In the decades between the First and Second World Wars, Arnold Bax and his music reached a peak of productivity and apparent success. His seven symphonies were quickly and quite widely performed. He wrote ballet music for the London operation of Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes company. And besides his sizeable orchestral output, he composed a burgeoning quantity of songs, chamber and piano music.
Today’s picture is different. The CD era has seen much attention given to Bax’s orchestral works and piano music. Yet apart from a flurry of interest during the composer’s centenary year in 1983, Bax’s music has for decades remained almost absent from concert halls – a victim of the strange contemporary schism between an enthusiastic record-buying public and supposedly resistant concertgoers.
The...
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