Sir Adrian’s radiant
belief in Bax’s music shines through
every note on this disc. Here are three
of Bax’s finest compositions (the symphonic
poems) in performances and recordings
that can only be described as resplendent,
with two interesting shorter pieces
as make-weights.
The Garden of Fand
is, according to the composer, ‘entirely
enveloped in the atmosphere of the calm
Atlantic off the Western shores of Ireland
and the enchanted islands of which some
of the country people still dream’.
Certainly the elusive sound-world is
entirely evocative of magic and mystery
(Bax thought of it as his last overtly
Celtic work). It is dedicated to Frederick
Stock, who conducted the première
in Chicago in October 1920 (the first
British account was under the present
conductor, Sir Adrian Boult, just over
a year later). The ‘Garden of Fand’
of the title is actually the sea and
in some ways this is the English La
mer. Boult captures the swelling
of the sea perfectly – this impression
is progressively heightened as the piece
progresses.
Tintagel is
another sea-scape. Tintagel is a castle-crowned
cliff in Cornwall, and the music describes
the long stretches of the Atlantic visible
from the cliff-top. Spiralling phrases
and a seemingly endless flow of easy
invention characterise this work. Here,
as in Fand, the LPO is on the
very top of its form, sensitive to each
and every harmonic shift. November
Woods is highly evocative music,
scored with the hand of a master. It
is incredible to think that the present
recording was made in 1967, so life-like
is the presence of the orchestra. Boult,
in all of these scores, paces the whole
perfectly.
Two lesser-known pieces
begin this disc, Northern Ballad
No. 1 and Mediterranean.
‘Gritty’ is not a word I had expected
to use in reference to Bax’s music,
yet it most accurately describes Northern
Ballad No. 1. This is Northern in
the sense of the Scottish Highlands,
and indeed there is something large
and windswept about Bax’s canvas here.
The performance is almost preternaturally
alert (try the section around 2 minutes
in).
Mediterranean
is a very short work that began life
as a piano solo. It is dedicated to
Holst and builds up a predominantly
Spanish atmosphere to perfection. Boult’s
timing of the Spanish rhythmic inflections
is, perhaps surprisingly given his reputation
for English music, near-perfect.
From an execution point
of view, the Boult recordings on Lyrita
seem head and shoulders above the rest,
this despite the excellence of some
of the other issues.
Colin Clarke
The
Lyrita catalogue
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Adrian Boult.
