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Sir Arnold Bax
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Topic: Sir Arnold Bax
SCimmerian
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Are there any lovers of the music of Arnold Bax out there? I think that Bax's music is absolutely fantastic. Bax was a master of orchestration and his music is very evocative,mysterious,majestic and magical.His early tone poem "Spring Fire" is a masterpiece of impressionistic scoring.Check out the second movement of the symphony no.1.Wow that would make great film music! The symphonic poem "Tintagel" carries you away into a wonderous legendary land/seascape of King Arthur's castle.The symphony no.2 with that increadible last movement with the organ Wow its so awesome sounding! Have any fav's?
posted 06-06-2001 02:21 PM PT (US) Lou Goldberg
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I am a BIG fan of Arnold Bax!Not just the film scores for Oliver Twist and Malta G. C. but all the symphonies, tone poems, ballets, and piano works. Bax even tried his hand at short story writing!
You mention Tintagel, one of his better known works, and I tingle at the thought of that impressionist build up to the first crescendo with the horns. Great great stuff.
posted 06-06-2001 08:31 PM PT (US) Audacity
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Bax is the sole composer responsible for changing my mind about Contemporary Classical music. I always held something against Contemporary Classical thinking it could never be as good or mean as much to me as Classical music. After listening to Bax I gained a new appreciation and have started enjoying other contemporary composers.Audacity
posted 06-07-2001 01:44 PM PT (US) tjguitar
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I'm a BIG fan of Sir Arnold Bax. I'm glad to see there's a thread here. Boo to the fact that there's no post in six years and only a couple comments.I like his symphonies, but I like his tone poems even more. My favorite symphony is the one that's not numbered (and thus might not technically be a symphony?) called "Spring Fire Symphony" by Vernon Handley and the Royal Philharmonic. But the tone poems are great, especially the Northern Ballads, the Eire trilogy, November Woods, Nympholept and of course Tintagel. I also really like Winter Legends for piano & orchestra. Symphonic Scherzo is fun.
A few years ago, Chandos re-issued pretty much everything that Bryden Thomson and Vernon Handley recorded in the 80s (except for Thomson's recording of the ballets (which Chandos tells me will be reissued in 2008) and Thomson's symphonies, which I assume have not been issued again because they feel it might harm continued sales of the recent Handley set?)
They released 8 volumes of the remeastered, re-issued, mid price orchestral works and I love the first 7. The 8th is actually choral stuff despite being labeled as orchestral...I haven't really gotten into, maybe someday.
I also have a chandos 4-disc box of Bax's piano music by Eric Parkin, whose name I recognized from being the one who played piano on David Wishart's recording of OLIVER TWIST for Cloud Nine/ASV. posted 03-08-2007 08:58 PM PT (US) estiban miranda
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A coincidence: I just listened to 'Christmas Eve' and 'The Garden of Fand' this morning.Can't say he's a BIG favorite, but I like his music while it's playing. After it's over, it's not terribly memorable. I have all the symphonies, a dozen tone poems, the two big piano & orchestra works, and a few other things. If I were to hear his music 'blind' I would probably be able to (eventually) guess the composer but I couldn't tell you what piece was playing.
posted 03-09-2007 01:59 PM PT (US) Old Infopop Software by UBB