Saturday October 26, 2019 at 19:30 Esplanade Concert Hall, Singapore Bax: Tintagel Bruch: Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra, Op.46 Vaughan Williams: Symphony no. 5 in D major Rachel Barton Pine, Violin Singapore Symphony Orchestra Michał Nesterowicz, Conductor
Continue reading →Piano Music by Arnold Bax on Usk Recordings. Hot on the heels of Mark Bebbington’s ‘Private Passions’ comes another splendid CD that also contains works that have never been recorded before. Natalia Williams-Wandoch has been playing the pieces included here at recitals over the past few years, and it was good news when we learned that she had decided to record them for the Usk label in January 2018. With a single exception—the slow movement of the Sonata in B flat—these are all world premières, and for that reason alone will be required listening for Bax enthusiasts.
Continue reading →Piano music by Arnold Bax and Harriet Cohen. Strangely, the only pieces here to be published in their own time were Cohen’s four, brief Russian Impressions, and I wish I could report that they were better than pleasant makeweights. I’m glad to have heard this first recording, but nothing in these derivative, oddly directionless miniatures made me eager to revisit Cohen the composer. As Germaine Greer puts it, mediocrity is mediocrity, even where its creator is female. Let’s be grateful that Harriet Cohen’s magnetic artistry and personality gave birth to Bax’s remarkable musical world, and that Mark Bebbington has brought some of their obscurer riches into the light of day. This is truly a disc to treasure.
Continue reading →A short celebration of the music of Sir Arnold Bax Monday June 18th, Lunchtime Concert, RH, 12.10pm. Bax Clarinet Sonata, performed by Joe Wallace (clarinet) and Veronika Tabakova (piano). Bax Piano Solos: Winter Waters – Eungi Chung The Princess’s Rose … Continue reading →
Sunday, August 12, 2018 3:00pm Idyll St Peter & Paul Church Arnold Fantasy for Horn op 88 Bridge Piano quintet in D minor Bax Octet [horn, piano, string sextet] MacMillan For Max Elgar Piano quintet in A minor op 84 … Continue reading →
John Pickard is among today’s most accomplished and performed 21st Century British composers. He was born in Burnley, Lancashire, England in 1963 and at an early age decided to become a composer. He studied music and composition at the University of Wales, with the Welsh composer William Mathias, and later in The Netherlands with Louis Andriessen and in 1989 was awarded a PhD in composition from the University of Wales. Since 1993 he has taught at the University of Bristol, where he is Professor of Composition and Applied Musicology and was Head of Music for four years (2009–13). John Pickard is also conductor of the University of Bristol Symphony Orchestra and Choral Society.
Continue reading →With this disc, Lionel Handy completes his survey of Bax’s cello music including the much-maligned Cello Concerto that appeared on an earlier Lyrita disc. Here he performs Bax’s Cello Sonata from 1923 and couples it with the cello sonata of … Continue reading →
Dr Clifford Wilfred Gillam, the founder of the original Arnold Bax Society, died peacefully on 2 June, seven weeks short of his 90th birthday. I first came across his name when I read an article by him in the Bax … Continue reading →
Self-quotation may be a sign of age, idleness or both; but I can’t avoid referring back to my 2007 review of this performance of Bax’s Symphony No.2, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sir Eugene Goossens in 1956 (Dutton … Continue reading →
03 and 04 June 2018 at 1200 Fundación Juan March, Madrid Dubois, Terzettino Bax, Elegiac Trio for flute, viola and harp Jolivet, Petite Suite Brotons, Ad Infinitum Ravel, Sonatine in F sharp major (Arreglo de Carlos Salzedo) Trío Vasnier
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