SRCD.233 STEREO ADD

SIR ARNOLD BAX (1883-1953) Symphony No. 2 (1924-6) (37’39”) BAX • 1 1st Movement: Molto moderato –Allegro moderato (16’09”) Symphony No.2 Myer Fredman 2 2nd Movement: Andante (11’09”) Symphony No.5 • Raymond Leppard 3 3rd Movement: Poco largamente –Allegro feroce (10’21”)

Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor (1931-2) * (40’46”) 4 1st Movement: Poco lento –Piu mosso –Allegro con fuoco (17’32”) 5 2nd Movement: Poco lento (10’48”) 6 3rd Movement: Poco moderato –Allegro –Epilogue (12’26”)

(78’28”)

London Philharmonic Orchestra (leader Rodney Friend) conducted by Myer Fredman * Raymond Leppard

The above individual timings will normally each include two pauses. One before the beginning of each movement or work, and one after the end. ൿ 1971 * ൿ 1972 The copyright in these sound recordings is owned by Lyrita Recorded Edition, England London This compilation and digital remastering ൿ 2008 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England © 2008 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England. Made in the UK Philharmonic LYRITA RECORDED EDITION. Produced under an exclusive license from Lyrita by Wyastone Estate Ltd, PO Box 87, Monmouth, NP25 3WX, UK Orchestra he seven symphonies of Arnold Bax belong to the years between the two world wars; www.lyrita.co.uk T the first was begun in 1921 and the last finished in time for the NewYork Fair of 1939 Many critics have seen Bax as a primarily rhapsodic composer whose inspiration is The excerpts from Bax’s writings are reproduced by kind permission of theTrustees of Sir Arnold Bax’s personal estate. more suited to the symphonic poem than to the symphony. However, the very breadth of the symphonic canvas offered scope to his imagination that the symphonic poem could not Notes ©1971 & 1972 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England wholly encompass. Bax was in his late thirties when he began his First Symphony and had many of his finest works, such as The Garden of Fand and Tintagel behind him. Cover: Photograph of Sir Arnold Bax courtesy of the LEWIS FOREMAN collection Indeed, the First World War saw Bax at the height of his powers and the First Symphony, Original recording of Symphony No. 2 made in association with Ken Russell Productions Ltd., though it originally began life as a piano sonata, showed no mean grasp of the symphonic canvas as well as a genuine mastery of the orchestra. Small wonder that it should have Symphony No. 2 created so favourable an impression as it did when it was given under Albert Coates in Recording location and date: October 1970, Walthamstow Assembly Hall, London 1922 and later at the Prague ISCM Festival of 1924. Admittedly its debt to Russian music Recording Producer: David Harvey is as strongly felt as anything in his pre-war music: the pregnant opening motive recalls Recording Engineer: Kenneth Wilkinson the kind of symphonic gesture one encounters in, say, the Second Symphony of Borodin, Symphony No. 5 and the first movement has a certain compactness and cohesion that he did not develop Recording location and date: February 1971, Walthamstow Assembly Hall, London in the later symphonies. Rather he followed the brooding and evocative Celtic element Recording Producer: David Harvey that one finds in the slow movement.The Second Symphony (1924-5) has this wildness of Recording Engineer: Stanley Goodall imagination and vividness and opulence of colour that serves to establish instantly an Digital Remastering Engineer: Simon Gibson atmosphere that is as compelling as it is wholly individual.The opening of the symphony offers a parallel with the beginning of the Second Sonata and though there are many ideas Other works by ARNOLD BAX available on Lyrita: in this symphony that are conceived directly in terms of the orchestra, Bax’s imagination Northern Ballad No. 1, Mediterranean, The Garden of Fand, Tintagel, November Woods was not idiosyncratically orchestral in the way that, say, Berlioz’s or Sibelius’s was. London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult………………………………SRCD.231 Likewise his piano writing bears traces of orchestral habits of mind even though he was a Symphony No. 1, Symphony No. 7* natural (and indeed formidable) pianist.The Third Symphony (1929) is more inward- London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Myer Fredman & Raymond Leppard*……SRCD.232 looking than its predecessor though its sense of mystery is no less potent. It is the best known (or rather the least neglected) of the seven and for this very reason some Baxians Symphony No. 6, Irish Landscape*, Overture to Adventure*, Rogue’s Comedy Overture*, Overture: have been unable to resist the temptation to underrate it. However, it is in many respects Work in Progress* more characteristic in its range and variety of mood as well as its musical and imaginative New Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Norman Del Mar Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley*…………………………………SRCD.296 resource than is the present symphony.The Fourth, which dates from 1931, is by general consent the least impressive of the cycle; it is the most self-indulgent and the least concentrated. WARNING Copyright subsists in all Lyrita Recordings. Any unauthorised broadcasting. public The Fifth Symphony was begun the following year and bears a dedication to performance, copying, rental or re-recording thereof in any manner whatsoever will constitute an Sibelius: it received its first performance in January 1934 under the baton of Sir Thomas infringement of such copyright. In the United Kingdom licences for the use of recordings for public performance may be obtained from Phonographic Performance Ltd., 1 Upper James Street, London, Beecham. Much of the thematic substance of the symphony derives from its opening W1F 9DE 2 7 This movement in particular demonstrates Bax’s orchestral brilliance and resource figure whose melody on clarinets in thirds, is built on a repeated five-note rhythm with the in a vivid way. The debt to early Stravinsky and Ravel is apparent here. The use of piano, accent usually on the fourth note. The idea is taken up by the strings and throughout the celesta and glockenspiel, as well as two harps add to the composer’s palette a brilliance movement one is never very far from the contours found here. Nor do we move away from that tends to be missing from the more Nordic and ruminative later scores. In addition the the initial key centre for some time. Another feature of the themes of all three movements low piano notes, and the organ add an almost pagan power: one wonders if Bax is still is that they move within a more restricted compass than is usually the case with the Bax thinking of the shattering events of the previous decade: symphonies though many of the usual landmarks are nonetheless discernible, ostinato “Long strips of sky torn shred by shred figures, epilogue complete with ground bass and the familiar three movement pattern. To bind the cerecloths for souls dead, But the Fifth shows him checking the purely lyrical impulse to which he could give such Mad souls that loved this tragic land generous vein in favour of a greater degree of motivic integration. Perhaps the example Better than God could understand.” of his dedicatee prompted him in this direction even though Sibelius’s mastery of organic The penultimate 59 bars are in fact an epilogue—more formed than in the First thinking sprang from different sources. After the opening motive has established itself, Symphony—although not marked as such. We can witness here Bax tentatively exploring the tempo quickens (the Piu mosso three bars before fig. 5) but the first contrasting figure the use of the three-movement-plus-epilogue form that is such a feature of the later comes soon afterwards (four bars after fig. 7) when the strings outline one of those symphonies. The music finally fades niente: the desolation that Bax paints at the close characteristic ideas of Bax’s dominated by its opening syncopated rhythm. A short quicker will not be more fully realised in music for another twenty years and the last movement section in quavers, first on strings then on wood-wind, lead into a more lyrical idea (the of Vaughan Williams’ Sixth Symphony. And yet, there is some slight consolation, and peace first three notes of the scale of E minor turning back in chromatic step towards the tonic). will be achieved in the next essay in symphonic form: This has been anticipated in the cellos and double-basses a little earlier on and is in its turn “And now that time is grey with falling leaves a preparation for a lyrical second theme. So far the music has remained pretty firmly in And the long twilight hurries into night, the environs of E minor, the tonic, and even the main lyrical idea (a bar after fig. 19) is in Amid my country’s ruined harvest-sheaves the tonic major. This, then, is the melodic substance of the movement which Bax handles I sing my memories through the fainting light.” with his accustomed skill. The course of the movement is not difficult to follow and it ends LEWIS FOREMAN with a return to the material of the opening. The second movement has the same dark atmosphere and brooding intensity of Celtic legend that one encounters in the first three symphonies and its main theme (on violas, cellos and double-basses four bars before fig. 2) is also related to the basic idea of the work. Its appeal is simple but powerful and much of the subsequent material of this rhapsodic movement can be seen to relate to it either in its rhythmic shape or melodic contour. After a brief eight-bar introduction, the finale begins energetically (it almost recalls the Holst of Uranus) and maintains its momentum apart from a slow interlude (fig. 27) until the final epilogue whose slow ostinato anticipates the opening of the Sixth Symphony. ROBERT LAYTON

6 3 Sir Arnold Bax was born in London in 1883. He received the Royal Philharmonic Society’s makes its effect by almost entirely lyrical means, and is built about three interrelated Gold Medal in 1931, was knighted in 1937, and in 1942, was appointed Master of the King’s climaxes, the first of which — a high string passage in running semiquavers over a slow Musick, an appointment he held until his death in Ireland – in Cork – in 1953. He moving bass — is the emotional heart of the whole work; an affirmation of confidence in composed seven symphonies, over fifty other major orchestral works, chamber music, life in the face of adversity. Yet, curiously, this is a reminiscence of a similar moment from and much other music besides. Bax’s In Memoriam, his orchestral memorial to the Irish patriot Padraic Pearse, his Bax was at his artistic peak—“on fire creatively” as he himself put it—for a friend who had been executed after the Easter Rising in 1916 and unperformed until 1998. comparatively short time, and even as early as the late ‘twenties his overpowering need to The slow movement of the symphony finally ends quietly, the composer only just missing write music was beginning to fade. He himself dated it to after the Fifth Symphony in the repose for which he had been searching ever since the outset of the First Symphony. 1932, though he still had two symphonies to write. The psychological interrelation of the first three symphonies of Bax has often been The Second Symphony is one of Bax’s very best works. It was written between 1924 remarked upon, but is worth restating. The demon that possessed Bax in the First and 1926: the short score is dated October 10th 1924, the full orchestral score, March 1926. Symphony is really only presented in that work; having relieved himself of his burden in However, it did not achieve its first performance until December 1929, and that in Its stating, Bax expiates it in this Second Symphony, which surely must reflect his spiritual America: indeed, it is interesting to note that three of the seven symphonies were first and emotional wanderings in the mid ‘twenties. Thus in the Third Symphony, written in played in the United States, the Second, the Fourth and the Seventh. 1928 and 1929 after the composer had discovered what was to become his artistic retreat This Second Symphony depicts — at least in its outer movements — like Egdon at Morar in Scotland, he attempted a stylistic and emotional synthesis, finding repose in Heath “a landscape singularly colossal in its swarthy monotony”, although unlike haggard the serene Epilogue. Egdon, Bax’s vision is peopled with human figures, warm but fleeting, who flit across the It has been suggested that this Second Symphony might be viewed as “one vast love- bleak landscape. The temperature may be low, but considerable emotional forces are song”, and certainly in the slow movement at least the music would seem to support such unleashed: as Bax remarked in a letter “I put a great deal of time and emotion into the a view—a passionate and finally exultant outpouring. Much earlier in one of his Irish writing”. “It should be very broad indeed, with a kind of oppressive catastrophic mood.” poems published under the pseudonym of Dermot O’Byrne he had written: The first movement is in almost direct line from the tone poems, and contrasts with “... a few poor songs of mine have crept the opening movement of the First Symphony, which had contained elements of a more Within the doorway of a woman’s heart, traditional sonata form as was in keeping with its origin as a piano sonata. The mood in And whilst they whispered there her eyes have oft times wept this movement is that of November Woods in which an emotional crisis was depicted in Because her beauty made proud flames to dart terms of stormy nature, and is even more convincingly argued. The symphony opens with Through one man’s inmost sanctuary of dreams, and he a long introduction of some sixty bars, in the first ten of which appear four ideas that In her warm tears found immortality.” reappear throughout the work, notably in the outer movements. The introduction paints The last movement of the symphony is the most “oppressive” and “catastrophic” of a scene as Bax has described, heavy with impending catastrophe; the tension being the three. After a ten bar introduction (Poco largamente) the music erupts with a fury heightened by a chromatically rising bass figure. The eventual commencement of the (Allegro feroce) that will surprise those who have only previously known Bax in his tone Allegro Moderato of the movement brings no relief. The music is passionate and poems and chamber music: a hollow marching symptomatic of the prevailing mood. tempestuous, and apart from two short slow interludes maintains a continuous driving However the surprise of the whole work is the literal quotation of some twelve bars from energy that is most convincing. the opening passage of the first movement, an event unparalleled in any other of the The opening of the second movement, Andante, is again reminiscent of Holst, but composer’s scores. Bax quickly signs his name with the horn call in the second and third bars. The music

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SIR ARNOLD BAX: SYMPHONY NO. 2 LPO/MYER FREDMAN LYRITA SYMPHONY NO. 5 LPO/RAYMOND LEPPARD SRCD.233