Reviews – The Sir Arnold Bax Website

Northampton Symphony Orchestra plays Bax Symphony 1

Review by Stephen Morris. I first encountered Bax when I was 14 years old. Bored rigid by the pop music of the early 1980s, I started pulling records (vinyl, naturally) at random from Wrexham Library – 10p per record per week – until I found out what I really liked. Stumbling upon the Fifth Symphony…
Sheffield Symphony Orchestra

Sheffield in South Yorkshire is a city I have never previously visited and was known to me only as the home of the annual World Snooker championship. But on Saturday 10 June, it proved the unlikely venue for an even more unlikely concert devoted entirely to English music with Bax’s Third Symphony the pièce de…
Bax Complete Symphonies

Almost 20 years have passed since the 50th anniversary commemoration of the death of Sir Arnold Bax and the concurrent release of Vernon Handley’s complete set of Bax symphonies on Chandos. That set received enormous amounts of media attention and became the ‘go-to’ set for the Bax symphonies.
‘From the Hills of Dream’ The forgotten songs of Arnold Bax

Superlative liner notes from Graham Parlett, added to full texts and a loving presentation from EM Records, make ‘From the Hills of Dream’ an attractive prospect. But does the music of Bax’s forgotten songs justify such quality treatment? Christopher Webber asks the question …
‘London Nights’ – Review

An absorbing recital of English piano music, from the acclaimed Schubert specialist Franzisca Lee on the Capriccio label, is bookended by two, great 1st Sonatas: Tippett’s coming-of-age breakthrough and Bax’s Russian-inspired confessional dominate her programme, which also includes substantial works by Britten, Bridge and Ireland. Christopher Webber reviews…
The Holy Boy – CD review

If you are looking for a perfect stocking-stuffer for your music-loving friend who also has a liking for British song and composers, then I’ve got the perfect suggestion for you. Bass-Baritone Timothy Dickinson and pianist Duncan Honeybourne have combined their considerable talents to create a gorgeous disc of yuletide songs by British composers that features…
Frank Merrick – The Legacy Recordings

Harriet Cohen’s influence on Sir Arnold Bax’s music was arguably greatest on his piano music for which she was his muse and frequent dedicatee as well as constant performer. It is therefore surprising that she recorded so little of it commercially aside from the Viola Sonata with William Primrose and a handful of piano miniatures.…
Review by Christopher Webber – Frank Merrick and Henry Holst play Bax Violin Sonatas, etc.

Frank Merrick & Henry Holst (Nimbus Grand Piano, 4 CD set) Hot on the heels of Nimbus’s Frank Merrick: A Recorded Legacy, a bumper box of 9 CDs centred on the pianist’s pioneering recordings of Bax’s sonatas and a handful of shorter works – including Paean which was dedicated to him – comes this equally…
The Trio Partout plays Bax, Debussy, Harald Genzmer and Johannes Maria Staud.

Play of Colours (Farbenspiel) Trio Partout. The reason Bax’s Elegiac Trio has been recorded so frequently – more often than any other of his works excepting Tintagel and the Clarinet Sonata – has something to do with its delectable brevity, but more to do with the fact that it makes an ideal companion to Debussy’s…
Review by Graham Parlett – Natalia Williams-Wandoch plays piano music by Sir Arnold Bax

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…
Review by Christopher Webber: Private Passions

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…
Review by Richard R. Adams – Ireland, Delius, Bax

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 his close friend John Ireland from the same year. The third item on this disc…
Review by Christopher Webber – Bax: Symphony No.2 (1924-6)

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 CDBP 9779): If I’m less enthusiastic about the off-air Symphony No.2, that’s no reflection on…
Christopher Webber reviews the latest Naxos disc from the Carice Singers

Given the power of Bax’s symphonies and tone poems, it is easy sometimes to forget the equal mastery of his major piano and chamber works, let alone the best of his countless productions for the human voice. Hearing this excellent new recording of Bax’s major unaccompanied (or in one case, slightly accompanied) choral pieces is…
Philip Mead’s Private Invitation Concert

At 2 p.m. on the afternoon of Saturday, 14 January 2017, the distinguished pianist Philip Mead began a marathon all-Bax programme in the Recital Room of Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge—a very rare event that included two world premières. The concert was listed as a ‘private piano recital’, by invitation only, and thus the audience…
‘For the Fallen’

‘For the Fallen’, Elgar: The Spirit of England Op.80*, A Voice in the Wilderness Op.77$, Grania and Diarmid Op.42#, Bax: In Memoriam, Hallé Choir and Orchestra, Rachel Nicolls (soprano)*; Joshua Ellicott (narrator), Jennifer France (soprano)$; Madeleine Shaw (mezzo-soprano)#, Sir Mark Elder, conductor, Hallé CD HLL 7544 [67:15] Review by Christopher Webber It may come as…
Premiere Recording of Bax’s early Orchestral Variations on Dutton

Bax: Variations for Orchestra and works by George Butterworth and Cyril Scott (all premieres) Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Aleksei Kiseliov (cello) Martin Yates, conductor Dutton Epoch CDLX7326 [61:55] Review by Richard R. Adams Martin Yates continues his resurrection efforts on behalf of British composers by giving us a disc of recorded premieres including a Fantasia…
BBC Symphony Orchestra and Orama perform Bax’s The Garden of Fand in concert

Wednesday 13 April 2016, 7.30 pm The Barbican Hall BBC Symphony Orchestra Bax: The Garden of Fand Brett Dean: Viola Concerto Elgar: Symphony No. 1 Sakari Oramo conductor – Brett Dean viola Review by Roger Ogle Live concert performances of orchestral Bax are not an everyday occurrence in London nowadays, so it was good to…
Cello Concertos by Arnold Bax and Stanley Bate

Cello Concertos by Arnold Bax and Stanley Bate Lionel Handy, cello Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Martin Yates, conductor Lyrita SRCD.351 Review by Richard R. Adams First a confession: I’ve always found Bax’s Cello Concerto to be a tough nut to crack. Bax found it difficult to write and to me it sounds as though some…
Historic Bax from Boyd Neel on Lyrita

Lyrita issue the 1961 premiere of Bax’s Fauré Variations Benjamin: Ballade for String Orchestra Stevens: Sinfonietta for Strings Panufnik: Lullaby ‘Kolysanka’ for 29 strings and 2 harps Bax: Variations on the name Gabriel Fauré for harp and string orchestra The Boyd Neel Orchestra, c. Boyd Neel Berkeley: Sinfonietta for chamber orchestra London Chamber Orchestra, c.…
“After Mozart” CD features works for Flute including Bax’s “Elegiac Trio”

After Mozart… Music for Flute, Harp and Strings by Mozart, Bax, Debussy, Harty and Faure Sarah Newbold, flute; Katherine Thomas, Harp; David Angel, violin; Martin Outram, viola & Michal Kaznowski, cello. Recorded a St. German’s Church, Cardiff on 21 and 22 May, 2015 Gemma Classical Music Trust DRD 263 This CD can be ordered from…
British Violin and Cello Concertos by Benjamin, Moeran, Bax and Walton

Bax Violin Concerto: Andre Gertler, violin; Sir Malcolm Sargent conductor BBC Symphony Orchestra BBC Broadcast 6 February 1957 Lyrita REAM 2114 Mono ADD Review by Richard R. Adams Bax had good reason to be pessimistic toward the end of his life. He had only to compare the number of performances any of his symphonies had…
Bax’s early Symphony in F – Premiere recording on Dutton

Arnold Bax: Symphony in F (realized and orchestrated by Martin Yates) Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Martin Yates (c.) Dutton CDLX 7308 [TT=78:28] [rec. RSNO Centre, Henry Wood Hall, Glasgow, 15–16 August 2013. Producer: Michael Ponder. Sound Engineers: Dexter Newman, Dillon Gallagher. Editor: Richard Scott] Review by Graham Parlett, who writes about the origins of the…
Benjamin Martin plays Bax Piano Sonata No. 3 on Melba

“In the Wake of the Great War” (Works for piano by Delius, Vaughan Williams, Bax, Bridge and Martin) Benjamin Martin, piano Bax recorded live on 10 October 2006. Delius/Vaughan Williams recorded 2006. Bridge/Martin recorded 2009. Melba MR301146 Review by Richard R. Adams Benjamin’s Martin’s father was the British violinist Christopher John Martin, a founding member…
Vernon Handley conducts the complete Bax symphonies

Arnold BAX (1883-1953) Complete symphonies (1922-39) Overture: Rogue’s Comedy (1936) Tintagel (1919) BBC Philharmonic Orchestra/Vernon Handley Recorded in Studio 7, BBC Broadcasting House, Manchester, 4 January 2002 to 5 September 2003 CHANDOS CHAN 10122 (Five CD set)[355’28] Review by Graham Parlett When Vernon Handley recorded Bax’s Fourth Symphony with the Guildford Philharmonic in 1964…
The Irish Piano

Michael McHale RTELYRICCD139 This is Michael McHale’s first solo album and it’s a charmer. This up-and-coming pianist from Belfast first came to my attention a few years back as a member of the Ensemble Avalon and their release of a disc of Piano Trios by Bax, Beethoven and Bernstein. He has gone on to make…
BAX: Works for Cello and Piano

BAX: Works for Cello and Piano Lionel Handy, cello & Nigel Clayton, piano Sleeveless Records SLV 1007 Review by Richard R. Adams This is unquestionably the most exciting new Bax disc to be released in quite some time. For one thing, it features superlative performances of several lesser known Bax works by an artist who…
Bax’s Works for Viola – Viola Sonata and Viola Phantasy

Bax’s Works for Viola Viola Sonata and Viola Phantasy VIOLA SONATAS Idylls & Bacchanals. Louise Williams, viola & David Owen Norris, piano EM Records 2cds VIOLA SONATAS by Bax, Bliss and Vaughan Williams Christian Euler, viola & Paul Rivinius, piano. MDG SACD WORKS FOR VIOLA AND ORCHESTRA by Bax, Vaughan Williams, Theodore Holland & Richard…
Sir Andrew Davis conducts Bax Premieres on Chandos

THE SIR ARNOLD BAX WEB SITE Arnold Bax: Orchestral Works Four Orchestral Pieces (I. Pensive Twilight, II. Dance in the Sun, III. From the Mountains of Home [In the Hills of Home], IV. The Dance of Wild Irravel); Phantasy for Viola and Orchestra; Overture, Elegy and Rondo Philip Dukes (viola); BBC Philharmonic (leader, Yuri Torchinsky);…
Bax Gould Piano Trio – Review by Graham Parlett and Christopher Webber

Sir Arnold Bax Website Bax: Sonata in D for clarinet and piano; Sonata in E for clarinet and piano; Romance for clarinet and piano; Trio in B flat; Trio in one movement; Folk-Tale for cello and piano. Robert Plane (clarinet), Gould Piano Trio: Lucy Gould (vn.), Alice Neary (vc.), Benjamin Frith (pf.). Naxos 8.557698. Review…