Sir Arnold Bax

[Albion]

It's true that the Naxos Bax covers were nothing special (I liked nos 4 and 6 however). Nevertheless they were incomparably better that the dreary Lyrita LP sleeves (identical but with different colour scheme)

Lyrita occasionally erred and strayed from the path of common sense when it came to their LP covers, but at least they didn't go down the Westminster path in an effort to be "quirky". One of the loveliest series of covers is the Chandos orchestral Cyril Scott...



...yummy. Covers ARE important, and they need to be appropriate to the music on the disc(s). My Dog, there have been innumerable horrors perpetrated by record companies. I have great hopes for the Naxos Bax repackage which may or may not be realised, we'll see. But I think the actual box itself looks very attractive.

[Albion]

YES! The individual discs have new and very attractive designs, this brief Naxos promotion goes through each disc in turn. Happy days...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWL9allcHUY

...Naxos have done Bax proud. As I mentioned earlier, I just wish that Chandos would now get their huge Bax catalogue into some coherent shape.

 

[Karl Henning]

YES! The individual discs have new and very attractive designs, this brief Naxos promotion goes through each disc in turn. Happy days...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWL9allcHUY

Even before you posted this, I went ahead and pre-ordered the set. The old Bax-shy me is whispering that this is excessive, but in fact the list of Bax pieces which I unreservedly enjoy has been expanding. I want to go back ... I seem to recall not thinking much of the Symphony I heard in the Barbirolli box (the Fifth, if I do not misremember), but I am prepared to consider that I may have given it the cold shoulder.

[Albion]

Even before you posted this, I went ahead and pre-ordered the set. The old Bax-shy me is whispering that this is excessive, but in fact the list of Bax pieces which I unreservedly enjoy has been expanding. I want to go back ... I seem to recall not thinking much of the Symphony I heard in the Barbirolli box (the Fifth, if I do not misremember), but I am prepared to consider that I may have given it the cold shoulder.

I just love the fact that Naxos have clearly taken a great deal of trouble over this convenient repackaging of Bax. After all 140 isn't even a particularly significant anniversary, but thanks be to Dog that we didn't have to wait another ten years for them to get round to it! Lots of punters see Naxos as a "cheap and cheerful" label, but it's now right up there with Hyperion, CPO, BIS, Dutton and Chandos (et al) in terms of enterprising repertoire and excellent performances that put the so-called "major" labels to shame (with their generally dismal cross-over artist-driven crap)...

 

[vandermolen]

Even before you posted this, I went ahead and pre-ordered the set. The old Bax-shy me is whispering that this is excessive, but in fact the list of Bax pieces which I unreservedly enjoy has been expanding. I want to go back ... I seem to recall not thinking much of the Symphony I heard in the Barbirolli box (the Fifth, if I do not misremember), but I am prepared to consider that I may have given it the cold shoulder.

Barbirolli conducted No.3 Karl (first recording of any Bax symphony I think).

[vandermolen]

Lyrita occasionally erred and strayed from the path of common sense when it came to their LP covers, but at least they didn't go down the Westminster path in an effort to be "quirky". One of the loveliest series of covers is the Chandos orchestral Cyril Scott...



...yummy. Covers ARE important, and they need to be appropriate to the music on the disc(s). My Dog, there have been innumerable horrors perpetrated by record companies. I have great hopes for the Naxos Bax repackage which may or may not be realised, we'll see. But I think the actual box itself looks very attractive.

Yes, those are great covers!

[Karl Henning]

Barbirolli conducted No.3 Karl (first recording of any Bax symphony I think).

Thanks, Jeffrey. I am enjoying No. 5 ... and the Third has immediately drawn me in.

[Irons]

Barbirolli conducted No.3 Karl (first recording of any Bax symphony I think).

At least he did one! I wonder why Boult did not record a Bax Symphony? I would think the 5th is tailor made for Sir Adrian.

[Albion]

At least he did one! I wonder why Boult did not record a Bax Symphony? I would think the 5th is tailor made for Sir Adrian.

It's definitely a gap in the Boult discography. Although he didn't set down a symphony for posterity he definitely performed several of them and his recording for Lyrita is splendid...

[Albion]

Now onto



In his early period (this is 1916) did Bax scribble anything more gorgeous than In Memoriam (possibly Spring Fire)? I love Havergal Brian's overture (1910) of the same name: such a contrast of idioms but each equally compelling. I may be biased (Saints forfend) but the breadth and sheer quality of so much early twentieth century British music never ceases to amaze me AND IT'S NEVER BLOODY PROGRAMMED...

 

Curiously, my CD cover titles it The Bard of Dimbovitza, what the hell it's another lovely work.

[Albion]

And now...



This is a superb display of Bax's range and shows that he was not quite so easily assigned to the "one style and that's it" category (as I mentioned with regard to Holst, who was admittedly an extreme example). Here you have Elgar-Walton-Ireland type celebratory pomp in London Pageant, wistful reserve in the Concertante, Rimsky-esque glamour in a selection from the uncompleted early ballet Tamara (beautifully orchestrated by Graham Partlett) and a bit of Celtic nostalgia in Cathaleen-ni-Hoolihan. This disc is now out of print so if you can find a copy second-hand grab it because Martyn Brabbins and the BBC Philharmonic give really excellent performances...

 

[vandermolen]

I think that there's a recording out there somewhere of Barbirolli conducting Symphony No.6 (maybe a Proms broadcast) but that's as much as I know.

[Albion]

We are still waiting for Lyrita to release their 1994 Vernon Handley recordings of three overtures: Rogue's Comedy (which he later set down for Chandos), Overture to Adventure and Work in Progress. Douglas Bostock recorded the Overture to Adventure for ClassicO coupled with what I still think is an underrated rendition of the 6th. It would be very nice to have these earlier Handley overtures...

 

[Albion]

I think that there's a recording out there somewhere of Barbirolli conducting Symphony No.6 (maybe a Proms broadcast) but that's as much as I know.

Yep, Barbirolli gave the Proms premiere of the sixth on 26th August 1953 with the Hallé but I don't know if it was broadcast and if it was I've never been able to source a recording...

 

Once upon a time, Bax did fairly well at the Proms (almost invariably conducted by Basil Cameron) -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/events/composers/9138c4da-1959-445c-8ac8-ba917ec84b3a/works

I'd like to hear Barbirolli's arrangement of the Oboe Quintet (9th August 1968), I bet that was fun.

[Albion]

Is there any other significant symphonist who stuck so rigidly to a three-movement structure other than Bax? It works perfectly well for him throughout the seven and once he got the idea of an epilogue in the third movement he was pretty much set up with (quite honestly) a winning formula. As a pupil of Frederick Corder (1852-1932) at the RAM he was accused of having no sense of symphonic form (as were Bantock, Holbrooke and Bowen). What utter bloody rubbish! Corder gave them freedom to explore any new music that they could lay their hands on and guided rather then proscribed (which Stanford did at the RCM). It's fascinating to see the difference in reputation between the RCM school (Vaughan Williams, Holst, Coleridge-Taylor, Hurlstone, Ireland, etc) and that from the RAM. All of the RAM school had a quirky but sound sense of form: Bantock's symphonies are symphonic poems, but still function as satisfactory symphonies, Holbrooke's are even more peculiar but Apollo and the Seaman (No.2) and Ships (No.3) are perfectly cogent, whilst Bowen's second is quite splendid. After all, Alexander Mackenzie, head of the RAM was essentially a rhapsodist, as was Corder. Anyway, Bax clearly knew precisely what he was doing with laying out the motivic material in the opening bars of his symphonies and then drawing a convincing structure from those fragments. People think of his music as an undisciplined voluptuous wallow - it ain't.

 

[relm1]

Is there any other significant symphonist who stuck so rigidly to a three-movement structure other than Bax? It works perfectly well for him throughout the seven and once he got the idea of an epilogue in the third movement he was pretty much set up with (quite honestly) a winning formula. As a pupil of Frederick Corder (1852-1932) at the RAM he was accused of having no sense of symphonic form (as were Bantock, Holbrooke and Bowen). What utter bloody rubbish! Corder gave them freedom to explore any new music that they could lay their hands on and guided rather then proscribed (which Stanford did at the RCM). It's fascinating to see the difference in reputation between the RCM school (Vaughan Williams, Holst, Coleridge-Taylor, Hurlstone, Ireland, etc) and that from the RAM. All of the RAM school had a quirky but sound sense of form: Bantock's symphonies are symphonic poems, but still function as satisfactory symphonies, Holbrooke's are even more peculiar but Apollo and the Seaman (No.2) and Ships (No.3) are perfectly cogent, whilst Bowen's second is quite splendid. After all, Alexander Mackenzie, head of the RAM was essentially a rhapsodist, as was Corder. Anyway, Bax clearly knew precisely what he was doing with laying out the motivic material in the opening bars of his symphonies and then drawing a convincing structure from those fragments. People think of his music as an undisciplined voluptuous wallow - it ain't.

 

I don't think Bax stuck rigidly to a three movement structure.  He's clearly inspired by Sibelius where movements become fluid. Most significantly in Sibelius No. 7 single movement but elsewhere how he blurs the lines between allegro and largo - finale and first movement.  I personally see this as an expansion of Beethoven symphonic structure and Russian interpretation of Beethoven structure. 

[Albion]

I don't think Bax stuck rigidly to a three movement structure.  He's clearly inspired by Sibelius where movements become fluid. Most significantly in Sibelius No. 7 single movement but elsewhere how he blurs the lines between allegro and largo - finale and first movement.  I personally see this as an expansion of Beethoven symphonic structure and Russian interpretation of Beethoven structure. 

"Rigidly" was perhaps the wrong term that I used, but the format clearly suited Bax. In effect, his epilogues turn the symphonies into 3-and-a-half movements. Let's face it, sometimes that's better than four...

 

[vandermolen]

Yep, Barbirolli gave the Proms premiere of the sixth on 26th August 1953 with the Hallé but I don't know if it was broadcast and if it was I've never been able to source a recording...

 

Once upon a time, Bax did fairly well at the Proms (almost invariably conducted by Basil Cameron) -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/events/composers/9138c4da-1959-445c-8ac8-ba917ec84b3a/works

I'd like to hear Barbirolli's arrangement of the Oboe Quintet (9th August 1968), I bet that was fun.

Many years ago I heard the 5th Symphony in a sadly half-empty Albert Hall.

[vandermolen]

"Rigidly" was perhaps the wrong term that I used, but the format clearly suited Bax. In effect, his epilogues turn the symphonies into 3-and-a-half movements. Let's face it, sometimes that's better than four...

 

Honegger tended to favour a three movement format I think (certainly in symphonies 2 and 3).

[Roasted Swan]

We are still waiting for Lyrita to release their 1994 Vernon Handley recordings of three overtures: Rogue's Comedy (which he later set down for Chandos), Overture to Adventure and Work in Progress. Douglas Bostock recorded the Overture to Adventure for ClassicO coupled with what I still think is an underrated rendition of the 6th. It would be very nice to have these earlier Handley overtures...

 

errmm..... here??