‘If [a composer] has “something to say”, it can be said only through his technique; he has no control over “inspiration”. The surest way of writing dull music is to sit down with one’s head full of “Beauty” or “Socialism” instead of crotchets and quavers’. This no-nonsense approach to his craft has served Gordon Crosse well during his long career as a creative artist. Crosse was born in Bury, Lancashire on 1 December 1937. He won a place at Oxford University, where he studied with Egon Wellesz and Bernard Rose between 1958 and 1963. In the spring of 1962, following the advice of Peter Maxwell Davies, he studied for three months with Goffredo Petrassi in Rome. From 1964 onwards he combined composition with various teaching appointments at the Universities of Birmingham, Essex and King’s College Cambridge. After growing disenchantment with his profession, he gave up composition altogether between 1990 and 2007. The five works presented here all date from the 1960s. It was a period of great success and acclaim – in 1966 he was granted the Vaughan Williams Composer of the Year Award for his ‘outstanding contribution to British music’ and in the same year an article in The Times devoted to his output began with a quote referring to him as ‘the most exciting composer to have appeared in Britain since Richard Rodney Bennett’.

This album of Arnold Cooke’s Symphonies 4 and 5 were originally broadcast on the BBC in 1975 and 1981, respectively. Arnold Cooke said of his compositional style, “My music is mainly based on traditional procedures and principles… I do not have any particular theories of composition, just a natural inclination for it.” Cooke tended to steer away from passing compositional fads, staying true to his ‘style.’ Meirion Bowen said of this recording of Symphony No. 4, “the format is entirely that of the traditional four-movement symphony- crystal clear to follow, perfectly proportioned in the best academic traditions.” The works are performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Lyrita has concluded arrangements to buy Cameo Classics from its founder David Kent-Watson who concentrated on recording the works of neglected composers. Cameo Classics is now owned by The Lyrita Recorded Edition Trust which was founded by the late Richard Itter to continue his life’s work recording and promoting British Classical Music through the Lyrita label. The Lyrita Recorded Edition Trust will operate Cameo Classics alongside the Lyrita label. Cameo Classics had released several important premieres of works by British composers several of these recordings will be recompiled for immediate issue on the Lyrita label. The remaining Cameo titles will be represented alongside a new release programme drawn from the non-British material contained in the Itter Broadcast Collection. This release features premiere recordings of works by Arthur Somervell, Cyrill Scott, Maurice Blower, Frederick Kelly, and many other prolific yet too often neglected British composers.

Includes work(s) by Frank Bridge. Ensemble: Allegri String Quartet.

Amidst the excited flurry of the monthly Top Gun Lyrita releases comes this gentler morsel. But just because it’s not Boult’s Elgar Symphonies or the Coleridge-Taylor Violin Concerto or the George Lloyds or … well, whatever else it’s not, that doesn’t mean you should pass by. Here we have a quintet of composers and plenty of relaxed enjoyment. It also qualifies as a Light Music offering, as the disc’s subtitle makes clear, and given the prodigious number of genre releases recently that’s no bad thing either.

Phyllis Tate is represented by her 1958 London Fields. Tate has clearly listened to her Eric Coates but the xylophone frolics of The Maze at Hampton Court owe more to the syncopated bite of dance bands and maybe the large shade of Teddy Brown. The gauzy evocation of St James’s Park is written in very best Light Music style and the finale is a vigorous waltz – Hampstead Heath here teems with Edwardian bustle.

Coleridge-Taylor, whose Violin Concerto has now come into deserved light, is still the composer for lightly evocative Waltzes. We have Valse de la reine, the third of his Characteristic Waltzes written in 1899. Written con sentimento it was sent to his wife during their courtship and is delightfully, appositely and predictably sweet. A decade later he wrote Three-fours – Valse Suite. Of the two movements here No.2 is a charming Andante but No.5, whilst it sports a role for solo violin, is rather less accomplished. They’re both heard in the orchestrations by Norman O’Neill.

Programme planning, especially in compilation discs, is something of an art and the compilers clearly enjoyed following Coleridge-Taylor’s decorous late-Victorian and Edwardian waltzes with Bantock’s altogether more invigorating sketches. His Russian Scenes come from the same year as Coleridge-Taylor’s Valse de la Reine. Bantock doffs his capacious hat to Rimsky and to Borodin quite a lot hereabouts, and naturally to Tchaikovsky too. These are dance movements with local colour and plenty of energy. It depends how one takes them though. On Marco Polo 8.223274, Adrian Leaper and the Czechoslovak State, based in Košice, have their own view. Barry Wordsworth is gruffer than Leaper in the Mazurka and we find the Lyrita team points it very nicely with rubati; Leaper and his Slovak team are straighter and more metrical. Things are balanced though in the Valse – much quicker in Košice than London – where the evocative sound of the very brightly lit Slovak winds can sound tangier than their more cosmopolitan LPO rivals. By and large though Wordsworth prefers heft, and greater subtlety, especially in the Polka, to Leaper’s lighter take on Bantock’s musical sightseeing.

The Fancy Dress Dance Suite of Armstrong-Gibbs was written in 1935. The waltz Dusk is deservedly the most popular of the four movements, a famous BBC Home Service broadcast charmer. But though the Dance of the Mummers doesn’t sound too promising it actually largely eschews cod-maypole stuff and instead pays a fond and brief tribute to Delius, who had died the previous year. The final movement is rather over-long but its Elgarian moments – another casualty of 1934 – are explicit.

Finally there’s scary Elisabeth Lutyens and her delightful En voyage, written in wartime. The journey to Paris via boat train may be a thing of the past – and it certainly was back in 1944 for different reasons – but Lutyens summons up some evocative nature painting for a Channel squall, vibrant gaiety as the train approaches the bright lights of Paris and a generous winding down. Simon Joly and the RPO do the honours here and very well too.

Nothing over-serious here – just charming fare all round, finely played and conducted. Try Leaper for another take on Bantock but otherwise banish humdrum days with this delightful collection.

Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

John Ireland was another one of those high-quality composers who avoided large forms, and so will always rate as (at best) a "minor master". But his Piano Concerto is an early 20th century masterpiece, a real crowd-pleaser in a Prokofiev-meets-Gershwin sort of way. Eric Parkin is the pianist most closely associated with Ireland's work, and this recording of the concerto is the finest available. Parkin re-recorded the piece for Chandos, but that version is comparatively labored and heavy-handed, as well as glaringly recorded. Here, Parkin plays with an ease of rhythm, a flexibility and flow that makes the music swing as it must, and (as usual) Lyrita's sonics are terrific.

The remainder of the program is scarcely less attractive. These Things Shall Be is an optimistic choral paean that packs a lot of musical material into 20 scant minutes. Satyricon, an overture that for some reason never gets played these days, once again reveals Ireland's high level of melodic inspiration and sheer craftsmanship in those few works he composed with orchestra. The Legend for piano and orchestra has Parkin once again in top form, and all of this music benefits from Adrian Boult's authoritative but unobtrusively sensitive podium guidance. So many of these Lyrita discs are true "building a collection titles"--the one disc you must have if you want the best and most representative selection of its respective composer's work. Here is another in that distinguished line.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The 1970s origins of many of Lyrita’s too long delayed CD revivals need hold no fears for any purchaser. The forty plus year old sound remains an object lesson taught by the analogue tradition to the digital era.

The recordings here first appeared on various LPs from what was then known as the Lyrita Recorded Edition. Richard Itter’s Lyrita label was, from the very outset, a steadfast champion for Ireland. Overall he was the composer who had the largest number of LPs in the Lyrita listing. There were mono LPs of the piano music from Alan Rowlands, Eric Parkin’s stereo series, the chamber music and the songs. The orchestral LPs from Lyrita were from the period 1966-1971 and all were Boult-conducted:

SRCS32 Prelude: The Forgotten Rite; Mai Dun; Legend for piano and orchestra; Overture Satyricon
SRCS36 These Things Shall Be for baritone solo, chorus and orchestra; Piano Concerto in E flat
SRCS31 London Overture; Concertino Pastorale; Epic March; The Holy Boy; Minuet and Elegy (A Downland Suite)
SRCS45 Symphonic Prelude: Tritons; Two Symphonic Studies; Suite The Overlanders; Scherzo & Cortege (Julius Caesar)

The cover design for the CD booklet is taken from the Keith Hensby design for one of the original LPs and is based on an engraving of the Wren churches- clearly picking up the London reference.

Tritons is an early piece – which has curiosity value rather than anything else. The 40+ years since the recording session have lent the sound for this track a slight tubbiness but once the ear adjusts the brass sounds splendid with all the requisite grate and bite. Turning to a work of undoubted mastery, the effect in The Forgotten Rite is sumptuous - an object lesson in transparent scoring, sensitive interpretative choices and complementary recording technique. This is extraordinarily magical and fey music – gentle, dreamy and enigmatically beautiful. I noted at 6:10 a low key squeak.

The dream is blasted away by Mai-Dun. The title is taken from Thomas Hardy’s Wessex name for the earthworks known as Maiden Castle. It’s a dramatic piece which happily accommodates other influences including, in the aggressive French Horns at 1:20, Tchaikovsky’s 4th Symphony. This is mixed with Delian complexity (3:40). The horns sing out over top of searching forte strings at 4:20 and there are Baxian touches aplenty with at 6:18 a typical brass and percussion dance. As a performance this has more bite than Bryden Thomson on the even more splendidly recorded Chandos collection. However it is Barbirolli who gives this the best outing compromised only by 1940s mono sound on Dutton.

Both London and Epic March have also been recorded by Richard Hickox on Chandos. Hickox is in both cases more expansive than Boult. Boult’s London has sappy rhythmic bite and a glorious wide-stage orchestral image. The Epic March has full breadth and the splendour of a truly Elgarian nobilmente. In fact Ireland must surely have had the older composer’s warlike echoes of the Pomp & Circumstance No. 4 in mind. Lyrita missed a trick by not ending the disc with this piece. The recording misses not a detail: ‘ting’ of the triangle, the zesty side drum in left channel and rolling brass in the right; not to mention that affirmative warble from the brass benches at 5:41.

Rather like Bax, his flirtations with commissioned incidental music were invariably painful. He did not enjoy the BBC commission but on the evidence of Geoffrey Bush’s editorial work we can enjoy a stuttering Holstian scherzo full of jerky activity and a cortege of brooding epic melancholy. The cavernously sonorous clarity at 3:10 for brass and side drum is memorable.

Ireland sole foray into film music was for The Overlanders. Here the mediation between film and concert suite was done by Charles Mackerras – very appropriate given the Australian locale for the film. Scorched Earth has a Rawsthorne-like lyrical acidity – recalling the younger composer’s music for The Cruel Sea. The Intermezzo has a steady-as-she-goes swing in an open natural acoustic. In Brumbies Boult drives the music forward with muscular brusqueness. Note the fast flutter-tonguing from the trumpet. Night stampede has those magnificently burred and rolling horns and there is a majestic blast with which to end the suite.

The Lyrita reissue programme for the orchestral Boult-conducted Ireland will be completed in February and April 2007 with SRCD.241 and SRCD.242. The first will have Legend; Satyricon; Piano Concerto; These Things Shall Be and Two symphonic studies. The second is a mixed anthology: Ireland: Concertino Pastorale; The Holy Boy; Minuet & Elegy (Downland Suite) and Bridge: Rosemary; Suite for Strings; Sally in our Alley; Cherry Ripe; Lament; Sir Roger de Coverley.

The liner-notes for this issue are by three pillars of the Ireland quarter Julian Herbage, Harold Rutland and Geoffrey Bush.

A classic John Ireland collection – magically done. Not the essential Ireland apart from Forgotten Rite - for that you must go to SRCD.241 – but full of vitality and imagination.

-- Rob Barnett , MusicWeb International

Includes work(s) by Frank Bridge. Ensemble: London Philharmonic Orchestra. Conductor: Sir Adrian Boult.

Birtwistle - softer-grained, relatively lyrical and the angular rigorous.

Now that Lyrita appear to have reissued the majority of their own archive, it’s gratifying to see that they are turning their attention to some old Decca/British Council releases from the 1960s and 1970s that would otherwise be languishing in the vaults. The Decca Headline series contained some classic performances of then avant-garde works by contemporary composers; it featured works by international figures such as Messiaen, Lutoslawski and Henze in addition to home-grown talent such as Birtwistle, Bedford and Musgrave. The present CD is a straight reissue of HEAD 7 and contains three key works by Birtwistle from the late 1960s/early 1970s. It offers a useful snapshot of the composer’s style as he moved from the harsh expressionism of his early works (typified by the opera Punch and Judy) to his increasing fascination with the Orpheus legend, itself reflected in a softer-grained, relatively lyrical approach. On this CD The Fields of Sorrow and Nenia represent, broadly speaking, the latter approach; Verses for Ensembles contains elements of the more angular, rigorous Birtwistle.

Jane Manning joins the London Sinfonietta and Chorus for The Fields of Sorrow; word setting is unconventional, being divided across the forces, often syllabically. The performers are also distributed across the sound-stage, creating together with the bell-like sonorities a ghostly, disembodied effect. This effectively reflects the mediaeval poem which Birtwistle sets, depicting the journey of two souls through a gloomy forest in Hades.

By contrast with Verses for Ensembles we have what marks perhaps a culmination of his early, expressionist years. Hieratic brass and woodwind writing, contrasted with ebullient percussion, throw us immediately into a very different sound-world. The work encapsulates many characteristics of Birtwistle’s "early" period; his use of verse and refrain forms as a structural device, his fascination with procession or ritual, and a deployment of contrasting instrumental resources as a way of articulating the structure for the listener. The instrumentation is set into sharp relief by the composer’s spatial distribution of his forces on stage. Thus two woodwind groups sit to the left and right of the stage, with brass and percussion towards the rear. Birtwistle also requires players to move physically to key positions on stage at significant moments in the piece. The sounds themselves contrast harsh, aggressive brass and woodwind writing with softer passages. Verses for Ensembles is by no means an easy work to assimilate, but as ever with Birtwistle the music repays repeated study. The performance, by the forces for which it was written, is everything we could wish for. Perhaps one or two extra tracking points on the CD might have helped those unfamiliar with the music to find their bearings more clearly.

The final work on the CD, Nenia – The Death of Orpheus, was composed the year after Verses. The title refers to a Roman funeral dirge and the goddess invoked; Orpheus and Euridice are the subjects of the ritual. Birtwistle now groups his instrumental forces according to timbres, rather than the contrasting sounds he created in Verses. The instrumental music is dominated by the sound of bass clarinets. The structure of the piece, the instrumental forces, and the vocal style Birtwistle requires of his soloist - Jane Manning again - are immensely fluid, and immensely challenging, but at all times dictated by the text. Once again the performances are astonishing in their virtuosity.

As the composer in his early years moved from one set of preoccupations to another, reflected by a development in his actual compositional style, it’s misleading to suppose that each compositional phase is entirely self-contained, without reference to what came before or after. Birtwistle himself felt that each of his pieces consisted of "layers" reflecting both previous interests and pointing the way forward to future developments. On first hearing the extreme dissonance of Verses for Ensembles may appear to contrast sharply with the softer-grained approach of The Fields of Sorrow; but the composer’s spatial distribution of his forces in both works provides a stylistic link. Nenia, as we have seen, contains the preoccupations with ritual that characterised many of his earlier works. What comes across very clearly - and here I echo a word Paul Conway uses in his excellent booklet notes - is the composer’s stylistic integrity right across his output.

-- Ewan McCormick, MusicWeb International

Lennox Berkely once addressed the issue of composing sacred works in a 1966 issue of Times Literary Supplement: “How, it may be asked, does a composer approach the task of writing religious music? Does he adopt a different tone of voice, or use a special idiom?… I cannot imagine that any composer in these circumstances would want to modify his ordinary musical idiom.” True to his remarks, Berkeley’s Stabat Mater, Magnificat, and “Better My Heart” show his distinctive voice and recognizable style. The sincerity of these works is palpable and secures them a place amongst the great sacred works of his day. These recordings are taken directly from BBC transmissions from 1963, 1965, and 1968, and have been remastered with the finest technology for optimal sound quality.

These recordings are also available on Conifer 204/5.

Classical Music

This represents a cannily put together collection. This is the first ever issue of these versions of the North American Square Dance Suite and the Symphony. They have been ‘in the can’ since the early 1990s. The Overture was issued in the early 1970s on Lyrita LP SRCS 47 alongside other ‘Lyrita Lollipops’ by Delius, Walton and Bliss. Cotillon derives from a 1980s Lyrita LP: SRCS 115. Both the overture and Cotillon can also be heard on a mixed Australian light music collection on ABC.

Benjamin was Australian but spent most of his life in the UK with the odd sojourn in the USA. Lyrita are renowned for their attention to neglected British music yet here they are with the second recording of the Benjamin symphony. It’s not out of order. Benjamin was an adopted Brit and his creativity and career were bound up with the life of the British Isles.

The disc also serves to point up two aspects of Benjamin’s music: the light and the serious. He wrote many light pieces amongst which the most famous are the Jamaican Rumba and San Domingo recently featured with other light pieces on ABC Classics. On the other hand he produced a steady flow of serious works including operas, concertos for violin and piano, a Ballade for strings and this Symphony.

Myer Fredman's version of the Overture to an Italian Comedy with the RPO is a ‘Lyrita lollipop’ from an early 1970s LP. Joseph Post on an even earlier ABC CD directs a performance with rougher edges. It lacks the zip of the Lyrita and for that matter of the vintage Frederick Stock/Chicago version on Biddulph. The work explores territory familiar from Barber's School for Scandal overture and two overtures by Benjamin's friend, Bax: the peppy Work in Progress and Overture to a Picaresque Comedy. It is no surprise to hear that the Benjamin used this as an overture to his own opera Prima Donna.

From effervescence to neo-classicism: Cotillon is based not too tightly on original eighteenth century dances. You will know what to expect if you are familiar with Moeran's Serenade, Rubbra's Farnaby Improvisations, the outer movements of Finzi's violin concerto and the full orchestral version of Warlock's Capriol Suite. There’s a dab of Pulcinella here and a touch of tenderness there. Patrick Thomas in his ABC recording is more successful than Del Mar in conveying the sheer zest of this work. The North American Square Dance suite – no doubt recalling his West Coast Pacific years - is a playful charmer although its fizz is in some cases a little lacking in bubble.

The Symphony had its first commercially issued recording courtesy of Marco Polo. This was 8.223764. Dedicated to RVW, this work was a product of Benjamin’s Vancouver and Oregon years, written during the summer holidays of 1943, 1944 and 1945. He said that it was intended: "to mirror the feelings - the despairs and hopes - of the times in which I live." It is a classic war symphony that in the present recording can at last stand fully tall.

My expectations were high having first discovered this deeply impressive piece through a tape of fragmentary acetates of a truly electrifying performance (BBCSO/Boult) cutting through the primitive 1940s recording. The symphony itself is heavy with dark clouds, drama, grimness and heroism lit with an occasionally light-hearted spirit. It has something of the atmosphere of Walton’s First and VW 4, 5 - a work for which Benjamin had the highest regard - and 6. One might loosely associate this work also with the Hubert Clifford Symphony (Chandos), the Bernard Herrmann Symphony (Unicorn; Koch), the Arnell Third (Dutton) and the Alwyn First (Lyrita, Chandos, Naxos, Dutton).

The Marco Polo sound for Lyndon-Gee conveys a natural concert hall effect with plenty of impact. I would have preferred though a greater emphasis on the strings, but, that very minor quibble aside, this was a satisfying recording.

Wordsworth’s version has more choking gravitas and sturdily emphasised tension – as dark a performance as I have heard. Mind you my comparison pool is not large: from the Boult-conducted (or is it Benjamin or Barbirolli?) fragmented acetates to the 1980s broadcast by Patrick Thomas with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. The massively effective expansive gait of the Lyrita version contrasts with Lyndon-Gee’s headlong ardour. Wordsworth’s approach works consistently most especially in the broad Adagio Appassionato third movement with its cauldron of the emotions. Other works’ influence can be heard including in the first movement: the Tallis Fantasia (11:30 in I) and the Roy Harris symphonies of the early 1940s – stigmata also carried in John Veale’s wonderful First Symphony. The Benjamin symphony is a most potently charged work. That sturdy chant-undertow theme opens the work with a tidal surge. It also acts in various forms as an irresistible instigator-hortator throughout – a truly inspired idea. The finale is one of rhythmic splendour and brilliance albeit in dark gemstone hues. True to symphonic majesty-tragedy the undertow theme returns to crown the proceedings.

Benjamin’s light and serious sides are here generously represented in vivid performances and with superlative recording qualities to match.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

Technical brilliance, interpretive skill, spirit and inspiration.

I scratched my head a little as to how to review this CD. Firstly, the sheer number of pieces on this release prohibits a detailed analysis of, or even a paragraph comment on, each work. I guess that if I discussed the thirty odd pieces it would become a dissertation: I imagine that few people would read through to the end. Secondly the complexity of a full comparison of the Lyrita edition of piano music of Arnold Bax with those issued by Naxos and Chandos would also seem to be over-ambitious.

I will admit a bias towards Iris Loveridge. It is not that I do not have the Eric Parkin, Michael Endres and Ashley Wass editions in my collection at home – of course I do! It is simply that like most English music enthusiasts of my generation, dear old Iris was all I had to make my evaluation of Bax’s piano works. I know that a few ‘orphan’ recordings by Harriet Cohen and others may have been doing the rounds in the ’sixties and ’seventies, but from my perspective, Lyrita was the only way to get to grips with what is a vital contribution to an understanding of an important part of Bax’s output.

I remember buying my copies of the Lyrita vinyl from a shop called ‘Symphony One’ in Glasgow and also from Banks Music in York. I borrowed a copy of the music of the Piano Sonatas from a friend who was studying at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and sat down to make acquaintance with these works. Later another friend lent me the sheet music for a number of the smaller works. It was an educative experience and gave me an enthusiasm for Bax’s piano music that survives to this day.

However, it was not until more than fifteen years later, when the Eric Parkin edition was released, that I was able finally to get my head round these pieces. The CDs made it so much easier to listen to music ‘on the move’. And recently I had the opportunity to review Ashley Wass’s fine reading of the First and Second Sonatas. This proved to me two things – firstly that it is absolutely essential to have new recordings of Bax’s piano music and secondly that a new edition certainly does not necessarily supersede older ones.

Bax’s style of piano writing was a little bit anachronistic for his time. Many composers of the era were influenced by the bittersweet music of John Ireland but this was not the route that Bax took. When other composers were busy discovering English folk-song, atonalism and were nodding to past masters as neo-classicists, Bax was writing in a pianistic style that owed more to Chopin and Liszt than Schoenberg or Bartók. The influences of Wagner and Sibelius are omnipresent, although perhaps more so in the orchestral works. Then there was his fascination with the Celtic Fringe: he does not actually quote Irish or Gaelic folk-tunes but the music exudes the misty atmosphere of those remote and imaginative regions - more the spirit than the letter. Finally, much of the inspiration for Bax’s music came from the pianists, often ladies, who were to play the pieces - especially Harriet Cohen and Myra Hess.

Strangely, although Bax wrote a great deal for the piano it was only for a relatively small part of his career. Most of the works on this present CD were composed between 1910 and 1921. The Third and Fourth Piano Sonatas were written later. In addition to the solo piano music Bax also wrote a few concertante works, including the fine Symphonic Variations and the Winter Legends. There is also an impressive corpus of music for two pianos.

The solution to my quandary over how to review this CD is this: I want to pick out a few pieces from this edition that are perhaps a little less well known – even to Bax enthusiasts. These are not necessarily the highlights of this CD or of Bax’s piano music. They are simply five or six pieces that caught my eye, as it were, as I reviewed this 3 CD boxed set.

The Concert Waltz in Eb was composed in 1910 and is Bax’s first published piano work. It was dedicated to Myra Hess and was given its first performance in the same year. It is certainly not ‘typical’ Bax music – owing much to ‘romantic’ models. Yet it is extremely effective and avoids descent into pure salon music by the sophistication of its harmony and variety of expression. This is a lovely piece and is welcome as part of collection.

Winter Waters is an interesting piece: the sleeve notes rightly point out that there is a sea change in his music: it is suggested that this is “almost the quintessential” Bax piano piece. It is subtitled ‘A Tragic Landscape’ and as such describes a dark and bleak picture of the ocean or perhaps a sea-loch. Colin Scott-Sutherland suggests that this piece has the ‘dark menacing inscrutability of the sea.’ To me it one of the most impressive pieces in the Bax catalogue. It is certainly one that comes to mind when I watch the sea pounding against the rocks of the Cornish coast on a cold and stormy winter’s day. The pianist creates just the right atmosphere in her interpretation.

In 1929 Bax published three short piano pieces based on music from the ballet score The Truth about the Russian Dancers. The titles of these three pieces, The Ceremonial Dance, the Serpent Dance and Water Music bear no relation to the plot of the original ballet score. The Ceremonial Dance was part of the original work’s overture and is designed as a gentle pastiche of Russian ballet – complete with a ‘spoof' Russian tune. The programme notes quote Peter Pirie as describing the Serpent Dance as being "a half humorous piece of oriental tushery complete with wailing pipe and swaying snake." In fact, the music was originally used at the end of the ballet when the apparently dead ballerina rises from her couch at the Maestro’s bidding. The Water Music is a gorgeous number. Originally used in the score of Tamara, this was recycled as the Dance of Motherhood in The Truth and finally acquired its watery title in 1929. It is a simple tune that has a much more complex accompaniment. All three works do not quite fit the stereotype of what we imagine Bax’s piano music to sound like – yet they are interesting and satisfying.

The latest piece on this CD collection is O Dame Get up and Bake your Pies (Variations on a North Country Christmas Carol). This was composed as a gift for Anna and Julian Herbage. Apparently, Anna had baked some apple pies on Christmas Morning: they were Bax’s neighbours at Storrington in Sussex. What is important about this piece is the fact that most critics regarded Bax’s composing career to be virtually over: the inspiration had run dry, so it was believed. Yet this piece is near perfect: it is a ‘late-flowering’ of wit, melody and invention. It deserves to be a part of the corpus of the composer’s piano music. It was given its first performance a few weeks later, by Harriet Cohen on 28 February 1945. Loveridge plays this piece with both humour and panache.

Finally I want to look at one of the Sonatas. The First Sonata in F# major was composed in the Ukraine. Bax, always a man for the ladies, had set off in pursuit of a girl called Natalia Skarginska. Apparently she had spurned his advances. Bax, in his autobiography explains how she eventually remarried and died tragically of typhoid. Certainly this Sonata in one large sonata-allegro movement and surely owes much to Franz Liszt. However there is certainly a considerable influence from Russian models – similar to the Two Russian Tone Pictures and the In a Vodka Shop. The entire Sonata appears to be made up of a series of constantly changes moods and tempos: the composer takes fragments of themes and seems to throw them around the score. Much of the writing could be described as vague, in a deliberate sense, with the appearance of formlessness. Yet the reality is more prosaic – this is a well-constructed and disciplined work.

There is little here that suggests tenderness or repose and any such moment is short lived. There is a lyrical theme that is marked ‘sosprando – which means ‘sighing,’ however, the predominant mood of this music is passionate and sometimes even aggressive and violent. Lewis Foreman has remarked that this is not a ‘picture post-card’ view of Russia. It is fair to say that this Sonata reveals all the angst and anger of a young man seemingly being cheated of his love. On the other hand, in the coda the bells of St. Petersburg ring out in seemingly positive mood.

I re-listened to Ashey Wass playing this Sonata for my review. And I thoroughly enjoyed that version. Yet there is something moving about Iris Loveridge's playing that is almost indescribable. She manages a huge technique for the ‘bells’ sequence that is truly impressive. For my ear she better explores the tensions that seem to haunt Bax’s mind. Parkin has been accused of taking a more leisurely approach to this Sonata and I guess that I concur with that. Endres is considered to have made a powerful reading to this work. Yet when all is said and done, I have a sneaking preference for Loveridge.

This is not a complete edition of Bax’s piano music – I guess that has still to be achieved. Whether we would wish to hear the juvenilia, such as the March Trionfale written in 1900 or the Sonata in D minor from the same year is a matter of debate. Personally I am a completist, a kind of musical trainspotter. I feel that at least one recording ought to be available! However, there are a few later pieces missing from this collection that may be worth including in subsequent editions of the composer’s piano music. These include Scherzo 1913; In the Night 1914; Pæan (Passacaglia) 1928; Legend 1935; Suite on the Name Gabriel Fauré 1945 Four Pieces for piano 1947 and the very late Two Lyrical Pieces for piano 1948.

Lastly, there is an issue over the sound quality. Even the most enthusiastic supporter of the Loveridge edition would have to admit that the old mono tapes do not have the depth of the more recent ones. Yet this is no reason to underrate these CDs. They have been beautifully restored and little of musical value is lost in spite of the fact this is a pre-digital recording.

I would heartily recommend this set. I accept that there are three very good alternatives available for the majority of pieces recorded here. Yet the bottom line is that Baxians will want all obtainable versions for their collections. It is good to be able to contrast and compare the Sonatas and lesser pieces. I guess that every listener would have a different opinion on playing style, timings, sound quality and interpretation. However, paraphrasing my late father, no-one deliberately issues a bad recording of Bax’s piano music. Often it is a mater of taste. However, this present Lyrita recording is a superb opportunity to purchase virtually all the solo piano pieces by Sir Arnold Bax. Moreover, they are played with technical brilliance, interpretive skill and have the ability to move the spirit and inspire the mind.

-- John France, MusicWeb International

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.”