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5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent playing of sumptuous scores, December 21, 2008
This review is from: Bax: Orchestral Works, Vol. 4 (Audio CD)
Along with their new release of the symphonies come these reissues of orchestral works, repackaged and recombined (in order to complement rather than compete with the new Handley release of the symphonies, I assume). Volume 4 provides us with a new batch of tone poems, this time perhaps with a focus on the slightly less famous ones.
Bax's tone poems are composed in an instantly recognizable idiom, yet the influences are obvious and wide-ranging. Whereas Wagner and Debussy are recurring ones, The Tale the Pine-trees Knew (according to the old interview in Musikkens Verden, one of Bax's own personal favorites) is, however, his most Sibelian. It is, as with most of Bax's better works, extremely colorful, and characterized by rather abrupt changes of mood. Fortunately, Thomson knows very well how to make this into a persuasive and cogent whole. In the Faery Hills is an earlier work, and one of my personal favorites; hauntingly evocative and full of yearning, this splendid piece is exquisitely handled and sounds as fresh as ever. Into the Twilight is not, perhaps, as memorable; it is still a magical work but doesn't in the same way as the Faery Hills convince as a well-rounded and well-argued whole.
Roscatha, with its bellicose topic, is a strident war-march fantasy, colorful and confident. A Legend, his last tone poem, is quite reminiscent of his earlier works in the genre, and is an exciting and dramatic score, full of that very Baxian orchestral color. The shorter "On the Sea-Shore" (completed by Parlett) gives us dark and haunting and thoroughly atmospheric music.
Overall, this is another superb collection from Thomson and the Ulster Orchestra, who deals with this lavishly scored music in an idiomatic and powerful manner and brings out all the color and drama required in Bax's music. The recordings are uniformly excellent.
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