Bax: The Symphonies 1-7, Tintagel, Rogue's Comedy & interview with Vernon Handley [Box set]

Before the 1960s there was only a single commercial recording of a Bax symphony (Barbirolli’s Third, currently available on Dutton). The first complete cycle appeared in the 1980s (Brydon Thomson); 2003 has seen the appearance, or completion, of two new cycles – David Lloyd Jones on Naxos and now Vernon Handley on Chandos. Handley has been Bax’s leading advocate for four decades, and his set does not disappoint. These two conductors choose strikingly similar tempi and show the same concern to keep the music going. Lloyd Jones sometimes outdoes Handley in seizing one’s attention right from the start of a movement, but Handley has a unique grasp of the full expressive range of this music; I narrowly prefer Lloyd Jones in the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, but Handley is a clear preference in the more contemplative Third and Seventh. The decisive superiority in the Handley set is the miraculous Chandos sound, with its ideal combination of warmth and clarity. On the other hand, Naxos adds most of the tone poems at no extra cost.
How good a symphonist was Bax? It should be remembered that the general opinion in his lifetime, shared by such leading conductors of his music as Thomas Beecham and Adrian Boult, was that his style was too rhapsodic to be suitable for symphonic writing. Currently Bax has several vocal champions, but they tend to be undiscriminating, and concert organizers still keep his symphonies out of their programmes. (The most balanced discussion is in the entry on Bax by Anthony Payne in the first edition of the New Groves.) It must be confessed that Bax movements tend to climax too rapidly, and in the subsequent episodes (however appropriate in mood and thematically related) the sense of where the music is going is often lost; those who take to Bax’s imaginative world find his music utterly absorbing, but less committed audiences soon get restive. What is now clear from complete recordings is how much the symphonies gain from being heard as a cycle: their most impressive feature is the way that each one creates its own world, with its own range of moods – the black defiance of the First, the equally tragic but more legendary Second, the rapt and contemplative Third, the boisterous Fourth, the heroic Fifth, the more personal Sixth, the relaxed and valedictory Seventh. I would advise newcomers to this music to try Lloyd Jones’ version of the First (available separately), and then, if the music grips them, to listen through to the whole of Handley’s set; they may well find the Bax symphonies just as absorbing as any of the more familiar symphonic cycles of the twentieth century.

I had the good fortune to spend my teenage years in Guildford when Vernon (Tod) Handley had just been appointed as musical director to the Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra – then a good semi-professional outfit, soon to be turned into an excellent professional body by Tod Handley. His enterprising programming would make concert promoters today quake: who would programme pieces like Martinu’s “Epic of Gilgamesh”, Constant Lambert’s “Rio Grande”, Arthur Bliss’s “Morning Heroes”, plus Boulez, Berg, and Webern? Then there were the British symphonists: Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Walton – and Bax. The Guildford Phil recordings of Bax’s 4th (technically a bit on the “thin” side) and Bax’s Symphonic Variations were hardly ever off my turntable.

I was also fortunate to be in the youth choir attached to the orchestra – the Proteus Choir, who joined with the Philharmonic Choir for bigger works such as Elgar’s “Dream of Gerontious” and Finzi’s “Intimations of Immortality” – which we recorded on a freezing November day in Guildford Cathedral for Lyrita.

So I’ve followed Tod’s recording career with interest – monumental symphonic cycles – Vaughan Williams, Robert Simpson, Elgar, Malcolm Arnold – and award winning (and very enterprising) repertoire ignored by most other conductors who either don’t see its worth, can’t be bothered to learn it, or don’t see how it can advance their careers. The big gap in Tod’s discography is now well and truly filled with this stunning set of Bax Symphonies from Chandos. It might have taken 40 years from the 4th with the Guildford Phil to do it, but it’s certainly worth the wait.

Listening to the complete cycle allows a thorough reassessment of Bax – not just pursuing a “celtic twilight” deadend in 20th Century music but riding an individual mainstream current of tremendous emotional depth. As an achievement, his symphonies stand alongside those of Sibelius, Nielsen, and Vaughan Williams. Anyone who cares about accessible “modern” music should hear these recordings. Those who have David Lloyd-Jones recordings on Naxos (about the same price for the complete cycle as this Chandos set, but with extra pieces) – which Tod Handley says he learnt from, in his interview on disc 5 (a very worthwhile extra) should also get this new set for the insights it provides.

The Chandos recording is well up to their usual immaculate standards (but why no multichannel SACD?) with each disc in it’s own slip case of session photos, along with a three language booklet – mainly another interview with Tod, this time with Bax’s biographer Lewis Foreman.

An overriding impression is one of emotional intensity and sheer quality. As usual Tod is the servant of the music – never the other way round – and Bax’s vision shines as bright as it ever could.

Those who have waited for Vernon Handley to records his thoughts on this glorious music will need no prompting in acquiring this set. For people who are new to Bax or have listened to other versions of the symphonies, this new set is, quite simply, definitive. The sound is much better than on the Naxos recordings and Handley's concentration on symphonic form means that these works re-emerge as cogent arguments rather than the post-romantic wallows that they sometimes become in the Thompson records. Handley has lived with these works all his working life, and it shows. He has a knack of hitting exactly the right tempos (with one exception - see below) and is helped by a rich, deep sound that brings out the full power of these works; surely the opening of the 6th symphony has never sounded so menacing. The balance is excellent - those who know these works will notice details of orchestration that are not apparent on rival versions. The playing of the BBCPO, woodwind solos in particular, is also very fine; one senses that the players knew they were involved in something rather special (this began as a recording of the 3rd symphony that was intended to be given away with BBC Music Magazine; thanks to the BBCPO's persistence, the project grew to a recording of the complete cycle).

I have two minor disappointments. First,the interview that comprises the fifth disc, fascinating though it is, would have benefited from inclusion of musical examples. Secondly, Handley's instinct for tempo lets him down only once, in the recording of "Tintagel". The opening is, in my view, too broadly taken, and the music even begins to sag. But those niggles should not detract from this magnificent set, which ought to win every award going and which also proves that Bax was one of the greatest of British composers and a symphonist to rank with the very best.