Having admirably survived Bax's discursive piano sonatas, Ashley Wass devotes all of his third volume of this composer's piano works to relatively smaller-scaled fare. Actually, the opening selection, What the Minstrel Told Us, times out to 11 minutes. The outer sections feature a bardic melody gently supported by slow moving, impressionistic chords and arpeggiated figures, while a middle section develops this material more agitatedly. Wass summons up all the tone color and sustaining power needed to convey the orchestral sensibility of the piano writing.


He plays the nocturne-like Princess's Rose Garden a bit straighter than Eric Parkin's more garishly-voiced Chandos recording, yet he shapes the chromatic motives with plenty of affection. By contrast, Wass doesn't clarify A Hill Tune's left-hand melodic content and right-hand accompaniment to Parkin's more fluid distinction. However, he scores with more rhythmic snap in the Spanish-tinged Mediterranean and renders the Gopak steadier, sharper, yet slightly slower in contrast to Parkin's brisker, looser approach. In short, collectors who've enjoyed Wass' previous Bax discs also will find this well-recorded, superbly annotated release to their liking. I look forward to this cycle's fourth and final volume.
--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Sir Andrew Davis is among the most distinguished interpreters of British music today and here turns to the works of Sir Arnold Bax. With the inclusion of the Phantasy for Viola and Orchestra, this album marks the completion of Chandos’s long project to record Bax’s complete orchestral music over time.

Born in 1883 into a wealthy family in London, Arnold Bax began a love affair with Ireland as a young man. He moved there in 1911 and his Four Orchestral Pieces from 1912 – 13 are deeply influenced by the landscape of the countryside near his Dublin home. The first three are better known in revised versions, from 1928, as Three Pieces for Small Orchestra. Here ‘The Dance of Wild Irravel’ joins the other three movements for the premiere recording of the four Pieces as Bax originally conceived and orchestrated them.

The Phantasy for Viola and Orchestra from 1920 was inspired by the strong feelings with which Bax responded to the Irish political turmoil at the time, underlined by his use of the Sinn Fein Marching Song (later the Irish national anthem) at its climax. Bax is celebrated for his melodic invention and this passionately lyrical score must be one of the finest examples of his gift. Here the soloist is Philip Dukes, described by The Times as ‘Great Britain’s most outstanding viola player’.

By 1927 Bax’s style was changing and the opening of the Overture, Elegy and Rondo is reminiscent of a classical concerto, suggesting a leaning towards then-fashionable neoclassicism. The long, dreamy melody of the middle section and brilliant, colourful orchestration, however, are unmistakable hallmarks of Bax’s individual voice. - Chandos

Reviews

“… Dukes is a sterling advocate of this unjustly neglected work [Phantasy] – the haunting cor anglais solo recalls the shepherd’s lament in Wagner’s Tristan – while Davis proves passionate in the impressionistic Four Orchestral Pieces and the powerful, dark Overture, Elegy and Rondo.” - Hugh Canning, The Sunday Times, Culture magazine, London – [September 14, 2014]

“All three of these rarely heard works come from the first half of Bax’s career as a composer. The earliest is the lightweight but charming set of Four orchestral Pieces from 1914, recorded here for the first time … The latest is the far more substantial Overture, Elegy and Rondo … Through stylistically the two works have their differences … both works reveal the same sure-footed handling of the orchestra, which these carefully manicured performances under conductor Andrew Davis show off beautifully…” - Andrew Clements, The Guardian, [August 29, 2014]

Chandos' latest release in its film music series features the film music of Sir Arnold Bax. Comprising two of the composer's most important film scores, Oliver Twist and Malta, GC. This disc features the first complete Oliver Twist, in an edition specially compiled for this release. Both these works are rare in the catalogue. Recorded in: Studio 7, New Broadcasting House, Manchester 24 & 25 September 2002 Producer(s) Brian Pidgeon (Executive) Mike George (Recording) Sound Engineer(s) Stephen Rinker

Arnold Bax was a 20th-century English composer perhaps best remembered for his early tone poems, many of which are based on Celtic legends and fairy tales. His style is unabashedly late-romantic and can be compared to Rachmaninov or Delius. Like both of those men, Bax was fortunate enough to have private income, which allowed him to spend his early adulthood living on the western coast of Ireland, where he steeped himself in the native folklore, learned Gaelic and made a name for himself as a poet.
Bax's most creative period was around the time of World War One, in which he did not serve because of a heart condition. 'The Bard of the Dimbovitza,' a song cycle based on a then-popular collection of specious Romanian folk song lyrics, was composed in 1914 but later revised, while the 'In Memorium' of 1916 is one of a number of elegiac pieces Bax wrote for victims of the war. In 1918 Bax deserted his wife and children to live with the pianist Harriet Cohen and thirty years later he wrote the 'Concertante for Piano (Left Hand) and Orchestra' for her. Conductor Vernon Handley, a long-time champion of Bax's music, delivers committed performances lushly recorded by Chandos.

Towards the end of any major, protracted set of recordings, especially when it has maintained such an outstanding high standard as the Bryden/Chandos series of Bax's orchestral music, there must be quite some trepidation that even Jove will nod and that the mould of excellence will be broken. Well, Thomson has yet to put a foot wrong!' Which CD 'Thomson possesses an intuitive understanding that allows more of the music to compel than one had dared hope...The London Philharmonic plays beautifully...' The Independent Recorded in: All Saints' Church, Tooting, London 3 & 4 April 1986 (Saga Fragment), and 11 & 12 April 1988 (Four songs) Recorded in: St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead, London 2 & 3 November 1988 (Russian Suite) and 23-25 June 1991 (Golden Eagle, Romantric Overture) Producer(s) Brian Couzens (Saga Fragment) Tim Oldham (other works) Sound Engineer(s) Richard Lee (Golden Eagle, Romantic Overture) Ralph Couzens (other works) Janet Middlebrook (Assistant: Four songs) Ben Connellan (Assistant: Russian Suite) Philip Couzens (Assistant: Saga Fragment)) Peter Sheldon (Assistant: other works)

2 discs for the price of 1!

Ah, such pleasing, dreamy music! You can almost see fluffy, feathery clouds drifting across a bright blue sky looking down on a lily-covered pasture. Picturesque? You bet. This is atmospheric music, pure and simple. Beauty of sound is given such a priority that concerns of form and structure seem irrelevant, though it's readily apparent that the four-movement Fantasy Sonata for harp and viola is a most substantial and seriously crafted work. The Sonata for flute and harp unavoidably conjures up images of Pan, while the Quintet, with its briefly dark and disturbing moments, shows evidence of having been composed in the wake of the First World War. However, it is the Elegiac Trio that presents Bax's real response to those events, particularly the death of his friend, Irish poet Padraig Pearse. Yet, there is no rage in this music; on the contrary, it inhabits a similar sound world to Debussy's Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp, which was composed six months earlier. Throughout all these works, Alison Nicholls draws exquisitely beautiful sounds from her harp, playing with the imagination so essential to the music's expressive character. She is handsomely partnered by Mobius, an ensemble of seven young musicians from four different countries. Their commitment and enthusiasm are evident from the first note to the last on this vividly recorded program. [10/17/2000] --Victor Carr, ClassicsToday.com

English composer Arnold Bax was born in the late nineteenth century but had his maturity and came to prominence in the first half of the twentieth. His was an affluent and literate London-based family and Bax was able to pursue a dazzling career undistracted by worldly necessities. He had no need to earn a living, teach, give concerts, court the great and good or chase commissions. In this sense he was like his ultimately more popular contemporary Vaughan Williams. No stranger to writing songs, chamber music and piano solos, Bax seemed most fluently at ease with the orchestra. The Second Symphony, written in London and Geneva, carries a dedication to Serge Koussevitsky who directed the premiere with his Boston Symphony Orchestra on 13 December 1929. Eugene Goossens gave the United Kingdom premiere on 30 May 1930. Bax who had not been able to travel to Boston, wrote: “I feel very grateful to Eugene for his brilliant performance … which lifted it at last for me into a purely abstract world. So for the moment I feel unduly tender towards its grim features.”

This album was nominated for the 2005 Grammy Award for "Best Orchestral Performance."

David Lloyd-Jones' new Bax Sixth is especially welcome since the only other modern recording is available only as part of a complete set of symphonies on Chandos. Even if that were not the case, Lloyd-Jones scores over Bryden Thompson with his generally more incisive reading. Both conductors make much of the first movement's melancholic rancor (in tempos that are virtually identical), but the central slow movement benefits from Lloyd-Jones' more rhapsodic approach, whereas Thompson seems content to languish (thereby adding more than two minutes to Lloyd-Jones' timing). The finale too finds Lloyd-Jones possessing a stronger sense of forward momentum as he reveals more of the music's dramatic architecture.


The Scottish National players yield nothing to their London counterparts--if anything their brass have the edge in terms of projection and rhythmic alacrity. Naxos' recording, while less opulently reverberant than the Chandos production, presents a sharper image that allows more of Bax's multilayered detail to emerge clearly (while still swallowing some of the top end, glockenspiel in particular). To top it off, Lloyd-Jones offers first-rate performances of Bax's lushly exotic Into the Twilight and the dreamy Summer Music. Certainly a must for Bax fans, but newcomers can unreservedly join in the fun too.
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

Includes work(s) by Hans-Eberhard Ross. Ensemble: Gould Piano Trio. Soloists: Benjamin Frith, Lucy Gould, Alice Neary, Robert Plane.

Arnold Bax's chamber music has been largely overshadowed today by his newly popular orchestral works, and in some instances, such as the first of his eminently fine string quartets, all but forgotten. Quartet No. 1 draws deeply on the grand quartet heritage of the 19th century, most notably Dvorák, whose Quartet No. 11 sounds to have been a model for Bax, so similar are their opening themes (not to mention Bax's use of a pentatonic scale in the secondary material). The central slow movement prefigures Bax's later luxuriantly atmospheric style with its languorous main theme supported by his trademark descending chromatic counterpoint. The finale, a self-styled jig on a popular Irish tune, brings the work to an upbeat and bright conclusion.


Quartet No. 2 is a tougher nut, and thus did not achieve the initial popularity of its predecessor. The opening movement's angular contortions give way to secondary material of a more lyrical stripe; however, it's not until the second movement that you find the expected Baxian lushness--and even here you can't get too comfortable, for sharp edges lurk in the shadows. A determined optimism characterizes the hard-dancing finale, which features two fugato passages before ending in a brilliant coda. Both quartets are important contributions to the repertoire, something made abundantly clear by the Maggini Quartet's masterful, deeply felt, and finely executed readings. The ensemble's burning conviction will make you a believer too, especially in this beautifully engineered production from Naxos.
--Victor Carr Jr., ClassicsToday.com

The Sinfonietta is entitled 'Symphonic Phantasy' on the unpublished manuscript (echoes of the original title of Sibelius's Seventh Symphony) and it remained unperformed during the composer's lifetime. He was unsure of it and told the conductor Christopher Whelen, to whom he gave the manuscript in 1950, that he didn't want it played. Whelen faithfully obeyed this injunction until 1983, when he was very reluctantly persuaded to let it be performed during Bax's centenary year. (He had previously refused a request from Robert Ponsonby to allow it to be premi�red at a Prom in 1980, where it would have shared the program with the first performance of Rubbra's Eleventh Symphony under Nicholas Cleobury.) Vernon Handley and the BBC Welsh Orchestra eventually gave the first performance at a recording session in Llandaff on 25 June 1983 for broadcasting later that year. (Odd to think that it has only ever been played in Wales and Czechoslovakia.)

Like so many composers, Sir Arnold Bax is known by only a fragment of his large output of music. Chief among the neglected areas of his achievement is the chamber music, which is certainly less frequently performed and recorded than his richly romantic orchestral scores.

Therefore it is good to find these viola pieces coupled in an appealing budget release from Naxos, pleasingly recorded by a particular talented player and his colleagues. Bax enjoyed an enduring friendship with the great Lionel Tertis (subject of a recently published biography by John White), and the substantial Sonata of 1922 is one of his finest compositions in any genre. The opening makes an arresting impression, at once atmospheric and expressive, while the scherzo is particularly exciting rhythmically. Martin Outram plays with warm expressiveness and a suitably rich tone, while Julian Rolton on the piano is recorded in just the right balance of perspective.

There is no question that the Viola Sonata ranks as the most significant composition among those collected here, and it is worth the price of the disc on its own. Alternative recordings are not numerous, and the most interesting is probably from Biddulph (LAB 148, mono) by the legendary William Primrose, accompanied by Harriet Cohen, famous for her relationship with the composer. However, the historical interest needs to be offset against the distinct lack of bloom of the pre-war recording. Earlier still, the composer and Lionel Tertis recorded the piece in 1929, though their version has remained out of the catalogue for several years.

That same year of 1929 Bax composed the Legend for viola and piano, music of serious and nostalgic character which finds him at his most darkly expressive. The other items, the Concert Piece for viola and piano, and the Trio for violin, viola and piano, are both early works, written well before the First World War. The latter is the more substantial of the two, and must rate as one of the strongest compositions from this phase of Bax’s creative life.

-- Terry Barfoot, MusicWeb International

Includes work(s) by Arnold Bax. Soloist: Laurence Jackson.

Ashley Wass and James Judd turn in a finely wrought and atmospheric performance of Bax's Winter Legends--a piano concerto in all but name. A Bax specialist, Wass highlights the alternating delicacy and bravura of the composer's piano writing (especially in the alluring solo that opens the Molto moderato third movement), while Judd is equally adept at the orchestral accompaniment, drawing rich, colorful playing from the Bournemouth Symphony. This recording supplants the previous version by Margaret Fingerhut and Bryden Thompson, as Thompson is not as free with the music as Judd, and Chandos' over-reverberant recording makes Bax's already swimmingly chromatic music sound even more so.

The fillers, the delightful Morning Song "Maytime in Sussex" and the dramatic Saga Fragment, balance out the program quite nicely--about an hour of Bax at one sitting is probably all you need anyway. Naxos' recording captures the full range of the music (it's pretty wide), yet maintains clarity even in the tutti passages. Bax fans will find much to enjoy in this release.

--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

Drawn from David Lloyd-Jones' excellent set of Bax symphony recordings, this collection competes in four out of five works with Bryden Thomson and the Ulster Orchestra on Chandos. Whereas Thomson has Summer Music, Lloyd-Jones offers The Tale the Pine Trees Knew, a more interesting and substantial work. In general this Naxos issue offers tauter, livelier performances than does Thomson, and this prevents the music from degenerating into a typically shapeless Baxian blob, as it has a tendency to do, particularly November Woods and The Garden of Fand. Lloyd-Jones also has the finer orchestra and a leaner basic sonority, less atmospheric than Thomson to be sure, but with a rhythmic crispness that puts a bit more muscle and sinew on Bax's opulent textures (check out Tintagel, which delivers a real rush of excitement in its central section). The engineering complements the performances, having fine clarity and impact. If you're in the market for a single disc of Bax tone poems, or even a single disc of Bax, then this one certainly fills the bill. [7/25/2005]--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

In the golden age of vinyl, the English label Lyrita produced a series of Bax symphony recordings conducted by Myer Fredman, Raymond Leppard, Vernon Hanley, and Norman Del Mar that gave most their first exposure to the evocative, romantic symphonic music of Sir Arnold Bax (1883-1953). It was one of the most distinguished series of audiophile recordings every chronicled. Lyrita only released two of the symphonies on CD (Symphonies 1 & 7) but that is probably out of print at the moment. There was an even better recording of the third symphony from the London Symphony and Edward Downes, also long gone. Chandos took a stab at the series during the dawn of the DDD era, but its conductor, Bryden Thomson, using slow tempos, took a loose and meandering view of these episodic works that caused them to seem disjointed. Naxos has now entered the ring with just the right conductor and orchestra and produced a series that is every bit the equal of that on Lyrita, but with a welcome twist, it is available to the public at less than half the cost. In this current installement, David Lloyd-Jones once again leads the excellent Scottish orchestra in a reading that is radiant and lyrical, and paced exacly right. The sounds of nature have seldom been so successfully translated into musical expression, and the superb engineering partners the performance hand in glove. If you like Vaughan Williams, especially his Pastoral Symphony, you will no doubt love this music. Start with this, the most popular of the composer's symphonies, backtrack to symphonies 1 & 2, already available on Naxos CD; then, along with me, keenly anticipate further releases in this magical series.--Rad Bennett, ClassicsToday.com

Although the Fourth cannot be numbered among the best of the Bax symphonies (it is arguably the least concentrated and most hedonistic of the seven), Bryden Thomson's LP with the Ulster Orchestra must have already won it many friends and this CD will win it even more. It is quite simply one of the very best CDs I have heard so far, and has an altogether striking presence and vivid detail that does full justice to Bax's sumptuous orchestral textures and opulent sonorities.

Bryden Thomson and the Ulster Orchestra have earned much praise for their earlier Chandos recording of Bax tone poems—November Woods, The Garden of Fand, Summer Music and The Happy Forest—which in its CD form on CHAN8307 (1/84) collected golden opinions both in these columns and elsewhere. Discussing that Compact Disc, MEO wrote of the ''finely calculated and highly individual character of Bax's orchestration'' being ''more evident than I have ever heard it outside the concert hall''—though I must say opportunities of encountering it there are hardly legion! This CD of the Fourth Symphony and Tintagel deserves an enthusiastic welcome and is a demonstration disc, even by the high standards Chandos have established in this field.

-- Robert Layton, Gramophone [8/1984]

BAX: Orchestral Works, Vol. 8

BAX The Truth about the Russian Dancers. From Dusk till Dawn • Bryden Thomson, cond; London PO • CHANDOS 10457 (67:12)


This is Volume 9 of Chandos’s midprice reissues of Bryden Thomson’s extensive survey of the orchestral music of Arnold Bax. The good news for Bax fans is that these are two obscure but major works showcasing the composer’s distinctive and highly personal orchestral style. The bad news is that the music is not qualitatively on the same level as any of his symphonies or major tone poems. From Dusk till Dawn and The Truth about the Russian Dancers were composed respectively in 1917 and 1920 when Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes visited London and immediately captured Bax’s artistic imagination. The Truth about the Russian Dancers (at 46 minutes) is a major score (despite its ridiculous plot), and both works are replete with Bax’s typical colorful orchestration. These ballets also prove that Bax is not to be compared with Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, or Delibes as a melodist. Nevertheless, both pieces have their melodic moments. The lengthy and pivotal “Dance of Motherhood” from The Truth about the Russian Dancers is a characteristic Baxian lyrical effusion. “Karissima’s Farewell” is suitably dramatic in a gentle sort of way, and the final allegro vivace dance achieves a level of dramatic urgency worthy of Prokofiev, who seems to be Bax’s principal influence in these ballets. From Dusk till Dawn contains several examples of lovely tone-painting, such as the aptly titled “Summer Night at the Window.” This may not represent Bax at his best, but there is plenty of gorgeously orchestrated, never-before recorded music here for the adventurous listener.


Bryden Thomson is obviously totally committed to Bax and conducts the music with plenty of rhythmic vitality. The sound is unequivocally Chandos, but on the top end of their game. Any Bax-lover will thoroughly enjoy this worthy presentation of some of his virtually unknown ballet music.


FANFARE: Arthur Lintgen

BAX: String Quartet No. 3 / Lyrical Interlude

The heart-on-sleeve romanticism of Bax' First Violin Sonata reflects the composer' passionate love affair with the Ukrainian girl Natalia Skarginska in the winter of 1909-1910. Bax soon replaced two of the movements, but the vibrant originals survive.

The superb flute, harp, viola trio, Hat Trick, returns to Bridge with a fascinating program of recent works coupled with a classic. The trio, April Clayton, flute; Kristi Shade, harp; and David Wallace, viola, perform new music by Thea Musgrave, Daniel Dorff, Jessica Meyer, David Bruce, and Angelica Negron alongside Sir Arnold Bax's 1916 "Elegiac Trio".

This album presents selected works performed by harpist Laura Newell. "American harpist Laura Newell was born December 16, 1900 in Denver. She studied harp there with Kajetan Attl, and at New England Conservatory with Alfred Holý. A pioneering orchestral and chamber freelance musician in the male-dominated musical world of the era, she played with the Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony, and in New York with WOR's Wallenstein Sinfonietta, NBC Symphony, and on radio and television with The Bell Telephone Hour. She recorded the Britten Ceremony of Carols with Robert Shaw for Victor twice, and recorded the Debussy trio for Columbia and Decca. Her recordings with the Shulman brothers - of the Ravel Introduction and Allegro, with the New Friends of Rhythm, and these recordings for their Philharmonia label - reflect her remarkable versatility, which transcended genres. Her student and close friend, founding editor of the American Harp Journal Sam Milligan, said that she had "the cleanest technique I ever heard." She retired in the early 1970s and devoted her creative activity to painting watercolors, calligraphy and enamels. Laura Newell died in New York City January 24, 1981". -Jay Shulman

Sir Arnold Bax wrote his seven symphonies between 1921 and 1939, embracing a prolific period that drew inspiration from a variety of sources. From the dramatic impact of the Second Symphony through to the seascapes of the Fourth and hints of Sibelius in the later works, Bax’s powerful symphonic world is one of surprising and at times stormy vigor contrasting with the most intense lyrical expressiveness and serenity. The selection of additional orchestral works evoking nature and atmospheric landscapes fascinates and rewards in equal measure, providing an essential overview of Bax’s music in critically acclaimed recordings.

REVIEW:

Listeners should come away mightily impressed by David Lloyd-Jones's clear-headed conducting of this intoxicating repertoire.

-- Gramophone

Past praise of previously released individual volumes included in this set:

Symphony No. 1 - In the Faery Hills - Garden of Fand

This first disc in the Naxos Bax series offers warmly idiomatic readings of two early symphonic poems, as well as the First Symphony…finely detailed. In the two symphonic poems, more specifically inspired by Irish themes, Lloyd-Jones draws equally warm and sympathetic performances from the Scottish Orchestra, bringing inner clarity to the heaviest scoring. First-rate sound...

-- Penguin Guide

Symphony No. 4, Nympholept, Picaresque Comedy Overture

The RSNO handle the difficulties of these scores well, with some wonderful solo playing from oboes and horns. The conductor David Lloyd-Jones allows those refulgent textures time to breathe, without letting the music sprawl.

-- Times of London

Symphony No. 5 - The Tale the Pine-Trees Knew

Lloyd-Jones's intelligent, meticulously observant and purposeful direction pays handsome dividends, and that a well-drilled RSNO in turn responds with sensitivity and enthusiasm. In short, another terrific coupling within what is turning out to be one mightily rewarding enterprise.

-- Gramophone

Spring Fire, the newest release from SOMM Recordings, highlights the complete music for cello and piano by Arnold Bax (1883-1953), with Alexander Baillie, recognized as one of the finest cellists of his generation, and pianist John Thwaites, his long-time musical partner. The Baillie-Thwaites Duo has capitalized on concert performances of the greatest twentieth-century British music over the last decade, and, with this recording, continues it's enduring partnership with SOMM. The release takes it's title from an early masterpiece by Bax, Spring Fire, a Symphony for Orchestra�from 1913. Coming from a particularly fruitful period when Bax wrote a series of symphonic poems of consistently high quality, it may well have been inspired by his love for the beautiful young pianist Harriet Cohen. Theirs was a passionate love affair and a fertile artistic partnership that lasted forty years. Through force of circumstance, not least of which was World War I, Spring Fire was never performed during Bax's lifetime; but he repurposed the haunting melody from it's opening movement, In the forest before dawn, for the slow movement of the Cello Sonata in E flat minor. Performances of this three-movement Cello Sonata are vanishingly rare, which makes the present release all the more important. The recording opens with a little-known gem, the Folk-Tale for cello and piano. It is a gorgeous work dedicated to the English cellist, Felix Salmond, who gave the first performance at Wigmore Hall on 27 April 1918 with Bax at the piano. The first two works on this disc are linked to a fantasy world, while the last two are written with formal clarity and concision. In 1933, Bax dedicated his Sonatina for Cello to the legendary cellist, Pablo Casals, and it fulfils it's slight brief with barely a repeated note. The Legend-Sonata was commissioned by and dedicated to the English cellist Florence Hooton. She gave the premiere at Wigmore Hall on 10 November 1943 with Bax's muse and lover, Harriet Cohen, as the pianist. The sweeping survey of twentieth-century cello repertoire that the Baillie-Thwaites duo has undertaken for SOMM includes a double CD of Twentieth-Century Sonatas for Cello and Piano (SOMMCD 251-2) and The British Cello (SOMMCD 0175). The Observer has praised "Baillie's rewardingly intelligent playing... matched by Thwaites's warm, generous, perfectly judged pianism;" and BBC Music Magazine says "It isn't just the excellence of Alexander Baillie's and John Thwaites's playing, but that they invest each work with the power of utter belief." This CD is dedicated to the memory of the Bax scholar Graham Parlett, who, in preparation for this recording, supported the UK performances of these works given by the Baillie-Thwaites duo. Henry Purcell was at the height of his powers at the time of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which saw King William III and his wife Queen Mary II crowned as joint British monarchs. Queen Mary was an avid lover of dance, which led to it being a regular and expected part of Restoration theatrical productions. Purcell's first great operatic work, Dido and Aeneas from the late 1680s, included no less than seventeen original dances. Purcell wrote in every form-ranging from theatre and church to concerts and balls-and his music dominated public demand in almost every genre. His success led to requests for music of all kinds, particularly dance movements, either singly or forming parts of suites for the keyboard. At the time, there was a growing fashion for French keyboard music, and Purcell willingly accepted the structural influences from that school. And yet, his music remained infused with the individual expression of an undoubtedly English composer. Tragically, Purcell died at the peak of his career on 21 November 1695 at his home in London. He is believed to have been 35 or 36 years old at the time.�A year after his death, Purcell's widow, Frances, posthumously published A Choice Collection of Lessons for the Harpsichord or Spinet. These eight suites, long overshadowed by his more celebrated theatre works, are the core of Purcell's keyboard output, shifting from major to minor keys, from humour to seriousness, to create a uniquely expressive musical world. The suites incorporate French dance forms like the Almand, Corante, and Minuet, and the Spanish Saraband, which Purcell imbued with a quintessentially British idiom. This finds particular expression in movements like a Corante that deftly incorporates tunes from Ireland and Scotland; a brilliant Jigg that seems to catch the listener unawares; and a burly Hornpipe that draws on earlier incidental music. Cristian Sandrin intersperses Purcell's posthumously published eight keyboard suites with occasional additions from other works, and his recital concludes with the beautiful Sefauchi's Farewell. Purcell was deeply impressed on hearing one of the greatest of all castrati, the Italian 'Sefauchi' (Giovanni Francesco Grossi), in London. This keyboard work is a tribute from one noble musician to another.

Naxos is going head to head with Chandos in English repertoire, and while British critics no doubt will circle the wagons in defense of their home-grown product, the fact is that this newcomer beats the Brits at their own game. Not only do we have a British conductor with evident sympathy for the music (which is Bax at his opulent best), but one with an orchestra that Chandos, in its own innumerable releases, demonstrated was clearly superior to the London Philharmonic (led by the late Bryden Thomson in the case of Bax's symphonies). In addition, we also get a recording of excellent technical quality. In fact, Chandos' recording of this piece was cavernous in the extreme, and Thomson's sometimes slack way with the music was anything but ideal. (There's a superb version of this symphony on Lyrita conducted by Meyer Fredman which has never appeared on CD). In short, this recording offers top quality in both performance and sonics irrespective of price, and makes the perfect starting point for anyone interested in sampling the work of this lusciously Romantic composer. [10/3/1999]--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

BAX: Symphony No. 1 / In the Faery Hills / Garden of Fand