Following hard on the heels of the splendid Little/Roscoe version of Bax’s turbulent and confessional Second Violin Sonata comes this scarcely less likeable newcomer from ASV. Robert Gibbs may not command the sheer projection or outsize personality of some of his more illustrious, globe-trotting colleagues, but his neat technique, soft-spoken eloquence and attractively husky tone give enormous pleasure, while Mary Mei-Loc Wu tenders ideally deft support. Theirs is a less ‘public’, more thoughtfully intimate statement than either of their rivals’, an approach well suited to this most autobiographical of Bax’s utterances (they are particularly perceptive in the ghostly measures of the lilting second movement entitled ‘The Grey Dancer in the Twilight’).
The performance of the Third Sonata exhibits similar interpretative and poetic insights. Completed in 1927, it’s a two-movement work of strong appeal, comprising a wondrously beautiful Moderato in this composer’s most wistfully Celtic vein and a dashing Allegro whose exuberantly dancing outer portions frame a more poignantly reflective central episode. Gibbs and Wu also do full justice to the F major Sonata, which Bax completed in September 1928 (some five months before the premiere of the Third Sonata) and which he subsequently recast as his bewitching Nonet in response to a commission from the 1930 Bradford Triennial Festival.
I can add that producer and engineer Michael Ponder has masterminded a beguilingly warm sound picture and the disc as a whole earns the heartiest of welcomes