Although Tintagel is his best-known piece many other works deserve even greater exposure and are finer. Restricting ourselves to tone poems The Garden of Fand and November Woods are notable. The latter is amongst his strongest works. It has magic without being specifically Irish and a storm-swept fury which is quite overpowering. Fand too is a magical piece, returning to the spirit of Irish legend.

The numbered symphonies, of which there are seven, span the high summer of his creativity. No. 1 is turbulent and dark with occasional echoes of Holst. The composer ambiguously dismissed suggestions that it was inspired by the Great War. No. 2 is amongst Bax's great works mixing music of breathtaking beauty with molten savagery. No. 3, which has been his most played symphony is more pictorial in nature. Its moods are not as extreme as its predecessors. Only in its epilogue, which is restrained and contemplative, does the work become compelling. It has something in common with Bantock's Pagan Symphony from about the same time. No. 4 conjures up bright seascapes and idyllic sunlit headlands. There is no violence here only a breezy, sunlit beauty. No. 5 represents a major change of gear and mood. This is a different Bax. Here he catches the Northern atmosphere with a Sibelian accent. Everything is more Nordic, frenzied, snowy and cold. There is no dreamy epilogue this time. Instead there is a barbaric splendour and white landscapes. This has much in common with the three Northern Ballads and his masterpiece for piano and orchestra: Winter Legends.

The Sixth is the pinnacle of the symphonies. Here the wildness and Northern ferocity of the proceedings are conjured up with brutality. The first movement launches with an overpowering muscular bass figure rising to an almost shouted climax. The second movement has great beauty but is never quite carefree. The last movement opens almost humorously but the mood rapidly changes. There is a towering culmination which subsides into a perfectly judged epilogue where carolling, quiet trumpet fanfares and woodwind figures intermingle with the harp and violas in an enchanted farewell to the world. There is nothing else to be said; only a fulfilled exhaustion and a steady peaceful journey into night. Applause would seem out of place in the face of this stillness. The quality of the Sixth places it alongside Walton's First Symphony and Vaughan Williams' Fourth and Sixth. It is inexplicable that it is not played at least as often as these works. Where some of Bax's works can be accused of prolixity and a lack of concentration, No. 6 is a model of emotional concentration. What it has to say it says economically and inevitably. Its time will certainly come. The Seventh is picturesque and occasionally ceremonial but catches the sense of peaceful farewell in its extremely beautiful epilogue. The Atlantic seascape is dappled with a late bright sun dipping into sunset and the seagull's cry calls out across the years ... fading and fading.

Bax orchestrated most of the symphonies during his annual wintering with his lover Mary Gleaves at Morar. After No. 7 the only work of remarkable consequence was the Violin Concerto, originally written for Heifetz but finally taken up by Eda Kersey. He died on 3 October 1953 at Cork in his beloved Ireland. Amongst his last experiences was a visit to the Old Head of Kinsale. He was there for a most magnificent sunset, by all accounts lost in its glory, his companion had to take Bax by the arm and lead him back to the car. Perhaps it called up the vivid memories of another sunset seen by him in 1889 from the top of Arundel Park in Worthing and recalled as "an unimaginable glory of flame … sheer all-conquering splendour and majesty."

The promotion of Bax after the decline following his death in 1953 began in earnest with the BBC's cycle of all seven symphonies bringing the then ailing Eugene Goossens back into the studio to conduct the volcanic second symphony. This cycle was widely taped using the novel wonder of the domestic tape recorder. These tapes changed hands amongst enthusiasts and offered the kindling for a revival. Concert promoters, conductors and broadcasting organisations were caught up in the atonal revolution. Bax's music did not fit and suffered appallingly. In the mid-1960s however recordings of piano music performed by Frank Merrick and Iris Loveridge (Lyrita) gave Bax a growing prominence. Revolution Recordings recorded onto LP his Symphony No. 4, Symphonic Variations and Tale the Pine Trees Knew. The orchestra was the Guildford Philharmonic and the conductor, Vernon Handley. In the late 1960s Lyrita recorded Boult in Bax tone poems (including a shattering November Woods), Norman Del Mar in a still-unmatched Symphony No. 6 and Myer Fredman in the Symphonies 1 and 2. The latter two recordings were financed by Ken Russell who contemplated a film about the composer. In the early to mid-1970s Lyrita pressed ahead with LPs of Symphonies 5 and 7 in excellent performances conducted by Raymond Leppard. This was something of a shock as Leppard was seen as a baroque specialist. (I'd love to know if Leppard got to do any Bax while with the Indianapolis SO and even more to hear some tapes). Leppard followed the Lyritas up with radio broadcasts of the Symphony No. 5, the Violin Concerto (in a much under-rated performance by Dennis Simons) and in 1979 one of Bax's towering masterworks: Winter Legends for piano and orchestra (with John McCabe). McCabe repeated the work with Handley a few years later. Chandos, a fledging record company, took up Bax's cause using the Ulster Orchestra and the conductor Bryden Thomson. They first launched a recording of his tone poems. This was one of the earliest Compact Discs and was quickly followed by the same company and artists in Symphony No. 4. The 1983 centenary was marked handsomely by the BBC with revivals of many orchestral works including some premieres. All Baxians owe a great debt to the BBC and the inspiring force behind the generous concert series: Lewis Foreman. From the mid-1980s for the next decade Chandos completed the symphonic cycle with Thomson and delved deep into Bax's many other orchestral and chamber works. The continuing and growing success of Bax's music coincided with the digital and CD 'revolution' and found an audience sated with multiple cycles of Beethoven and personality conductors. This same audience, adventurous and ready to explore, continues to push back the boundaries of known music well beyond the 'safe' and steady repertoire of the 'great' orchestras and conductors playing 'great' music. Bax may well be one of a host of composers whose music will make more headway in commercial and radio recordings and as the technology opens up, over the Internet, than it will be allowed to in the concert-hall. Sad though this might be, anyone who feels anything for the music of Bax will welcome the fact that the music seems to be finding new adherents and enthusiasts all the time.

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