Well, I have been thinking lately, I think quite often about Bax's music. He, is still, imo, quite an unjustly neglected composer. Record companies like Chandos, have done bax proud with their recordings of his music. People always think of Bax's Tintagel, his most popular work but there is so much more to his music. His tone poems for orchestra, for example, as I have mentioned already, but I think there is another work, which has become a great favourite of mine and that his Spring Fire Symphony. It was played a few years ago at the Proms by the Halle under Elder. Who says, he is the only person who can get his played, as he is the only person who has the score! a great pity if that is the case.
-
Don’t cry for me
I go where music was born
J S Bach 1685-1750 -
Try the String Quartets. -
Indeed I will, DracoM. His piano music is very good too. There is a transcription of Bax's 1st Symphony for piano!Don’t cry for me
I go where music was born
J S Bach 1685-1750Comment
-
Hurrah for Naxos and the Magginis!Originally posted by DracoM View Post
Lots of Bax on Naxos:
The mobius Chamber music CD (including the Harp Quintet) is a delight.Comment
-
as ever! How about this recording I mentioned earlier of his piano music, which I have:-Originally posted by Pulcinella View PostHurrah for Naxos and the Magginis!
Lots of Bax on Naxos:
The mobius Chamber music CD (including the Harp Quintet) is a delight.
"Complete Piano Sonatas" Michael Endres ,piano,.Don’t cry for me
I go where music was born
J S Bach 1685-1750Comment
-
Yes indeed,and hurrah for Ashley Wass and Naxos for their recordings of solo piano and chamber music with piano.Originally posted by Pulcinella View PostHurrah for Naxos and the Magginis!
Lots of Bax on Naxos:
The mobius Chamber music CD (including the Harp Quintet) is a delight.
The piano quintet (c/w Bridge) with the Tippett Quartet is an absolute jewel of a disc.
Tintagel probably just about saves him from being totally neglected,bit like The Planets for Holst.Comment
-
Indeed ER! Is it Ashley Waas that's recorded his piano music then?Originally posted by EdgeleyRob View PostDon’t cry for me
I go where music was born
J S Bach 1685-1750Comment
-
Looks as though that Bax is a neglected composer on this Forum too. I just love his style of music. The rich colours he gets out of his music, is quite something, imo.Don’t cry for me
I go where music was born
J S Bach 1685-1750Comment
-
Weeeell ...Originally posted by Brassbandmaestro View Post
I agree with Pulcie that the Mobius NAXOS disc of Bax chamber Music is an utter delight, and I've enjoyed his String Quartets, too. But with his orchestral Music, I rather think that - contrary to your own statement earlier - there is rather less to Bax than Tintagel. The "tone poems" I prefer, but the Symphonies lack the sweep and joy and passion that Tintagel abounds in. The Fifth Symphony is for me the best of a mediocre lot; and it begins so well - as if the composer had heard Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion, & Celesta and was making something of his own of it, but before too long he's gone into a tiresome faux-Celtic top o'the marnin' to ya jiggery-pokery that's full of sound but doesn't really interest or amuse me. (I much prefer Bolero!) And whilst there are some lovely, rich harmonies, full of genuine pathos, in the conclusion of the Symphony - it does go on a bit. Like a desiccated Beethoven coda, sucked dry of fire and energy, it just does the same thing again and again and again.
Bax's Music neither provides me with what I most want from Music, nor presents me with anything that I hadn't before realized I needed from it.[FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]Comment
-
There you go, Bbm - if that doesn't get the conversation animated, nowt will!
[FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]Comment
-
thanks Ferney. Bax's music is not to everyone's taste. But I find it quite enthralling. all to do with taste. yes what The Maggini's have done is marvellous.Don’t cry for me
I go where music was born
J S Bach 1685-1750Comment
-
It must say something about my infrequent visits to this forum that I have missed the "Composers" section and Brassbandmaestro's valiant defence of Sir A.
I came to Bax back in the 70's with the Lyrita LPs and have since added Vernon Handley's masterly CD set to the library. I am as familiar with all the Bax symphonies as I am of those by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovitch and Mahler but I have never tired of them. It was only the other day that I caught a movement from Mahler's 7th symphony and Rob Cowan commented on its completion that it sounded as if "Mahler had put everything and the kitchen sink into it" and I had to agree - which was a moment of revelation as I had been a devout Mahlerian since my teenage years.
Bax, on the other hand, suits my ageing years. I cannot explain it but there is something within the music that is mysteriously evocative of a world that may never have existed but which one wishes still prevailed. The sound world of a Bax symphony is peculiarly his and his alone and despite the odd glaumphing tune that can intrude on occasion one is always bewitched by those passages where the magician in Bax produces something etherally wonderful. Indeed, if the Seventh Symphony had not been composed in 1939 and Strauss' Four Last Songs in 1948 but the other way round I'd say that Bax quoted the very last notes of "Im Abendrot" as the last notes of that symphony in what was indeed Bax's farewell to mainstream composition.O Wort, du Wort, das mir Fehlt!Comment
-
I'm very fond of his solo piano pieces many of which have been recorded by Ashley Wass. I first got to know of Bax via Helen Fry's biography of Harriet Cohen, "Music & Men", in which Sir Arnold features prominently. By all accounts Sir Arnold was a bit of a cad. A chance remark revealed that the wife of one of my friends was a "Bax" - and turned out to be a great-niece of Sir Arnold.My life, each morning when I dress, is four and twenty hours less. (J Richardson)Comment
-
-
Comment