Release Date: 31 December 2005
Label: Naxos - Ex Select Products / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 747313276929
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: BAX
Description
Arnold Bax (1883-1953): Piano Works 3Arnold Bax wrote nearly thirty short piano pieces duringand immediately after the First World War. These werelargely written for his friends and contemporaries,mainly female, at the Royal Academy of Music, notleast the pianist Harriet Cohen, thirteen years his junior,with whom he was involved in a passionate affair. Whenhe emerged as the leading British composer of the day inthe early 1920s, the availability of these pieces as sheetmusic meant that his new admirers had music that theycould attempt at home, though Bax never wrote down tohis audience and none of the pieces were easy.It was through the keyboard that Arnold Bax cameto music, and when he enrolled at the Royal Academy ofMusic in the autumn of 1900, the surviving manuscriptsof his earliest compositions suggest he was soon acapable pianist. His technique grew quickly, and in theheadlong, complex piano parts he wrote for the songs heproduced during this time we can document a rapidlygrowing capability, perhaps keenest to play Wagneroperas at the keyboard, but abreast of the latestdevelopments, and he soon developed a penchant for thepiano music of Scriabin and Debussy.Bax's early music arose from improvisation at thepiano, and from playing the latest orchestral scores atthe keyboard, and he became celebrated for his ability toread orchestral full scores at sight. He heard a great dealof new music and it was his habit, too, to play duets withhis friends, notably the pianist Arthur Alexander, withwhom he played through Glazunov's symphonies in thisway. Although not a regular concert pianist, Bax wasoccasionally called on to play modern music when moreestablished figures cried off. As a consequence of thiswe find him, in February 1909, accompanying Debussysongs in the composer's presence, and in January 1914he did the same for Schoenberg's songs when thebooked pianist withdrew at the last minute. From thelate 1920s onwards he played in public increasinglyrarely, although he did make two recordings - ofDelius's First Violin Sonata and his own Viola Sonata,in May and June 1929. Bax was a natural pianist, acomposer who thought at the keyboard, and the fire inhis romantic pianism is evident in both of thoseperformances.While the four large-scale piano sonatas are thebackbone of Bax's piano music (Naxos 8.557439 and8.557592), there is also a varied repertoire of shorterpieces. These include highly characteristic atmosphericminiatures (some not quite so miniature), many of themtechnically in the shadow of Debussy or Scriabin, alsoalternative versions of scores most familiar to us asorchestral works, as well as short late piano piecesunpublished in his lifetime.We also need to remember that Bax was obsessedwith the landscape, music and literature of Ireland, andin his twenties was able to spend much time there,absorbing the atmosphere, and, under the pseudonymDermot O'Byrne, publishing poetry, short stories andplays. Bax thus encountered Irish nationalist polit
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Yaqi Yang; Margarita Parsamyan; Robynne Redmon; Minghao Liu; Frank Ragsdale; Kim Josephson; Kevin S
Vilmos Csikos; Olivier Lechardeur; Manon Lamaison
Tomas Cotik; Martingale Ensemble; Ken Selden
