Bax Symphonic Variations; Morning Song
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Arnold (Edward Trevor) Bax
Label: Chandos
Magazine Review Date: 2/1988
Media Format: Vinyl
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: ABRD1226
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Symphonic Variations |
Arnold (Edward Trevor) Bax, Composer
Arnold (Edward Trevor) Bax, Composer Bryden Thomson, Conductor London Philharmonic Orchestra Margaret Fingerhut, Piano |
Morning Song, 'Maytime in Sussex' |
Arnold (Edward Trevor) Bax, Composer
Arnold (Edward Trevor) Bax, Composer Bryden Thomson, Conductor London Philharmonic Orchestra Margaret Fingerhut, Piano |
Composer or Director: Arnold (Edward Trevor) Bax
Label: Chandos
Magazine Review Date: 2/1988
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 58
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CHAN8516
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Symphonic Variations |
Arnold (Edward Trevor) Bax, Composer
Arnold (Edward Trevor) Bax, Composer Bryden Thomson, Conductor London Philharmonic Orchestra Margaret Fingerhut, Piano |
Morning Song, 'Maytime in Sussex' |
Arnold (Edward Trevor) Bax, Composer
Arnold (Edward Trevor) Bax, Composer Bryden Thomson, Conductor London Philharmonic Orchestra Margaret Fingerhut, Piano |
Composer or Director: Arnold (Edward Trevor) Bax
Label: Chandos
Magazine Review Date: 2/1988
Media Format: Cassette
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: ABTD1226
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Symphonic Variations |
Arnold (Edward Trevor) Bax, Composer
Arnold (Edward Trevor) Bax, Composer Bryden Thomson, Conductor London Philharmonic Orchestra Margaret Fingerhut, Piano |
Morning Song, 'Maytime in Sussex' |
Arnold (Edward Trevor) Bax, Composer
Arnold (Edward Trevor) Bax, Composer Bryden Thomson, Conductor London Philharmonic Orchestra Margaret Fingerhut, Piano |
Author:
The piece has a curious structure. Although it plays for very nearly 50 minutes it consists, apart from an intermezzo, of only six 'variations' (extended rhapsodic mood pieces, rather), ranging from four to 11 minutes in length. Each section has a title, but almost all of them are baffling. The first, called ''Youth'' (this is the passage that Cohen omitted) is certainly bold, floridly gestural and passionate, and the third (''Strife'') is appropriately aggressive and brittle (though there is delicacy as well in some of its more dance-like pages). But there is nothing especially crepuscular about the beautifully rhapsodic and very Rachmaninov-like second section (''Nocturne''), and I cannot imagine what Bax was thinking of when he called the long, nobly impassioned central slow movement ''The Temple''. Nor is there anything really playful about the fifth variation, ''Play'' (an energetic and forceful but certainly not lighthearted scherzo), while the final section can only have been called ''Triumph'' ironically: it attempts nobility but is overcome by shadow and ends bitterly. Even the intermezzo (sub-titled ''Enchantment'') is haunted by an insistent drum rhythm and only achieves real enchantment (a passage of characteristically Baxian filigree) after a climax of protesting vehemence. It is an uncomfortable and ungainly piece, but one can readily see why it was once one of Bax's most popular: its expression is for him uncommonly direct and unambiguous, and the solo part is excitingly spectacular. Indeed, although the powerful emotions the piece expresses are no doubt rooted in Bax's feelings about the war about the Easter uprising in Ireland and about Harriet Cohen herself, it is surely no less important that he was writing for the keyboard again. Although he never played in public, Bax was by all accounts a formidable pianist, and the solo writing here is flamboyantly virtuoso. One can say no better of Margaret Fingerhut's playing than the piece has been waiting nearly 60 years for the sort of full-blooded performance that she gives it, and she is admirably seconded by orchestral playing of character and finesse and by a spacious recording.
Morning Song has moments of touchingly simple lyricism, but others of aimlessness and clod-hopping as well; it is minor stuff, but the Variations are major Bax: flawed and unequal, no doubt, but containing some of his most vehement and most personal music.
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