The Arnold Bax Concert November 1922

In a recent post I quoted W.R. Anderson in The Gramophone magazine. He mentioned the Bax Festival which took place in 13 November 1922 at the Queen’s Hall in London. Fortunately for musical historians Edwin Evans was in attendance and wrote the following review for the Musical Times. No commentary is needed on this piece, save to mention that the two Christmas Carols seem to have disappeared from view. It must have been a fantastic concert. 

It is raking up an old story to dwell upon the advisability or the reverse of devoting an entire concert to the works of one composer, but in this instance the hero of the adventure has come singularly well out of the ordeal, owing to the unusual variety of the works included in the programme; and his publishers, Messrs. Murdoch, who organized the concert at Queen's Hall on November 13, are to be doubly congratulated on its success, and on being able to present such a programme drawn exclusively from their own publications. Neither trouble nor expense had been spared in securing this satisfactory result.

The Goossens Orchestra with its conductor, the Oriana Madrigal Society under Mr. C. Kennedy Scott, Miss Harriet Cohen, Mr. Lionel Tertis, and Mr. John Coates constituted a formidable array of performers of the foremost rank. Even the programme itself was issued in a sumptuous form, and, what is perhaps equally important, was issued in advance.

Without injustice to other participants, it may be claimed that three events of the evening stand out prominently as in themselves sufficient to make the concert memorable. The first was a performance such as we have not had before of The Garden of Fand, revealing all the fascination of its orchestral texture. The second was the choral virtuosity with which the extremely difficult ‘Mater Ora Filium’, for double choir unaccompanied, was given by the Oriana singers. It is one of Bax's finest compositions, though in a branch of music in which his mastery was until recently unsuspected. The cumulative effect of the elaborate 'Allelujas ' was magnificently impressive. The third was Lionel Tertis's playing of the Viola Concerto, now called a Phantasy for viola and orchestra. It was a pity that the orchestra was not more fully occupied, for, returning after a long interval, it did not infuse the same spirit into the performance of an arrangement of the pianoforte piece, Mediterranean, which concluded the programme at a very late hour. The Oriana singers, however, showed no signs of flagging when they supplemented their earlier triumph with the two other carols ‘Of a Rose I sing’ (GP 234) and ‘Now is the time of Christymas’ (GP 247)

Miss Harriet Cohen is a pianist of great musical intelligence as well as technical attainments, but even in the smaller concert-halls the massive Sonata in G taxes her physical strength to the utmost. At Queen's Hall its demands went a little further, and could be met only by occasional sacrifices of rhythm. She was more successful with the smaller pieces, such as Lullaby and Burlesque. Mr. John Coates's contribution to the programme was, as always, entirely admirable. The effect of the concert as a whole must inevitably be to consolidate Bax's reputation with the general public, in which connection it was gratifying to note the crowded condition of those portions of the hall which are generally held to be the barometer of public interest. The selection of works was also well calculated to convey a much better impression of Bax's status than has hitherto been feasible. The inclusion of a Pianoforte Sonata was perhaps open to question, for no extended work in one instrumental colouring could possibly hold its own in a programme which included the multi-coloured Garden of Fand. The smaller pianoforte pieces and songs are of course not open to the same objection, as the listener readily adjusts himself to the enjoyment of a group of miniatures between larger works. One point was definitely established: Bax's feeling for beauty in line and texture is of a kind that does not quickly satiate. E. E.

The Musical Times December 1922 [with minor edits]

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Arnold Bax: review of first recording of Tintagel.

In 1929 Eugene Goossens and the New Symphony Orchestra made the first recording of Arnold Bax’s great tone-poem Tintagel. The critic W.R. Anderson, who was a mainstay of The Gramophone magazine, duly sang its praises, as well as commenting on the other piece included on the 2-disc set, Mediterranean. It is interesting to note his enthusiasm for future Bax recording projects. It was not until the 1970s that his began to become a reality. Unfortunately, Bax is not strong in the concert hall in our day. For example, Tintagel has not been performed at a Proms Concert since 1989. The Symphonic Variations was last heard at that venue in 1938.  The Goossens recording of Bax’s Tintagel is currently available on Dutton CDBP 9779.

To record Tintagel is bold and good [1]. The bigger Bax awaits full recognition, and recording will hasten it. [2] So will broadcasting, when Bax can get as much time in the programmes as his stature merits. Of Tintagel he has said that it is ‘only in the broadest sense programme music. Its intention is simply to offer a tonal impression of the castle-crowned cliff of Tintagel, and more especially of the long distances of the Atlantic as seen from the cliffs of Cornwall on a sunny but not windless summer day. The literary and traditional associations of the scene also enter into the scheme’ – those of Tristan, presumably, in particular. [3] This is an ideal brief composer’s note, putting the imagination into gear, so to speak, and leaving the music to carry us along. I am reminded a little of parts of Frank Bridge’s suite The Sea which Columbia of old recorded. [4] Bax is still more subtly powerful, I feel. This is one of the finest suggestions of old scenes and of nature’s sway that we have. I doubt if any record can get the size and scope of the seascape, but the quieter, broader, more intimate evocations are here, with a sureness of touch in the performance (so far as memory carries one) that deserve high praise. I reckon this some of the best recording of the day. Much is due to Goossens’ sympathy and insight. I hope that he will make many more records, especially of imaginative, impressionistic music. It should be added that the work is not ‘advanced’ or eccentric in any way.

Mediterranean was originally a piano piece. Bax scored it for the big concert of his works that his publishers, Murdochs, courageously gave in November 1922. The firm has kept faith with him, and few British composers now at work, of Bax’s quality, have had so many serious works printed (of late years, at any rate) as soon as written. This glowing, swaying music is not so much like conventional ‘sunny South’ poster-music made by foreigners. It is not of the calibre of Tintagel, but it fits snugly into the memory and gently titillates the musical palate.

May we have more Bax, please? – the Symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra, containing at lease on the loveliest movements written by any living composer, and The Garden of Fand, which ranks Bax with Delius. I believe the N.G.S. (National Gramophone Society) may do the quartet in G which I suggested a few years ago. [5] It is one of the most straightforward and open-hearted of his works. Meanwhile, support H.M.V.’s enterprise in doing Tintagel so splendidly.

The Gramophone February 1930.  (W.R. Anderson)

Notes

[1] HMV C1619/20: New Symphony Orchestra/Eugene Goossens: Arnold Bax: Tintagel and Mediterranean.

[2]Enthusiasts had to wait until 1943 for the first recording of a Bax Symphony by Sir John Barbirolli and the Hallé Orchestra.  There are now three complete cycles of the Symphonies available on CD: Bryden Thomson on Chandos, Vernon Handley on Chandos and David Lloyd-Jones on Naxos. Arkiv CD Website list of recordings currently available include Tintagel(20), Symphonic Variations (2), Mediterranean(8), The Garden of Fand (10) and String Quartet in G (2) 

[3] Hannam, William B, Arnold Bax & the Poetry of Tintagel, 2008.  Hannam reminds the reader that Arnold Bax and the pianist Harriet Cohen spent more than six weeks together at Tintagel during August and September, 1917. So this is a personal love-poem as well as the statements he made in the brief programme note.

[4] Columbia L1500/1: London Symphony Orchestra/Frank Bridge: Frank Bridge: The Sea

[5] The National Gramophone Society duly released a recording of the Strong Quartet No.1 in G major in 1930, played by the Marie Wilson String Quartet. Gramophone Society NGS153/5.

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Robert H. Hull: An Early Bax Champion, 1934

In a letter to the The Gramophone magazine (November 1934) Robert H. Hull presented a plea for the expansion of the Bax record ‘catalogue.’ At that time it stood at just a handful of recordings [1]. Unfortunately his pleas seemed to fall on deaf ears, as it was to be a number of years before Bax’s music began to be made widely available for listeners.  Hull is a name who crops up in musical journalism in the 1920s and 30s. He is probably best recalled for an important study on Bax’s symphonies [2] as well as a booklet about Delius. [3].

The present situation (2014) where the majority of Arnold Bax’s music is available on CD or download, including four versions of all seven symphonies and some 22 versions of Tintagel would have seemed unbelievable to Hull and the readers of The Gramophone.

To the editor…

Possibly a good many of your readers feel the urgent need for gramophone records of Arnold Bax’s principal orchestral works, more particularly the five symphonies and of his chamber music. At present only a bare handful of Bax’s works are available to the gramophone public. The expense of production, especially in the matter of rehearsals, is cited as a prohibiting factor. There is no early prospect of the symphonies being recorded, and very little hope of anything similar, unless a wide circle of intending purchasers can give positive assurance of their support.

It seems highly desirable, therefore, to establish how far the many admirers of Bax’s genius can be relied upon to purchase future records of his orchestral and chamber music. Information is quite imperative if we are to end the present deadlock. I shall be extremely grateful if all those who are anxious that further works shall be recorded, particularly the Third Symphony, [4] will write to me as soon as possible at 463 Oxford Street, London W.1. [5] It will be a great help if writers will state the names of the Bax works to which they give preference. I am making this appeal with the approval of the composer and his publishers.

Once an adequate list of names has been collected – and we beseech every Bax enthusiast – it maybe possible, I hope, to come to some agreement with the Gramophone Company [6] and to submit the names of the works for which there is the greatest demand. Whether, ultimately, the records would be issued through the Company’s lists, or through the medium of a Bax Society, is a question which must await the decision of the Gramophone Company when the amount of promised support is definitely known.

Yours faithfully,

Robert H. Hull.

Notes:-

[1] Works available on record in 1934 included:-

• Mater, ora Filium, Leeds Festival Chorus/Albert Coates, HMV D1044/5
• Fantasy Sonata for harp and viola, Raymond Jeremy (viola) and Maria Korchinska (harp), National Gramophonic Society NGS118/120
• Mediterranean, New Symphony Orchestra/ Eugene Goossens, HMV C1620
• Mediterranean for piano, Harriet Cohen, Duo-Art 0355
• Quartet No.1 for strings, Wilson String Quartet Gramophonic Society 153/155;   
• ‘Cradle Song’ from Three Irish Songs and ‘I heard a piper piping’ from ‘Five Irish Songs’, Carmen Hill (soprano) Arnold Bax (piano) listed in CHARM but possibly not released as no record number given (December 1923)
• ‘Cradle Song’ and ‘Rann of Exile’ from ‘Three Irish Songs’ Ann Thursfield (Soprano) and unknown pianist. HMV E410
• Sonata for two pianos, Ethel Bartlett and Rae Robinson, duo pianists, National Gramophonic Society 156/158.
• Hardanger, Ethel Bartlett and Rae Robinson, duo pianists, National Gramophonic Society 158.

[2] Hull, Robert H., A Handbook of Arnold Bax’s Symphonies (Murdoch, London 1932) 

[3] Hull, Robert H., The Hogarth Essays Second Series ‘Frederick Delius’ (London, 1928)

[4] According to Graham Parlett’s discography printed in Lewis Foreman’s Bax: A Composer and his Times (The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 1983, 1987, 2007) Bax’s Symphony No.3 had to wait until  1943 Hallé Orchestra conducted by John Barbirolli HMV C3380/5 in 1943. It was recorded in Manchester.

[5] 463 Oxford Street, London were the offices of Arnold Bax’s publisher Murdoch, Murdoch and Co. The premises were bombed during the Second World War.

[6] The Gramophone Company was an early recording company which in 1931 along with the Columbia Gramophone Company formed English and Musical Industries Ltd (EMI) HMV was a trademark. 

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A Musician of the North (Arnold Bax) by Watson Lyle

The music critic and author Watson Lyle provided this short pen portrait of Arnold Bax. It was the result of an ‘interview’ with the composer at this North London house. The two men had been acquaintances for a number of years. The piece was published in The Bookman, February 1932. I have made a few minor editorial changes and provided a number of explanatory notes.

Bax was expecting me, and came downstairs himself to open the door of the tall house in a quiet road of the older part of Hampstead [1], where I recollect visiting him first quite ten years ago.

‘Remember your way up?’ he asked, in his terse yet kindly fashion, indicating the stairway to his studio. ‘Perfectly I answered, for remembrance of my surroundings began to function from the mental pigeon-holes of the past, and as I subsided among the cushions in the large easy chair to which he motioned me, the big, well-lit apartment seemed oddly familiar. There across one corner at the back of the room, was the tall, upright grand pianoforte; by the windows, papers, music MSS, and books in orderly array on tables; a similar evidence of work on the table in the centre of the floor where he now seated himself on a small chair. The many pictures on the walls, the comfortable furniture, the lived-in atmosphere of the place and the blazing fire – all seemed as of yesterday.

A place inducing intimate thought, and so perhaps a study rather than a studio.

Of course his congenial self helped towards the kindly atmosphere, for in the interval between my visits we had often met since we were both, willy-nilly, in the milieu of London musical life.

He smiled at me from his seat by the table. ‘Well?’ he asked, his pointed, freshly-coloured face, with plentiful humorous lines at the corners of the eye sockets, and curiously mobile, sensitive lips, an invitation to confidences, ‘what shall we talk about for The Bookman?’

I looked up at his clear blue eyes, twinkling, if ever eyes twinkled, electrically, as I pondered the opening to the conversation. Then I replied to his question with another: ‘I’ve been wondering on my way here what ideas are at the back of your new work for pianoforte and orchestra, Winter Legends, which I believe is to have its first performance in England at the BBC Symphony Concert in Queen’s Hall on February 10^th?’ [2]

He looked at me quickly, his blue eyes serious, yet still lambent, ‘It is abstract music, of course.’ He spoke rather rapidly, in his decisive way, ‘and any ‘programme’ and ‘programme’ remember is a curious thing – any concrete ideas that may be in it of place or things are of the North – Northern Ireland, Northern Scotland, Northern Europe – in fact, the Celtic North.’

‘Something of the stark wildness of nature one finds reflected in your November Woods, [3] I expect.’

‘Possibly. The form is free; although the pianoforte has an important part, the work is in no way a pianoforte concerto, remember.’

‘A kind of fantasia for pianoforte and orchestra?  Is it continuous in performance?’

‘No; there are three separate movements,’

‘With some reference in the last to material from the first, as in the Epilogue in the last movement of your ‘cello sonata? [4]

He considered his reply. ‘No; I scarcely think that can be said to occur. But music often means something quite different to the composer from what it does to other people. The same work can have so many different interpretations, all more or less satisfying.’

‘Do you find that the form of a composition, and the colour – the harmonisation, the quality of the instrumental tone to be used –are suggested by the melody, or by cerebration over ideas of the work?’

‘Sometimes in one way, sometimes in another.’

He seemed to be voicing a meditation rather than talking to me, gazing right before him. Then with a return to his characteristic, swift animation he went on: ‘I have known practically the complete work to come to me at once.’ (Later, if I remember rightly, he alluded to his Northern Ballad for orchestra, [5] performed for the first time here at the Philharmonic concert on December 3^rd, as a special example of this figuratively, mass inspiration. )

‘But usually the growth of a work is more gradual. One feels the colour in accordance with the character of the music, and so builds. In the case of a work for orchestra I do not feel the colour in terms of the pianoforte,’ he added, rising and beginning to walk about the room with just a hint of excitement in his voice as he continued speaking. ‘Indeed I find myself more and more thinking in terms of purely instrumental tone colour, and the orchestra, instead of chamber music, of which I do not think I will write any more.’ [6]

‘And songs?’

‘No, I shall not write any more songs,’ he said decisively. [7]

‘My thoughts seem to be wholly occupied with the orchestra.’ (One remembers the emotional bigness of his Third Symphony which aroused enthusiasm afresh last Prom. season. Also I thought, as he spoke, of an invitingly laid out fresh sheet of orchestral ruled music score paper I had noticed, as I sat sown, now lying on a table behind me. What was it destined to record?) [8]

But since there are some things that even an old friend may not ask an artist about his work I merely said: ‘I should think composers work out their ideas technically, employing the tone-colour they feel to be right, much as a writer chooses particular words because of their aptness to his purpose of the moment, and of their inherent suggestion to convey the exact import of what he has to say.’

‘Probably,’ he replied cautiously. I’ve rather enjoyed reading Neil Munro.’ [9]

As we walked the short distance to the tube station in a regular hurricane of rain, we talked of Northland, of the Highlands, particularly of the West.  A retreat of his in Ireland I do not know, but, by what he told me about it, it must surely be mirrored musically in the loveliness with which the slow movement of his ‘cello sonata begins.

The Bookman February 1932 p.268

Notes:-

[1] Probably 155 Fellows Road, Swiss Cottage, demolished in 1938.

[2] Concert held at the Queen’s Hall on 10 February 1932 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. Works included John Ireland’s Symphonic Rhapsody ‘Mai Dun’ for orchestra dating from 1921, Beethoven’s King Stephen’s Overture and Brahms Violin Concerto. Harriet Cohen was the soloist in Bax’s Winter Legend.

[3] November Woods for orchestra c. 1914/17 First heard at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester with the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Hamilton Harty.

[4] Cello Sonata, dated 7 November 1923 and first heard at the Wigmore Hall played by Beatrice Harrison (cello) and Harriet Cohen (piano) on 26 February 1924.

[5] Bax wrote three Northern Ballads. The one referred to here is No.1 which was completed in short score on ‘Nov 1927.’ The performance that Watson Lyle alludes to was the London premiere, the work having been first heard in the St Andrew’s Hall, Glasgow on 14 November 1931 under Basil Cameron with the Scottish Orchestra.

[6] Clearly Bax did not really mean what he said about not writing any more chamber music. A number of works were to be composed in subsequent years including a Sonata for clarinet and piano, an Octet, the Legend Sonata for cello and piano and a Trio for piano, violin and cello.

[7] There were to be a few songs written between 1932 and his death.

[8] Possibly the rarely heard Sinfonietta for orchestra, the Cello Concerto or maybe one movement from the Fifth Symphony.

[9] Neil Munro (1864-1930) was a Scottish journalist and novelist. Author of many historical novels, but probably best remembered for his delightful portrayal of life aboard a puffer on the River Clyde, in his Para Handy Tales. 

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Arnold Bax: Magician by Yorke Bannard,

This short article was published in The Musical Standard October 13, 1917. It was written at a time when Arnold Bax was beginning to establish a reputation for himself. However it was before the composer had declared himself as a symphonist. The article needs little commentary, however I have provided a handful of footnotes.  I have also provided new musical examples.

Arnold Bax is a front bencher in our English Musical Constitution. In that Constitution he represents the Celtic West. He is to our music what W. B. Yeats is to our literature.

There are two elements at work in Bax- the classic and the Celtic. The former is seen in an honest love of fact, scholarship, fidelity to Nature; the latter stands revealed in love of colour, emotion, sentiment, quickness of perception, a pressing onward towards the impalpable, the ideal. The classic stream and the Celtic current met in his person; skill and scholarship are carried away into the mysterious atmosphere of Celtic mythology. Nearly all his orchestral works, as he himself states, are ‘based upon aspects and moods of external nature and their relation to human emotion’ [1]-the very essence of Celtism.

Bax's quick feeling for what is noble and distinguished, his abhorrence of the commonplace, gives his music style -not an acquired manner or mannerism, not a conscious eccentricity, but a full pressure of personal force. There is life behind it, the life of the mind. His personality gives it passion. His sensibility, his soul, gives it fairy charm and magic. Youthfulness is on his side, not the youthfulness of immaturity, but the youthfulness of a spirit that has strengthened itself in the joy of the earth and all its immeasurable liberations. No mere journeyman, he breaks away from the bondage of existing formulae. His music breathes freedom. There is space in it, and height, and depth.  It contains within it the sense of enlargement and enfranchisement and' 'escape.

Bax was born in 1883. In 1900 he entered the R.A.M. where for five years he worked at composition under that distinguished professor-Frederick Corder. As early as 1903 [2] he made his debut as a composer. Since that date a ‘Celtic Song Cycle,’ an orchestral work, Spring Fire, a Piano Quintet, a most exquisite orchestral poem, ‘The Garden of Fand’, and many other works of rare merit have fallen from his prolific pen.

Amongst pianists his popularity is largely assured by four solos [3]- ‘In a Vodka. Shop,’ ‘The Princess's Rose Garden,’ ‘Sleepy Head’ and ‘Apple-blossom time,’ These four pianistic productions reveal Bax at his best. ‘In a Vodka Shop’ breaks away from the old ideas of rhythmic outline; its time signature is free, containing sometimes six, generally seven, and rarely eight crotchets to the bar. A coarse roughness is intended throughout, as seen in the following quotation, fairly representative of the whole.

 

This element of unhewn bareness and rude simplicity gains in strength and character by being sandwiched between passages of lighter and more delicate texture, There is a certain recklessness of speed and movement throughout it, but everything is safe and so its general effectiveness is delightfully fresh and stimulating.

There is natural magic about the second number-‘The Princess's Rose Garden.’ The spirit and ecstasy of the movement are captured and ‘photographed’ in a wonderfully near and vivid way. Magic is the one word for it- the magic of Nature; not mere realism so typical of the German school, nor a laboured beauty of Nature so much in evidence in much of modern French creative art; but the intimate life of Nature, her weird power and captivating charm. It is large in idea and in treatment, full of big beautiful melody, growing from elaborate details which conveys the richly coloured blooms of a soft June landscape; while overall hangs a veil of mystery and melancholy, suggesting that the latter pages in the book of summer have been reached and that the season of death and decay is fast approaching. ,

A soft twilight pervades ‘Sleepy-head.’ There is just light enough to make the trees magic and the pavements shine like silver, and darkness enough to make shadows velvety, purple, and full of errant fancies. In the language of the Lotos-eaters [4]:

‘There is sweet music here that softer falls

Than petals from blown roses on the grass…

Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.’

Here are the opening bars:-

 

"Apple-blossom-time" is interesting, playful, very direct, in short, almost choppy phrases, with a quiet section for variety set in the middle. There is, perhaps, something crude in its vigour; but tenderness there is too, deep and lovely, as at the end where the music dies down after the exuberant climax of the central section:

  

These four pieces should be far more widely played than they are. All advanced pianists should know them. As studies of modern art they are of extreme value; as pieces of music they are magnificent.

           

[1] This quotation seems to be derived from the earliest article published about Arnold Bax in the Monthly Musical Record 1 November 1915.

[2] Bax’s first composition was ‘Butterflies all White’ for voice and piano, composed in 1896.

[3] The four piano pieces discussed were composed as follows: ‘In a Vodka Shop’ (Jan 22nd 1915) dedicated ‘To Tania’ –Harriet Cohen. Although the printed score is inscribed ‘To Miss Myra Hess.’ It was subsequently orchestrated in 1919 as a part of the 'Russian Suite'.  ‘The Princess’s Rose Garden’ was dated Jan 9th -13th 1915 on the manuscript.  It was dedicated 'To Tania'.  ‘Sleepy Head’ was the only piece that Bax dedicated to his wife, Elsita. It was written c.1915 (May 24th 1915 on the printed score)  'Apple-Blossom Time' was dedicated to the composer/artist S.H. Braithwaite. The printed score carries the date May 1915.

[4] Alfred, Lord Tennyson, ‘The Song of the Lotos-eaters’, 1833.

These four piano pieces can be heard performed by a variety of pianists. Perhaps, Ashely Wass on Naxos is a good place to begin exploration. They are on Naxos 8.557439and 8.557769  

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Sir Henry Wood: A Tribute by Sir Arnold Bax

I recently came across a small book entitled Homage to Sir Henry Wood. This had been published in 1944 as a ‘world symposium’ by the London Philharmonic Orchestra to commemorate the great conductor’s 75^th birthday. Alas he was to die a few months after this celebration.  A number of eminent musicians contributed to this volume including Ernest Ansermet, Leopold Stokowski, Alan Bush, RVW and Harriet Cohen.  Bax’s tribute is particularly attractive. No commentary is required.

" ... A physical giant" The very first time that I saw Henry J. Wood was in 1896, when as a small boy I was taken to a Promenade Concert, by an aunt. We arrived late, just as the violins began that TannhauserOverture figure in the slow movement of Mozart's G Minor symphony.

Not unnaturally I cannot remember any of the rest of the programme. To my juvenile eyes the Queen's Hall was a vast bewilderment and the imposingly black-bearded conductor a physical giant.

Two years later I stole off alone from Hampstead to attend my earliest symphony concert. Though still super-human the conductor's stature had slightly diminished. Sir Henry has always seemed a little touched that I recall my first hearing on that occasion of Brahm's Third Symphony in a programme concluding with the ‘Prelude and Liebestod’ [Tristan & Isolde]. I had never yet heard this adored work either, but dared not stay for it for fear of reprimand at home. (I was supposed to have gone with my brother and tutor to a Memorial Exhibition of the paintings of the recently dead Burne-Jones.)

In September, 1910, I was summoned to a preliminary run-through on the piano of ‘n the Faery Hills’, the first piece of mine to be performed under Wood's direction. I knocked at his door in considerable trepidation, but was quickly relieved when he bustled into the music room-quite normally life-sized-and proved kindness itself. Ever since that morning he has been my fast friend, has conducted most of my orchestral works and given the first performance of many of them-always with the same sympathy and quick appreciation of the essentials of the score.

Perhaps I may boast of being the only composer who has ever played lawn tennis with Sir Henry. I must confess-and he is unlikely to put in a counter-claim-that his dexterity with the racquet was scarcely on a par with his skill with the baton. But, he brought plenty of zest to the game, even though he often seemed vague as to the court in which he should be standing.

I hope that someone else will write fully of his delightful paintings of the Alps and Grampians.

Arnold Bax Homage to Sir Henry Wood, 1944

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Arnold Bax: A Wish List for Recordings from ‘The Gramophone’ July 1927

My last musings on W.A. Chislett’s contribution to early Arnold Bax discography considers his ‘wish list’ of music deemed to be appropriate for future recording. He suggests that the best place to begin would be with a few of the songs and the shorter piano pieces. A more ambitious ‘first shot’ would include the Quintet for harp and strings. He suggests that for larger scale pieces record companies ‘should choose first of all the ‘Symphonic Variations’ for piano and orchestra (1918) and the Piano Quintet (1915). Interestingly at this time these two works were deemed to be Bax’s finest achievements. Chislett insists that in both these pieces the piano part should be played by Miss Harriet Cohen, if possible.’

He then suggests a few orchestral pieces worthy of recording: his choice here would have been either The Garden of Fand of November Woods. Chislett then makes a swipe at the Gramophone’s editor, Compton Mackenzie who had previously suggested that Tintagel was like ‘an enthusiastic but badly written letter by somebody who had just arrived at the seaside for his holidays.’ Finally Chislett calls for a record of Bax’s choral work ‘To the Name above Every Name’, which has been heard at the 1923 Three Choirs Festival in 1933. 

Like every critic he had now warmed to his subject. Other possibilities were springing into his mind. He writes: ‘I should have liked to include the tone poem In the Faery Hills, the viola concerto and sonata, the short one-movement piano quartet, and one of the string quartets, as well as some more choral music and Moy Mell, an Irish Fantasy for two pianos.’ He concludes by suggesting that ‘a moderate demand such as I have made, however, is more likely to be met that one so large as this would have been.’

Although Mr Chislett would have had to wait many years, all the works listed here have been subsequently recorded. It is a tribute to the revival of interest in Bax’s music that many of these pieces are available in multiple versions. 

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Arnold Bax: Early Reviews of the Oboe Quintet

W. A. Chislett writing in the July 1927 edition of The Gramophone magazine noted that the National Gramophonic Society (N.G.S.) were about to issue Arnold Bax’s Oboe Quintet. In fact, he had heard the ‘test prints’ and declared that ‘these records are technically the finest yet made for the Society.’ 

Some nine months earlier, in the October 1926 edition the N.G.S. had advertised the forthcoming release of this Oboe Quintet. Other British works scheduled included Delius’ ‘Summer Night on the River’, Eugene Goossens’ Violin Sonatas and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Phantasy Quartet.  

In the same issue, a review of the Bradford Chamber Music Festival on 5 & 6 October 1926, ‘Terzet’ noted that the outstanding work in the first evening’s performance was Bax’s Oboe Quintet. He wrote: ‘This delightful work reveals the hand of a master both in its melodic content and in the handling of the contrasting tone-colours of the oboe and the strings.’ The composer was in the audience that night and ‘must have been equally pleased with the excellence of the performance and the warmness of its reception by the audience.’  Terzet concluded his comments by hoping that this work would be released by the N.G.S. at an early date.  Other British works performed at the Bradford Festival included Delius Violin Sonata No. 2, in C major, Eugene Goossens’ Phantasy Quartet Op.12 and Bax’s Quintet for harp and strings. This last work was deemed to be ‘rather a forbidding work at first hearing.’

In April 1927 it was announced that the Music Society Quartet (International Quartet) would shortly release the Ravel Quartet and the Bax Oboe Quintet. At that time the personnel included Andre Mangeot, Boris Pecker (violins) Henry J. Berly (viola) and John Barbirolli (cello) although it was intimated that for this recording the violist was Frank Howard and the cellist, Herbert Withers. The oboe was to be played by Leon Goossens.

In June 1927, the N.G.S. reported that The Times (I was unable to find this reference) had criticised the surface noise or recent releases, However the Society stated that ‘we hope to improve this, the one weakness of N.G.S. records, in the works now being recorded.

I understand that NGS 76/77 was shipped to the society subscribers during August 1927. The first and last movements of the Oboe Quintet occupied two sides of the first disc and the the slow movement two sides of the second disc. Fascinatingly, Arnold Bax believed that this middle movement was taken too slowly.

Interestingly, final movement from these this recording was broadcast by the BBC on 29 September 1927.

Hardly surprisingly, the National Gramophonic Society published a number of ‘testimonial’ letters praising their recent issue of the Bax Oboe Quintet.  They include the following comments:-

[The Quintet is] a very fine achievement. I do not know which to praise most, the work with its supremely beautiful slow movement and its riotously jolly last movement, which set the household dancing, or the recording, which is positively superb.  Of course under the heading recording, I must include the playing, Mr Goossens’ oboe work being wonderful. The separation fot he parts in the rather complex writing in the first movement is extremely well done, and I do not think I have ever enjoyed a first hearing of any records so music before.’ A Burgess. The Rev. D. Campbell Miller wrote that ‘In the case of the Bax Quintet, I think your very best effort has been achieved.

Arnold Bax’s Quintet for oboe and strings was released on NGS 76/77.  This recording is currently available on Oboe Classics 2005.

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Arnold Bax (1883-1953) Mater ora filium

Arnold Bax did not compose a great deal of music for unaccompanied chorus, yet the few works he did write are invariably well produced and effective for both singers and audiences alike. A brief study of Graham Parlett’s essential Catalogue reveals six works that could be classified as being for unaccompanied chorus.

The earliest of these is the present Mater ora filium of 1921. The following year saw the desolate ‘This Worldes Joie’ written to a 14^th century text. The short ‘carol’ entitled ‘The Boar’s Head’ was composed in 1923 for, and dedicated to, the Blackpool Festival Committee.  Out of interest, this event was won by the Warrington Male Choral Union –still going strong under a different name. The same year saw the straightforward working of ‘I sing of a maiden.’

Nearly twenty years elapsed until the 1942 settings of Five Greek Folksongs – which Bax himself regarded as being based on “...very quaint and rather barbaric tunes…”

Virtually the last composed work by Arnold Bax was the part-song ‘What is it like to be young and fair?’  This was a setting of words by the composer’s brother Clifford. It was performed as part of the Garland for the Queen as an event at the Coronation Celebrations in 1953.

Bax certainly did not contribute music for use in the church – although the present work could be given happily at a Christmastide recital or a choral concert in one of our great cathedrals. Of course this is not to suggest that Bax was anti-Christian, yet he certainly did not relate to the ritual and ceremonial of the Roman or Anglican Churches. In fact he had had a non-conformist childhood.  Perhaps it is better to suggest that Bax’s spirituality was found in other directions than conventional religion.  It could be that his spiritual temperament was more in tune with the Celtic Twilight as exemplified by W.B. Yeats.

Colin Scott-Sutherland quotes a personal reminiscence by Charles Kennedy Scott – “His [Bax’s] unaccompanied motet for double choir, ‘Mater ora filium’ came later when I had the satisfaction of performing it with the Oriana [Choir] at Messrs Murdoch’s concert of recent works of Arnold at [the] Queens Hall in November 1922. I have no doubt that this and Arnold’s other motets can be associated with what Arnoldheard the Oriana do at the Balfour concerts ten years earlier…”

Yet in spite of Kennedy Scott claiming his choir to be the stimulation for Mater Ora Filium, the immediate inspiration for this work was found at a performance by the Tudor Singers of the William Byrd’s Five Part Mass. Bax heard this work at one of Harriet Cohen’s soirees at Wyndham Place. This great liturgical setting made a huge impression on Bax; in fact he thought it more significant than the music of J.S. Bach himself. Bax was attracted by this “spiritual, ornate and emotionally austere” music.

It could be argued argued that ‘Mater ora filium’is imbued with the spirit of the Elizabethan age, yet it would be unfair to suggest any kind of pastiche or archaism.  The work is a fine example of Bax’s contrapuntal technique – although use of this ‘technical’ word is in danger of giving the impression that this work has an academic nature. ‘Mater ora filium’ is scored for unaccompanied double chorus with a short solo for tenor. Even a superficial hearing reveals extremely difficult part writing that makes strong demands on the singers. There is timelessness about this setting that seems to make influences and musical allusions unnecessary. It is a truly lovely anthem of devotion to Our Lady and her Son.

Mater ora filium was first performed at the Queen’s Hall on 13^th November 1922 by the Oriana Choir conducted by Charles Kennedy Scott.

With thanks to the English Musical Festival 2006 Programme Book where this note was first published. 

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Arnold Bax: An Early Recording of ‘Mater ora filium’

I was perusing some early editions of The Gramophone magazine the other day. I was surprised to read that at July 1927 there was only a single work by the Arnold Bax currently available on record – the choral piece ‘Mater ora filium’. This work which was composed in 1921 was composed for unaccompanied double choir (SSAATTBB) and was based on an old carol discovered in the library of Balliol College, Oxford. David Parlett has written that this music was inspired after the composer heard a performance of Byrd’s Mass for five voices. The musicologist, Edward Dent has written that the ‘result on paper looks an almost unsingable jumble. In performance it was admirably calculated, full of the most adorable surprises.

The recording referred to was sung by the Leeds Festival Choir of 1925 and was issued under H.M.V. D.1044-5.  The reviewer in The Gramophone W.A. Chislett noted that the singing of this ‘difficult and exacting work is magnificent. No trace of flattening of pitch can be found, and the sustained high notes of the sopranos and the sonority of the basses are positively thrilling at times.’ He also praised the high quality of the recording, although he noted that, ‘in one or two places perfect balance in this complicated texture of sound is not achieved He concludes his review by suggesting that this is a work that needs to be heard repeatedly and that ‘it is in a work of this nature that the greatest benefit is derived from the gramophone.

Fortunately this very recording has been re-pristinated for the digital age by Symposium SYMPCD1336 and was released in 2003:  it is currently available for download at Amazon. It is truly a magnificent performance.  

There is a fine ‘modern’ recording, made in 1969 by the Choir of Kings College, Cambridge conducted by David Willcocks. This was released on EMI Classics 95433.

Finally I shall be considering W.A Chislett’s further remarks about Arnold Bax in later posts.

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Bax, Dermot O’Byrne and the First Symphony

I recently found an old copy of the Book and Magazine Collector (September 1996) in a second-hand bookshop. Amongst the discussions and bibliographies of E.H Shepherd, Miss Read, Victor Hugo and F. Scott Fitzgerald there is a superb study by Colin Scott-Sutherland of Arnold Bax’s literary alter ego Dermot O’Byrne.  This is worthy of study. However one section of this review caught my eye in particular – the consideration of a book published in 1913 by Maunsel & Co called Children of the Hills. In this book Bax (O’Byrne) presented a number of savage tales. 

Scott-Sutherland wrote that ‘one of the stories...tells of a strange experience which (he believes) eventually found its musical counterpart in the dark, ‘druidical’ second movement of Bax’s First Symphony. In this particular story called ‘Ancient Dominions’ O’Byrne describes ‘a strange nocturnal excursion in the moonlit incandescence of a May night in Donegal.  Quoting from Scott-Sutherland book Arnold Bax (1973) he writes that ‘with growing apprehension of uncanny doings the teller of the tale stumbles on the entrance to a vast underground cavern in whose awesome bowels the dark tides of the Atlantic provide the backcloth to a strange unearthly ritual to the sea-god of the Ancient Irish.

Bax wrote: - And then suddenly over this threshold of vision a presence passed. For an instant I saw again the wave-crowded mouth of the cavern and the green light in which it was bathed invaded by something vast and dominating, whether breath or light or shadow I could not tell, but I knew that all those men and women below me were again kneeling with veiled heads, their brows almost to the ground, that all were shaken by some obscure ecstasy of terror and joy. Then over myself it swept like a sun-smitten storm and my soul seemed pierced through with shafts of blinding green light and to vibrate and rock in an awful and delirious rapture as though cradled within the soul of the sea.

The ancient sea-god of the Celts was a certain Manannán mac Lir who also had jurisdiction over the Isles of the Blessed and Mag Mell.  Manannán’s wife was Fand, with whom Bax was to engage in later years with a magnificent description of her ‘Garden.’

The second movement, Lento solenne, of Bax’s Symphony No.1 can be heard on YouTube conducted by Bryden Thomson with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

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Arnold Bax: Tintagel - a review by Neville Cardus.

On Saturday 7 October 1922, Arnold Bax’s tone poem Tintagel was performed at the Leeds Festival. Neville Cardus was there to record his impressions of the piece for the Manchester Guardian.

At the morning concert a tone poem called Tintagel, of Arnold Bax, was played, and very beautifully played, by the London Symphony Orchestra.[1] The music made one think furiously of the pace of some of our English composers are moving at nowadays. Only a decade ago Mr. Bax was in the forefront of them, but now, though Tintagel shows his style to have developed naturally, he is definitely one of the right wing, and using an orchestral technique quite old fashioned compared with that of Holst or Bliss. For Mr. Bax apparently is still content with a homogenous orchestral texture, with massed tone and – may one call it? – the post-Wagnerian resonance. He does not seek to split up his colour and individualise his pigments.

Tintagel, the composer tells us, is only in the broadest sense programme music. The intention of it is ‘simply to offer a tonal impression of the castle crowned cliff of Tintagel, and, more especially, of the long distances of the Atlantic, as seen from the cliffs of Cornwall on a sunny but not windless summer’s day.’

This work, one believes, preceded the fine ‘November’ poem of Mr. Bax [2]. At any rate, November shows a more concentrated power than Tintagel, which falls into harmonic coldness at the end just when it needed to have burned into splendour. Still, the singleness of conception in Tintagel makes you feel the composer had really something to express and was heart and soul in his job. The mood of his music is set harmonically and the melodies or themes come but fitfully through the orchestral mass, falling over the surge of it like gleams of faint sunshine. A repeated descending chromatic figure is reminiscent of that which runs through Isolde’s narration in the first act of Tristan, and Mr. Bax intended it to be reminiscent –for the Tristan legend has associations with Tintagel. At the end of Mr. Bax’s poem a theme comes through the orchestral ebb and flow which is intended to suggest the castle ‘fronting the sun and wind of centuries.’ But the theme is melodically commonplace, and so, with the orchestra losing power at the climax, the work ends, leaving one’s expectations frustrated. Still, with ‘November’ in mind also, Tintagel promises great things from Mr. Bax before long: he is one of the least obtrusive of the younger English composers, but maybe his voice will be heard long after others have failed from sheer hoarseness.

The Manchester Guardian 9 October 1922 Neville Cardus (with minor edits)

Notes:

[1] Conducted by Albert Coates

[2] Graham Parlett notes that the short score of November Woods was 1914. However it was orchestrated in 1917 and was first performed at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester by the Halle Orchestra on 18 November 1920. The short score of Tintagel was completed by October 1917. The full score was finished in January 1919. The first performance was given by Dan Godfrey and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra at Bournemouth on 20 October 1921.

[3] Tintagel can be read a ‘love-poem’ to Harriet Cohen, Bax’s mistress, who spent time with the composer at Tintagel. The work is dedicated ‘For Darling Tania (Bax’s name for Cohen)

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Arnold Bax & CDs

In the early seventies I remember looking at the list of Arnold Bax’s compositions in Grove in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow: there seemed so many of them. I guess that I had heard a couple of pieces that had been released on the old Revolution label - I think they were The Tale the Pine-Trees Knew and the Viola Sonata. There were others available, but in those days I could not afford to buy everything I wanted. Besides, there were also albums of music by Led Zeppelin and Yes to buy! Yet, I had been hooked on Bax’s music: the sound-world had captured my imagination. Being a Scot, with Irish and English blood in my veins the music was designed to appeal to all those facets of my inherited character.

One thing is certain: as I looked at the listings of symphonies, piano pieces, tone poems and chamber music, I knew that I would never hear them all. None of my friends had heard of Bax: he was certainly not performed in the concert halls of Glasgow and Edinburgh. I imagined that these evocative titles such as The Garden of Fand, Tintagel, In the Faery Hills or Rosc-catha would remain closed scores, as it were, for the rest of my life.

Fast forward 35 years. Who would have believed that there would be at least two versions of each of the works presented on this CD? In the wider context virtually every major work by the composer would be available – including four cycles of the symphonies! Yet his music is rarely played in concert halls and recital rooms. This year’s Proms is a rare treat for Bax lovers, however the fact remains that most listeners engage with Arnold Bax by way of the iPod and the CD player rather than ‘live’.

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Arnold Bax: Winter Legend for piano & orchestra

The Manchester Guardian reviewer gave an excellent précis of Winter Legends, which may be derived from the programme notes: it is worth quoting. ‘There are three movements: The first is a gradual assembling and forging of various elements into a triumphant climax, the second, on the whole darker in tone, reaches a serene close, and the third, beginning starkly, comes to an end with the return of the sun after a long Northern Winter.’

It is not necessary to elaborate on this description and give a detailed analysis of Winter Legends. However, I think that it is essential to discuss three things: the work’s formal status, the extra-musical associations and the influences.

Firstly, is Winter Legends a symphony or a piano concerto? During the nineteen-twenties Bax had written his first three symphonies. Lewis Foreman has suggested that the composer had a bit of a stylistic crisis when it came to formulating his Fourth, which duly appeared in 1931. Almost as a preliminary to that great work he composed Winter Legends which has the formal characteristics of his symphonies which typically involved three movements with an epilogue. On the other hand, Andrew Burn notes that Bax did not view this present work or the earlier Symphonic Variations as being ‘conventional piano concertos’. In fact, the composer described Winter Legends as a ‘sinfonia concertante’. He told Adrian Boult that ‘the use of the piano was more akin to an important orchestral instrument’. To the listener, there is nothing simple or straightforward about the piano part: I guess it taxes the technique of the soloist to the extreme. However it not conceived in terms of mere technical display, nor is it a competition between piano and orchestra. There is a conversation between the two elements; however, it is more dialogue than dialectic. Bax regarded the formal construction of the piece as being too rhapsodic and ‘free’ to be a symphony as such but was probably content for it to be regarded as one if the listener or critic so chose.

Secondly, Andrew Burn has pointed out that Bax may or may not have had a ‘programme’ in mind when he composed this work, but he certainly never revealed what it might have been. In fact, Bax wrote in the programme notes for Winter Legends that the piece does not have ‘any communicable programme. The listener may associate what he hears with any heroic tale or tales of the North – of the far North, be it said. Some of these happenings may have taken place within the Arctic Circle.

‘Legends that once were told or sung

In many a smoky fireside nook

Of Iceland, in the ancient day

By wandering Saga-man or Scald.’

Bax concludes by suggesting that ‘there is nothing consciously Celtic about this work’.

Even the most cursory of hearings reveals a composition that is packed with musical adventures and covers a whole range of emotions – from ‘joy to sadness, triumph to despair, violence to peace and both love and hate’.

In fact, when I have listened to this piece, I have tended to see it as a major ‘love story’ especially written for the composer’s lover and muse, Harriet Cohen. Certainly a study of this relationship would suggest that Bax (and Cohen) would have traversed many of the emotions present in this work.

Thirdly, it would be easy to suggest that as there is ‘Northern’ colouring to this work, there must be some debt to Jean Sibelius. It is not quite as simple as that. There is little stylistic similarity to Sibelius. Bax has made use of an ‘intricate and closely woven polyphonic texture’ which is very different to the largely harmonic and homophonic writing of Sibelius. However there are similarities of ethos. The contemporary reviewer in The Manchester Guardian suggested that ‘the way in which ... the first movement is built up is strikingly analogous to many of Sibelius’s symphonic movements.’ Finally, furthering the idea of ethos rather than detail, it may be proposed that ‘there is more than a suggestion of the same master’s En Saga.’ Interestingly, the composer originally dedicated the work to the Finnish master but later changed it to Harriet Cohen.

When I first heard this work back in 1987, I considered that it rambled a little: I did not feel that it hung together properly. However after a number of ‘hearings’ the material seems to fall into place. Perhaps the problem was that there is such a huge range of emotion packed into what is a relatively short period (38 minutes).

I love this work in spite of a feeling that it is not quite equal in quality from the first to the last bar. There is a sense that there are pages of genius in Winter Legends that are set alongside music that is not quite so imaginative. Yet the overall impression is of a fine work that manages to hold the listener’s attention from beginning to end.

The first performance of Winter Legends took place at the Queen’s Hall on 10 February 1932 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Adrian Boult. It was performed shortly afterwards in the United States with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Serge Koussevitsky. Harriet Cohen later made a radio studio recording of Winter Legends and this is available on Dutton CDBP 9751.

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review first appeared

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Arnold Bax: Saga Fragment for piano and orchestra

There is a danger that listeners may down-rate the Saga Fragment simply because it was not a new work, but a reheated piece ‘dished up’ from Bax’s catalogue of chamber music. In fact, they could make no greater error of judgement. As Brian Wilson writing on MusicWeb International suggests, ‘it sounds anything but cobbled together.’

The work was a result of a request by Harriet Cohen for a short ‘concerted’ piece for her forthcoming American tour in 1933. Bax orchestrated the [Piano] Quartet in One Movement (GP255) which had been written in 1922 at around the same time as he was composing his First Symphony. It was a time when the composer was dismayed by the developing civil war in his beloved Eire.

Lewis Foreman has noted that the original piano part has been rearranged a little with some octave doubling added. The work was orchestrated for relatively small forces - piano solo, trumpet, percussion and strings. The Saga Fragment’s first performance was at the Queen’s Hall with Constant Lambert on the rostrum.

The mood of the music is quite severe. Andrew Burn in the liner notes of recently released Naxos CD quotes Cohen writing in her autobiography that this is ‘a savage little work much admired by Bartok.’ Bax himself is reputed to have said that Saga Fragment was ‘a rather tough pill.’

Once again Lewis Foreman well sums up the mood of this piece – ‘The composer appears torn between grim contemporary realities and an earlier, more romantic existence.’

Certainly, the piece opens with an aggressive, bristly staccato on the strings, and the piano, when it enters, strikes a sinister note. However this belligerence is not the full story. The composer is almost schizophrenic in his approach to the musical language with the middle section being wistful, reflective and possibly even optimistic in its mood. There is a ‘bardic’ magic in some of the quieter moments in this piece that looks towards the re-creation of an ideal world- most likely in Eire. At bottom, it is the violence pitted against the romance that makes or breaks this piece.

This work is currently available on Chandos and Naxos. Both versions are essential listening to all Bax enthusiasts.

With thanks to MusicWeb International where the substance of this text first appeared.

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Arnold Bax: Violin Concerto

Arnold Bax is well represented in the CD catalogues – even if a little unevenly. For example, all British music enthusiasts must be delighted (and amazed) that there are four cycles of the complete symphonies currently available – on CD or MP3. (For the record those are by Chandos with Handley and Thomson, Lyrita and Naxos).

The most popular work is Tintagel with more than thirty recordings currently available. This is closely followed by the magical The Garden of Fand with eleven. However at the other end of the scale, two of my favourite Bax works, the Violin Concerto and The Truth of the Russian Dancers are represented by just one recording each – and one of these is an MP3-only exercise. However there are always the second-hand shops. I confess to buying my copies the day they ‘hit the streets.’

The Violin Concerto is a great work. It ought to be amongst the top 10 of British essays in this form. (I will give a list of these ‘10’ in a later post!), however I guess that very few people know this present work.

The concerto was begun in 1937 and completed in March the following year. However it was not performed until a St Cecilia’s Day Concert in 22 November 1943. The soloist was Eda Kersey (pictured above right) with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Henry Wood. The concerto had originally been dedicated to Jascha Heifitz, however he found the music ‘somewhat disappointing; which may be a euphemism for ‘not sufficiently virtuosic'.

Lewis Foreman reminds listeners that Eda Kersey was tragically killed in an air raid in the summer of 1944. The impact on the concerto was that as she was the only champion the work virtually died with her.

Bax made a number of revisions and cuts to the work, Graham Parlett suggest the premiere possibly used the uncut version. However, the fully restored version was not heard until the Chandos recording with Lydia Mordkovitch, the London Philharmonic Orchestra with Bryden Thomson.

Graham Parlett quotes Julian Herbage writing in the 19 November 1943 edition of the Radio Times: this includes a short programme note by the composer, so it is a good summary of the concerto. 'Unfortunately I have had the opportunity of examining only the piano score of the concerto.....I asked the composer if he could in his own words give me a description of its structure, and in spite of his usual diffidence he sent me the following brief explanatory note:-

This concerto consists of the usual three movements, but it may be advisable to say a few words about the unconventional shape of the first. This actually comprises three distinct short pieces labelled respectively: Overture, Ballad and Scherzo, and yet at the same time the whole may be counted as in sonata form.

The Overture contains several themes, all of a restless and energetic character; the following Ballad takes the place of a main second subject; while the Scherzo represents the development section (making mock of the themes of the first part). Finally there are triumphant restatements of the chief themes of the Overture and Ballad.’

William Mann has written in the Penguin survey of ‘Concertos’ [1] that the violin concerto ‘sprang surprises in plenty on those who attended the first performance (in 1937) expecting to hear a thickly-scored, highly-coloured, perhaps diffuse rhapsody –something like a long, accompanied cadenza. There is none of that here. This concerto’s three-movement design is concisely organised, its texture clear cut. The solo part offers opportunities to a brilliant player, but there is something almost classical about the work’s avoidance of heavy emotion or anything so loquacious as a cadenza-almost, but not quite, for its amiable lightly romantioc freshness rather recalls Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.’

The second movement, with its pseudo-eighteenth century soundscape and third are no less interesting. Perhaps the highlight of the work is the luscious ‘Richard Strauss-like’ waltz that comes towards the end of the Rondo.

One word of warning: if you are lucky enough to have the violin/piano score, lookout for the cuts. For example there is an entire page cut-out towards the end of the last movement. It certainly floored me until I mugged up on the work in Graham Parlett’s indispensable catalogue!

Finally, I wondered if there is any ‘programme’ in this concerto, especially as to what the ‘ballad’ alluded to. There is no easy answer. But I suggest that the listener read Lewis Foreman’s account (in his biography of the composer) of Bax’s ‘affair’ with Christine Ryan, who was at nearly half the composer’s age. The ‘relationship’ ended by March 1943; just about the time that the full score of the Violin Concerto was completed!

Notes:

[1] The Concerto ed. by Ralph Hill Penguin, London 1952 (1954,1956)

Bax’s Violin Concerto is available on Chandos. It can also be found on Youtube.

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