Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
English Music Re-Issue of the Year?, 24 Feb 2008
Bax is an extremely interesting composer with a great gift for melody, sheer atmosphere (caused by a very developed gift of orchestration where he uses really interesting combinations) and full expression of emotion. His seven symphonies were written between the two World Wars, from 1921 to 1939 and the two on the present disc, numbers 2 and 5, were first performed in 1928 and 1934 respectively. They actually represent the two extremes of Bax's style, the Second being a wild and tragic work couched in vivid colours - one of the themes in the first movement "breaks the rules" by being harmonised in consecutive 4ths, and sounds very sinister indeed - and including piano, celesta and organ in the instrumentation, whilst the Fifth is more controlled and epic: the more Nordic Bax, which is quite appropriate to a work dedicated to Sibelius. They are high points in the Bax cycle and to have them conveniently coupled on one disc at (Amazon) high medium price is a very attractive bargain.
The Lyrita recordings of Bax made in the late 1960's and early 1970's are completed by the issue of this disc. Lyrita never recorded either the Third or Fourth Symphonies, which is a great pity as they had the London Philharmonic Orchestra at one of the peaks of its performing history and several really fine conductors to call upon. Myer Fredman, the conductor of the Second on this disc is an academic, an opera expert and a composer and arranger of music in his own right. He had a rich career conducting all the symphony orchestras and at several of the opera houses in Australia during the 1980's. Raymond Leppard, who at the time of the original release of the LP of Bax's Fifth Symphony, was better known for his work with Baroque music at the time, but his championing of Bax extended to making a recording of Symphony 7 for Lyrita, which is also coupled with Myer Fredman's remarkably cogent recording of the angry and drammatic First Symphony.
All the Lyrita recordings were world premiers and they have that special quality of excitement that such enterprises can generate, at least if in the hands of excellent musicians. Furthermore, the recordings were all of demonstration quality.
This disc couples what might have been the two best recorded symphonies of the whole cycle. They were phenomenal in the early 1970's and they very fine even by today's standards being more natural sounding than at least one of the digital sets available today (the Naxos). There is an energy and cogency about these performances that make me unhesitatingly place them at the top of the comparisons.
Bax entered a long period of neglect in the 1950's when the BBC under William Glock tended to favour contemporary music without a firm harmonic base and to avoid playing the music of British composers of the immediately preceeding generation. Even Elgar and Vaughan Williams suffered relative neglect, and though Walton did rather better, Bax, Moeran, Ireland, Dyson and Delius were all to suffer. The Second and the Fifth Symphonies are an ideal introduction to his symphonic world and when you hear them you will wonder at the neglect they have had to endure. I believe this to be a candidate already for best British Music reissue of 2008: an essential disc, even over and above the rival recordings available, for all lovers of the Twentieth Century British Symphony. Get it whilst it is available.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bax Performances Full Of Fire And Mystery, 19 Mar 2008
I just want to second the first review contributed, by saying these are very passionate performances, extremely well recorded and also played by the LPO. I already had the Vernon Handley box set, but it doesn't always generate enough swagger, for all that it is superbly recorded and the conductor is clearly intent on elucidating the full gamut of Bax's structural and thematic invention.
If you want to test the Baxian waters, try some of Chandos' bargain reissues of the tone poems as condcuted by Bryden Thomson. Then get the Handley box or start collecting these Lyrita reissues. Make no mistake, Bax is one of the greatest English composers, his symphonies cycle second only to that of Vaughan Williams. People may talk about the influence of Scriabin, Debussy, Strauss, Elgar, whoever: the fact is that Bax has a melodic fecundity and sense of fantasy and enchantment that is uniquely his own. Make it yours too.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
More Old Friends Sounding Better than Ever, 7 Feb 2009
What I have written about the Lyrita CDs of symphonies 1 & 7 applies here. Myer Fredman's performance of the second symphony (perhaps my favourite of the seven) is quite simply the finest recording ever of this marvellous work, although David Lloyd Jones on Naxos is not so very far behind. Raymond Leppard is similarly magnificent in the fifth symphony. And, as always with Lyrita, the sound is superb. Buy them all now. They will be a revelation.
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~ Arnold Bax
~ Arnold Bax
~ Peers Coetmore
~ Arnold Bax
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