What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? IV

[Master Jacques]

Peter Maxwell Davies
Salome (complete ballet)
Danish Radio Concert Orchestra, c. János Fürst
EMI Classics 7243 5 86184 (2-CD set)

It's always a pleasure to come back to this memorable two-hour score, PMD's first full-length ballet, written in 1978 and choreographed by Flemming Flindt. The music alternates between intense introspection and brutal show, and the material is always red-blooded. It's a thoroughly gripping work which doesn't seem dated at all - one of the composer's best "big scores", for me. And the studio recording, fresh from the initial performance run, conveys the work's vibrancy and instrumental colour.

[Ian Thumwood]

How curious to find parallels between Roussel's slimline, penetrating elegance and Bax's lavish, discursive style. They did get to know one another at ICM events, but I don't think influence went beyond that. The English composer heavily influenced by Roussel was, of course, his pupil Walton.

There's absolutely nothing "cod" about Bax's Irish thematic material: it is the genuine article, real Irish music developed from folk materials. If you read his biography you'll find that he was all but an Irishman by the time he wrote his earlier symphonies - several of which, notably the 2nd - have a lot to do with reflecting the horrors of The Troubles. His revolutionary poem A Dublin Ballad (written under the pseudonym 'Dermot O'Byrne') was too hot for the English authorities to handle, and nearly resulted in his prosecution for sedition.

And nowadays, judging from the number of performances he gets there, he is almost treated as Ireland's National Composer. In Memoriam alone (hidden by the composer in a bottom drawer during his lifetime, and much beyond, due to a tragic portrayal of the Easter Rising unthinkable from the Master of the King's Music) is now a staple of orchestral performances in Dublin. There is nothing "cod" in his luminous, memorable Irish inspirations, for the Irish at least. And we shouldn't question their sense of Identity with Bax.

MJ

Thanks for your cinsidered and knowledgable response.

i was fond of Bax when i first encounted his music but i heard his piano work played at a recital and this killed my enthusiasm.

I supppse the issue for me is that there are a number of composers who operated in a more tonal sphere around the early 20th century but really avoided modernism and also suffer from a lack of strong melody to make up for being old fashioned. Roussel is just the latest of these composers who i have found really underwhelming. I would also add Bax and Medtner to this list.....composers i should like yet whose works i find disappointing.


John Field was the greatest Irish composer , surely ?

[pastoralguy]

J.S. Bach. The Art of Fugue.

Tatiana Nikolayeva, piano. Hyperion.

I’m making another attempt to appreciate this masterpiece.

[Master Jacques]

i was fond of Bax when i first encounted his music but i heard his piano work played at a recital and this killed my enthusiasm.

I won't ask who the pianist was who killed your enthusiasm! The truth is, that the best of Bax's solo piano music is breathtakingly good - along with John Ireland's it is the most significant body of work for the instrument by any British composer - but it is also extremely difficult, virtuoso writing which several players have told me does not "sit" well under their fingers.

Odd, when Bax was such a phenomenal player himself, as we can hear in a handful of commercial recordings. Schoenberg couldn't have been louder in his praise after hearing Bax play some of his (Schoenberg's) piano music, in a famous Conway Hall evening devoted to the Viennese firebrand's work.

But it takes someone special to bring the sonatas (in particular) off the page. All four of them are masterly works, though, with very different moods. Inexhaustible music, like several of his symphonies, when you get to know them. If you wanted to give the piano sonatas another chance, I suggest that the German OEHMS set with Michael Endres (difficult to track down on disc, but easy to stream) is the best cycle, combining virtuoso clarity with the kind of large-scale personality this music requires.

For just the Sonata No.2 - grandest and deepest of the four - you could try the excellent John McCabe recording, stoic and monumental, with a composer's special insight.

[Master Jacques]

John Field was the greatest Irish composer , surely ?

"Greatest" is a judgement I wouldn't ever make. It depends on the day of the week.

But Bax's deep involvement with all the leaders - literary and political - of the nationalist movement, in the crucial years when he was living in Dublin, makes him a key musician at the moment when the country was finally shaking itself free from British shackles. Ireland's bloody and painful rebellions before independence are strongly reflected in the tone and temper of his Celtic-inspired music (1910 to about 1930). It's no wonder that Irish music looks to him as a "national composer", given his love, devotion and loyalty to his adopted country.

Contrariwise, his Irish loyalties made him increasingly suspect with the Britain intelligentsia, especially from World War II until his death. He became Master of the King's Music because his global reputation - at the time - made him the English "modernist brand leader", with conductors all over America and Europe vying to give world or national premieres of his symphonies, the 2nd of which was commissioned and first played (with immense success) by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Koussevitsky.

Stanford - a possible rival for the role of National Composer - ended up firmly on the "wrong side of history", as a protestant unionist marooned in London, and in effective exile post-Independence from his beloved Dublin. A sad end to his life, for sure.

[oliver sudden]

Happy that Boulez’s centenary today has coincided with a relatively good listening day!

Pli selon pli at the moment (the first recording), on the tram back from an out-of-town rehearsal. Earlier on, the second piano sonata (Stefanovich and Pollini), Repons, Dialogue de l’ombre double, Rituel, Éclat/Multiples. And on the tram to the rehearsal, the interview with Claude Samuel, from the DG box.

[Roger Webb]

Odd, when Bax was such a phenomenal player himself, as we can hear in a handful of commercial recordings. Schoenberg couldn't have been louder in his praise after hearing Bax play some of his (Schoenberg's) piano music, in a famous Conway Hall evening devoted to the Viennese firebrand's work.

Debussy praised Bax's prowess at the piano too....although his compliments were rather backhanded.

Bax stepped in at the eleventh hour to accompany a singer in a programme of Debussy Mélodies as the regular pianist found the parts too difficult. Not only did Bax perform flawlessly, but was able to transpose a couple of the songs at sight when asked to by the singer!

Debussy's comment to Bax afterwards?, '.....perhaps a little too pianistic....', now I'd take that as a compliment!

I find Eric Parkin's four discs on Chandos pretty good.....as are his Ireland....both Lyrita and Chandos.

BTW do you rate Iris Loveridge in Bax.....well, at least more than did Harriet Cohen?!

[Barbirollians]

Schubert Brendel D784

[Master Jacques]

Debussy praised Bax's prowess at the piano too....although his compliments were rather backhanded.

Bax stepped in at the eleventh hour to accompany a singer in a programme of Debussy Mélodies as the regular pianist found the parts too difficult. Not only did Bax perform flawlessly, but was able to transpose a couple of the songs at sight when asked to by the singer!

Debussy's comment to Bax afterwards?, '.....perhaps a little too pianistic....', now I'd take that as a compliment!

I find Eric Parkin's four discs on Chandos pretty good.....as are his Ireland....both Lyrita and Chandos.

BTW do you rate Iris Loveridge in Bax.....well, at least more than did Harriet Cohen?!

Lovely Debussy anecdote! I'd not heard that before.

I wish I could go along with your tempered praise of Eric Parkin's Bax, though the two discs of shorter works are better than the sonatas, which stretch him ever so slightly (but audibly on occasion) beyond his technical limitations. It's a pity, I feel, that for too many years these Chandos discs were the "benchmark" for Bax's complete piano sonatas, for want of anything better - though there were a couple of splendid LP records of No.2, from Peter Cooper and Malcolm Binns. Plus of course that Hatto LP of No.1 and No.4.

The Iris Loveridge set, despite the boxy early Lyrita sound, is remarkably consistent and imaginative, and she is much more comfortable technically than Parkin. Her set is the one I'd want to have alongside the Endres. Frank Merrick's set is worth hearing for its musicality rather than its pianism. The French pianist Marie-Catherine Girod's was the first complete set from a non-British player, and despite some questionable decisions her playing is fresh, lively and poetic. Ashley Wass (on Naxos) disappoints in the solo sonatas, far too lugubrious to hold together, though like Parkin he can be very good in the shorter works. Malcolm Binns's complete cycle, made late in his career, is not at the level of his earlier standalone recording of the 2nd Sonata: a disappointment, though the Ireland Sonata which completes his 2-CD set is splendid. There are plenty of admirable "one offs" in the four individual sonatas, but Michael Endres on Oehms still holds the palm for the full cycle. It would be lovely to have a new set, from one of the younger keyboard lions.

[pastoralguy]

Grieg. Lyric Pieces. Vol.1

Peter Katin, piano. Unicorn-Kanchana.

[smittims]

Some 'neglected' British composers today:

Humphrey Searle: Symphony no.3
Peter Racine Fricker: Symphony no.2
Anthony Milner: The song of Akhnaten.
Robert Simpson: Symphony no.2.

from Lyrita and Hyperion CDs.

I hadn't heard any of these for some years. I think I enjoyed te Searle the most. His music seems to date less than Simpson's.

[Roger Webb]

Lovely Debussy anecdote! I'd not heard that before.

Bax himself tells the story in his entertaining 'Farewell my Youth' pp 58-59 (original Longman, not the reprint), or more conveniently in Roger Nichols' 'Debussy Remembered' pp 222-223 (Faber).

Thanks for your comprehensive survey of the Bax piano music - I'm not a pianist, so my judgement is invalid! I think you could usefully do a spot on Record Review - BaL, as I can't remember Bax's piano music being mentioned....or any of his music!.

Bax work most influenced by Debussy must be the Elegiac Trio....his chamber music grows in my esteem by the day!

[cloughie]

Bavouzet’s Debussy Piano Music - Superb playing - Chandos downloads from Presto 6 hours of lovely music at very good price.

[Stanfordian]

Giacomo Meyerbeer – ‘L’Africaine’ (or ‘Vasco da Gama’)
French Grand Opéra in 5 acts (1865)
Michael Spyres (Vasco da Gama), Claudia Mahnke (Sélika), Brian Mulligan (Nélusko), Kirsten MacKinnon (Inès),
Andreas Bauer Kanabas (Don Pédro), Thomas Faulkner (Don Diego), Bianca Andrew (Anna), Michael McCown (Don Alvar)
Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester & Chor / Antonello Manacorda
Recorded live, 2018, Oper Frankfurt, Germany
Naxos, 3 CDs

[Roger Webb]

Some 'neglected' British composers today:

Humphrey Searle: Symphony no.3
Peter Racine Fricker: Symphony no.2
Anthony Milner: The song of Akhnaten.
Robert Simpson: Symphony no.2.

from Lyrita and Hyperion CDs.

I hadn't heard any of these for some years. I think I enjoyed te Searle the most. His music seems to date less than Simpson's.

May I add:-

Arnold Symphony No 2.
Rootham Symphony No 1
Berkeley Symphony No 3
Alwyn Symphony No 5 (Hydriotaphia*)

* Known in these parts as Welsh Water.