Arnold Bax
Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax KCVO (8 November 1883 – 3 October 1953) was an English composer, poet, and author. His prolific output includes songs, choral music, chamber pieces, and solo piano works, but he is best known for his orchestral music. In addition to a series of symphonic poems, he wrote seven symphonies and was for a time widely regarded as the leading British symphonist.
Bax was born in the London suburb of Streatham to a prosperous family. He was encouraged by his parents to pursue a career in music, and his private income enabled him to follow his own path as a composer without regard for fashion or orthodoxy. Consequently, he came to be regarded in musical circles as an important but isolated figure. While still a student at the Royal Academy of Music Bax became fascinated with Ireland and Celtic culture, which became a strong influence on his early development. In the years before the First World War he lived in Ireland and became a member of Dublin literary circles, writing fiction and verse under the pseudonym Dermot O'Byrne. Later, he developed an affinity with Nordic culture, which for a time superseded his Celtic influences in the years after the First World War.
Between 1910 and 1920 Bax wrote a large amount of music, including the symphonic poem Tintagel, his best-known work. During this period he formed a lifelong association with the pianist Harriet Cohen – at first an affair, then a friendship, and always a close professional relationship. In the 1920s he began the series of seven symphonies which form the heart of his orchestral output. In 1942 Bax was appointed Master of the King's Music, but composed little in that capacity. In his last years he found his music regarded as old-fashioned, and after his death it was generally neglected. From the 1960s onwards, mainly through a growing number of commercial recordings, his music was gradually rediscovered, although little of it is regularly heard in the concert hall.
Life and career[edit]
Early years[edit]
Bax was born on 8 November 1883 in the London suburb of Streatham, Surrey, to a prosperous Victorian family. He was the eldest son of Alfred Ridley Bax (1844–1918) and his wife, Charlotte Ellen (1860–1940), daughter of Rev. William Knibb Lea, of Amoy, China.[1][2] The couple's youngest son, Clifford Lea Bax, became a playwright and essayist.[n 1] Alfred Bax was a barrister of the Middle Temple, but having a private income he did not practise. In 1896 the family moved to a mansion in Hampstead. Bax later wrote that although it would have been good to be raised in the country, the large gardens of the family house were the next best thing.[4] He was a musical child: "I cannot remember the long-lost day when I was unable to play the piano – inaccurately".[5]
After a preparatory school in Balham,[3] Bax attended the Hampstead Conservatoire during the 1890s. The establishment was run – "with considerable personal pomp", according to Bax – by Cecil Sharp,[6] whose passion for English folk-song and folk-dance excited no response in his pupil.[7] An enthusiasm for folk music was widespread among British composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including Parry, Stanford, Vaughan Williams and Holst;[8] Sullivan and Elgar stood aloof,[9] as did Bax, who later put into general circulation the saying, "You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing."[10][n 2]
Recordings[edit]
Two recordings of Bax as a pianist were made in 1929. With Lionel Tertis he recorded his own Viola Sonata for Columbia, and with May Harrison he recorded Delius's Violin Sonata No 1 for the rival HMV label.[105] Of the symphonies, only the Third was recorded in the composer's lifetime; it was played by the Hallé under Barbirolli and released in 1944.[106] The Viola Sonata, Nonet and Mater ora Filium were recorded under the auspices of the English Music Society in 1937 and 1938.[107] The Phantasy Sonata for Viola and Harp, the Sonata for Two Pianos and a handful of the songs were recorded on 78 rpm discs.[108] Of the tone poems, Eugene Goossens conducted the first recording of Tintagel, in 1928;[109] twenty years later a set of The Garden of Fand with Beecham and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was released by HMV.[110] By 1955 Bax on record was so scarce that The Record Guide listed only Tintagel, the Coronation March, the unaccompanied choral work What is it Like to be Young and Fair? and the solo piano piece Paean.[66]
Parlett included an extensive discography in his 1999 A Catalogue of the Works of Sir Arnold Bax,[111] later expanded and updated in a website. At 2015 the latter lists more than 250 works by Bax that have been recorded and published.[105] The discography includes three complete cycles of Bax's symphonies released on CD, two by Chandos Records, the first conducted by Bryden Thomson (recorded 1983–88) and the second by Handley (2003); between them was a cycle issued by Naxos Records conducted by David Lloyd-Jones (recorded 1997–2001).[112] The major tone poems and other orchestral works have been recorded, many of them in several different versions.[105] Bax's chamber music is well represented on disc, with recordings of most of the works, and multiple versions of many, including the Elegiac Trio, the Clarinet Sonata and the Fantasy Sonata.[105] Much of the piano music has been recorded by pianists including Iris Loveridge, John McCabe, Ashley Wass and Michael Endres, though by 2015 no integral survey had yet been recorded.[105] Of the vocal works, by far the most often recorded is Mater ora Filium, but other choral works, and a representative selection of the songs are on disc.[105]
Honours and legacy[edit]
Bax received the gold medals of the Royal Philharmonic Society (1931) and the Worshipful Company of Musicians (1931), and the Cobbett medal for chamber music (1931). He was awarded honorary doctorates by the universities of Oxford (1934) and Durham (1935) and the National University of Ireland (1947). A Bax Memorial Room at University College, Cork, was opened by Vaughan Williams in 1955.[74] After Bax's knighthood in 1937 he was advanced to KCVO in 1953.[1][90] An English Heritage blue plaque, unveiled in 1993, commemorates Bax at his birthplace, 13 Pendennis Road in Streatham.[113]
In 1992 Ken Russell made a television film dramatising Bax's later years, The Secret Life of Arnold Bax. Russell himself portrayed Bax and Glenda Jackson, in her final role before leaving acting for 23 years to pursue her political career, appeared as Harriet Cohen.[114]