Customer Reviews

Bax: Violin Concerto / A Legend / Romantic Overture / Golden Eagle

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I remember the 1960's when I was trying so hard to get hold of any vinyl with Bax's name on it. From the late Henry Stave record shop in Great Marlborough Street near Oxford Circus, I would rush home clutching my precious new purchase that might contain only 10 minutes of pure Bax on some compliation record with other English composers! Those days are happily long behind us and we can now even get a little blase with such a rich selection available and this CD is testimony to the fact that the Baxian 'biggies' are all done and the recording companies are now moving down the list to some of his lesser works. Bax turned to the more formal concerto form after his initial creative flame had burnt itself out during the 1930's. It is obvious to the true Baxophile that this inspirational spring had dried up when you compare two works like Tintagel and the Golden Eagle, the latter work being on this CD. The melodic line and orchestration are still there but the THRILL, the pure magic just seems to have totally evaporated from his work. Bax sounds superficially the same as before, the fingerprints are all there, but that edge, that Bax mystery 'Macguffin' which varied from work to work is now gone. Think of the opening violin sheen and the ostinato rhythmical sea of the opening of 'Tintagel' or the fairy celesta runs casting little spells in 'the 'Garden of Fand'. These were little touches that reveal an inspiration so powerful that its composer appeared to others as 'other-worldly'. The Bax of this CD has passed all this by now and the Violin Concerto, although rich in melody and romanticism, seems to lack those deft touches that Bax was aware had slipped away. He bemoans this fact in his autobiography written at about this time, 'Farewell, My Youth'. Bax attempted to salvage something from his diminishing powers by looking to the music of Sibelius and the bleak north for a fresh source of inspiration. Therefore during this time Bax produced a genre of 'Sturm und Drang' works which can be exemplified by much of his 6th Symphony, the piano and orchestra work, 'Winter Legends', 'The Tale the Pine Trees Knew' and represented as a genre by 'A Legend' on this CD. This terse music was successful in the sense that Bax was able to recapture some sense of drama which had gone out of his work lately and therefore was able to make something that sounded compelling. Bax had ventured into this territory years before in his tone poem 'November Woods' but in this earlier work he kept some warmth and lyricism in the middle section. However, in his later 'Nordic' works it is now all dark skies and searing tension, like giant winged things in the gray skies tearing one another apart. Whilst this is impressive it does not invoke love or rapture in me like his earlier music always does. Those slow interludes when Bax spun a beautiful tune are still there like the two early aforementioned tone poems but are now lacking the conviction they once had. 'The Golden Eagle', incidental music to a stage work written by his brother Clifford, is a collection of small Preludes that are typical late Bax, well crafted but lacking his youthful greatness. The Romantic Overture is a 1926 work for piano and orchestra dedicated to Delius written at the request of Phillip Heseltine (Peter Warlock). For me this is the best work on the CD with a lovely catchy tune at the very end. Bax stated that he had retired 'like a grocer'. I believe he had worked out that he had said everything he had wanted to say a long time before but was now caught up with his reactive official status as 'Master of the King's Musick' and of other demands which he felt obliged to look after. I am still happy to have these works but to my mind they are not worth anyone other than a true Baxian investing in. Therefore they lose a star to differentiate them from the great Bax. Beautifully played and well recorded, though and over 75 minutes of music.

Is there any point at all in hating a work because it's not what we think it should be? This is not a great concerto by any definition but it has many interesting features and I've enjoyed listening to it very much.This is just another way of saying that I trust Bax's judgment, young or old, more than any reviewers, assuming that this work is what Bax wanted it to be. Performance and sound are great and if you like Bax you'll enjoy this CD.

I notice that the other reviews of this CD focus on the fact that this is later-career Bax music, which is frankly less heart-on-sleeve romantic/impressionnistic than much of his earlier output. While I love early Bax compositions like the impressionistic "Garden of Fand," the atmospheric "In the Faery Hills" and the almost-cinematic sweep of "Tintagel," I also appreciate later Bax works like these here.

To expect any composer to remain stuck in the emotional and artistic mindset of his/her early life is unrealistic ... and we can certainly look at other composers whose later music is less passionate and more cerebral, while retaining the specal hallmarks of their style. Think of Rachmaninov of the 4th Piano Concerto or "Symphonic Dances" compared to his 2nd Symphony ... Sibelius' later symphonies and tone poems compared to his Symphony #1, #2 or "Finlandia" ... or Dohnanyi's 2nd Symphony and 2nd Piano Concerto compared to the "Nursery Variations" or the Suite in F#.

For an even more drastic change of style, consider pretty much anything Stravinsky wrote in later life compared to the early "Firebird" or "Petrouchka" ballets.

So, it's kind of pointless to beat one's breast about the mature style of Bax not being just like his early style.

So with that argument out of the way, let's consider the compositions on this CD. I enjoy the Violin Concerto a great deal. While giving plenty of fireworks for the violinist to shine as soloist, Bax also integrates the orchestra (including his trademark prowess in orchestration) into a pretty rich brew that's reminiscent of the concertante works of Bax's compatriots E.J. Moeran and Cyril Scott. The slow movement of the V.C. is rhapsodic and highly interesting. The incorporation of tunes with an Irish "snap" is ingenious -- particularly in the last movement when a rumbustious jig appears near the end of the concerto, leading to an impressive violin peroration and the exciting close.

Some people compare later Bax to Sibelius; I'll take this violin concerto any day over the Sibelius. BTW, Lydia Mordkovich's playing is great. It would also be interesting to hear some other violinists' take on this work ... Hello, Joshua Bell or Michael Ludwig?

The "Legend" is an interesting tonal picture that gives us two sides of Bax: the ruminating and the heroic. Conductor Thomson does a nice job here, but I wonder what Vernon Handley might have done with this piece -- he's sometimes "tighter" than Thomson in his interpretations and that might have been the better approach with this one.

The "Romantic Overture" is quite pleasant, and the piano part gives it an airiness that is fresh and invigorating ... it reminds me a bit of Bax's Left Hand Concerto, another interesting work that deserves to be better known.

I'll go along with the other reviewers here in considering the "Golden Eagle" incidental music excerpts trifles that are fairly dispensable. But I heartily recommend this CD for the Bax Violin Concerto -- it's the only modern recording of it available, and if you enjoy violin concertante works from the first half of the 20th Century such as those of Cyril Scott, Karol Szymanowski, E.J. Moeran or Hans Pfitzner, you'll be quite pleased with this one as well.

I can't do justice to this recording, because there are two considerations here: the performance and the principal work, of which this is the "premier recording". How I looked forward to getting my hands on it! And how crest-fallen I was when I actually heard it. I can't blame the performers; they really try hard and the recording is stunningly life-like. But this review has to be advice to a buyer who has not heard this work.
Bax's Violin Concerto has not enjoyed much favour among either violinists or audiences. Unfortunately this cannot put this down to mere prejudice. Anyone listening to the first 2 minutes of the work is instantly arrested by a glorious tapestry of orchestral colours and bold rhythms: but when the violin enters, it takes only another 2 minutes to realise that Bax seems not to have understood the violin as a concerto instrument. All the interest is focused on variety in the orchestra; the violin goes mostly through the motions of playing figures; and by the end of the first section (entitled "Overture") we are wondering when it is going to have its moment in the sun with an equally splendid, melodious episode. It never comes. In fact, the violin has hardly anything really deep and meaningful to say throughout the whole composition. The work is notably poor in melodic invention, and the few we hear thrive predominantly on the orchestra's instruments.
Structurally the work is a catastrophe. The first movement is in three section that make a miniature concerto by themselves. But the sections are 3 episodes; they do not add up to a coherent whole. It's all very rhapsodic, glued together from disparate materials. The Ballad in the middle is so corny that one feels embarrassed. The last section is a poor shadow of the first. By then you have given up all hope of hearing the violin utter something important to justify its inclusion in this "concerto".
The other two movements give the appearance of being tacked on. Even now, in the slow movement, your hope for a lovely melody on the violin is disappointed. Nice pastel colours in the orchestra, as well as some tunefulness, but nothing worth writing home about for the soloist. Her "melody" is once again feeble, technical and repetitive, compared to the care lavished on the accompaniment.
The final movement promises something spirited in its first bars (like the very first entry of the violin in the first movement); but yet again this exhausts itself in technical flurries within a minute; yet again the violin plays only a subsidiary role as the proceedings unfold. Once you have heard her "melody" three times, it's no longer melodious, but just a failed "tune". Looking back over the whole, the frequent drafts on "folksy" irish tunes just don't sit well in this over-elaborate and sumptuous orchestral score.
Lydia Mordkovitch discharges her ungrateful duties as well as they permit. But the truth is, that for a fiddler there is nothing to love in this concerto. The fiddler is literally a hungry orphan looking at an immensely rich bill of fare for everyone else. In fact, one would have to say that in this "violin" concerto, the violin intrudes too much and spoils a symphonic poem that might have made a splendid half hour of music.
The rest of the album - well, it's a pity. It will probably be re-issued somewhere else, as this violin concerto also spoils another record where the attraction is the cello concerto.