible racket, completely OTT, but I always imagine the faces of worthies sitting stony-faced through it...

I think "Triumphal din" was how I once saw it described.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I think "Triumphal din" was how I once saw it described.

(Remember by whom?)

[vandermolen]

(Remember by whom?)

Probably in a Penguin  or Gramophone CD guide but I just checked the ones on the shelf and that is not how it is described. I will look out for it.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Found it!! (Google is your friend - liner notes for the Chandos recording)

Paean

This passacaglia, based on a brief marching
motif, was written in 1920 as a piano solo for
Frank Merrick. It was orchestrated specially for
the Sir Henry Wood Jubilee Concert eighteen
years later (the full score is dated 14 April
1938) and provided an excuse to use the
large forces assembled on that occasion,
including bells and the Queen’s Hall organ, to
make a triumphal din.
© Lewis Foreman

[vandermolen]

Found it!! (Google is your friend - liner notes for the Chandos recording)

Paean

This passacaglia, based on a brief marching
motif, was written in 1920 as a piano solo for
Frank Merrick. It was orchestrated specially for
the Sir Henry Wood Jubilee Concert eighteen
years later (the full score is dated 14 April
1938) and provided an excuse to use the
large forces assembled on that occasion,
including bells and the Queen's Hall organ, to
make a triumphal din.
© Lewis Foreman

Yes, that's it. Well done Johan!

[Sean]

Seriously this is the most heartening thread on the forum. Those who know Bax here know some very interesting things about music and its expressive possibilities and language, and how unusual and subtle the rhapsodic style here is.

I got into Bax first with the Second symphony , perhaps his most coherent, but knowing nothing else about the music, and the Thompson recordings at first defeated me as many of the works seemed impenetrable even after repeated listening (the Downes recording of the Second actually emphasizes an almost Brahmsian sonata like outline to it).

But slowly his weird interrelations, murkiness and intensity percolated through my brain until I saw I think fairly suddenly what the heck he was doing, and Bax became an obssession- I collected 24 discs and even listened to no other composer for many months in the early '90s. I might also compare Bax's meta- or supra-logic to Strauss's, both of course getting it from Wagner.

Here's a few other of his works that made a great impression on me (not sure how far they've been covered here yet)-

Symphonic variations- vintage Bax, fabulously inventive, all with that sublety and complexity as ever hidden just below a surface inscrutability- absolutely ravishing, in the acclaimed Fingerhut recording. (I also recently read an enthusiastic Gramophone review of this at the time by chance, by the Strauss scholar Michael Kennedy).

The first two Violin sonatas- dreamy erotic, hedonistic and brain shiftingly subtle Bax.

The Cello concerto- an uneven work but again with some enormously compelling material once you're past the apparent surface wanderings.

Spring Fire- less developed textures than the regular symphonies but what a fabulous opening (old Handley recording).

Also the short work for solo cello, I forget the name (Rhapsodic ballad?)- the most austere of mediums with its edge bevelled.

There's so much to say about Bax. He'll continue to be misunderstood but a good set of his complete works is one box I'd buy.

Lastly, have any of the voice and piano songs been recorded?

[Christo]

Spring Fire- less developed textures than the regular symphonies but what a fabulous opening (old Handley recording)

Of course: the Spring Fire Symphony! I treasure that recording (an early Chandos, 1986) and I was happy enough to hear it performed live, in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, some four years ago.

[Grazioso]

To follow up on Sean's post, I've been wrangling with Bax for some time now. When I first read about him, I thought, "There's the composer for me." Then I listened and wasn't so sure (though Tintagel immediately struck home in all its glory). But with repeated listening, I've come to enjoy and be intrigued by his writing more and more. Particularly helpful in that regard has been listening to Lloyd-Jones's symphony cycle after trying to work through Handley's. The greater textural clarity and rhythmic incisiveness of the former has really been helping me appreciate these works better.

[vandermolen]

Totally agree with Sean about Symphonic Variations, a wonderfully atmospheric score. I have the Chandos recording and a much older one with Joyce Hatto and the Guildford Philharmonic conducted by Vernon Handley. I don't think that this is one of the fake Hatto recordings, but when I received the CD, I was sent as a freebie what I think is a fake Hatto recording of Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto. Both works were on the now infamous Concert Artist label set up by Hatto's husband.

Whatever the case, Hatto gives a fine performance. For many years this was one of the very few LPs available of Bax's music, together with Edward Downes's recording of Symphony 3 and Vernon Handley's Guildford version of Symphony 4 and The Tale the Pine Trees Know+ some piano music. Then Lyrita issued those great Bax symphonies LPs in the 1970s (which have recently all been issued on CD, although symphs 1 and 7 have been around for some time).