Bax: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1 And 3

Description

Arnold Bax (1883-1953) Violin Sonatas Nos. 1 and 3 Arnold Bax and his brother Clifford spent their teens and young manhood at his parents' Hampstead mansion where a succession of artistic contemporaries visited to play music, laze in the extensive gardens and dream impossible dreams of 'more than life can give' (as Clifford put it). As they were well-off neither had to take a position to earn a living once they ceased their education, and so Arnold having left the Royal Academy of Music where he had spent the years 1900-1905, was free to travel, develop his music and indulge in a succession of love affairs, which are reflected in his music.Despite enjoying such blessings, however, Bax only slowly evolved his mature style, and so his wider reputation and the works by which he was long remembered did not really begin to appear until a couple of years before the First World War. As is well-known, Bax was in thrall to the country, legends and people of the west of Ireland where he spent many months, particularly in his romantic twenties. First captivated by the poetry of Yeats, from 1902 he regularly visited the remote Donegal coastal village of Glencolumcille, and the country and stormy climate of the west can be fairly described as the catalyst in the development of his mature style.Although Bax only published three violin sonatas, he actually wrote five. The earliest is a one movement piece in G minor written in 1901 while he was a student, and the last in two movements, which he withheld and recast as the Nonet of 1931. All are characterized by a particular player – the early G minor for his Academy girl-friend Gladys Lees (it was later played by another RAM contemporary Ivy Angove), the First Sonata by a very young Winifred Smith and later played by Paul Kochanski. It is possible the Second Sonata may have been inspired by the playing of May Harrison but it was actually played by Bessie Rawlins. The Third Sonata was performed in 1927 by Emil Telmányi and later by May Harrison.The First Sonata was revised over a long period but was actually inspired by Bax's passion for a Ukrainian girl who suddenly appeared in his Hampstead circle in the autumn of 1909. On the manuscript Bax calls her Mselle Natalia Skarginski' (more properly Natalie Skarginska). The first movement was completed on 2 February 1910, the original 'slow and sombre' slow movement on 8 February and presumably the finale (which is undated) soon after. Knowing how fast Bax worked it seems probable that the first movement was written in the first weeks of 1910. In his autobiography Bax disguises Natalie as 'Loubya Korolenko' and writes: 'Oh! Loubya was like a naiad for beauty – a golden Roussalka with ice-blue eyes! Lured by the fascination of her nationality and history how easily did I slip into absorbing love of her! – a disastrous and humiliating adventure, but one I have never regretted…'. The first movement, at l