Sir Arnold Bax was one of Britain’s most individual composers. Hearing a few bars of one of his mature, Celtic infused scores is often enough for you to say, “ah, Bax”. But in 1907, as a well-heeled emigré wannabe composer “battening on the fleshpots of Dresden”, as we are told in Lewis Foreman’s excellent sleeve notes, his influences and musical flavour were distinctly Russian – indeed, his landlady was convinced he was one! In Germany he also got to hear two movements of Mahler’s Sixth and something of the ambition of that work infuses this, his first attempt at a symphony. It was Bax’s practice to orchestrate only when he had a performance in view, and in the absence of such, the piano score languished – until now, thanks to the conductor Martin Yates. It’s a big, sprawling work, in places in need of a trim, but it’s brimming with memorable material such as the leaping opening theme of the first movement or the Ravelian waltz that forms the basis of the scherzo. The whole work is most convincingly realised for the orchestra. Bax was a master colourist and that this comes over here is a credit to Yates. It……

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It’s not for nothing that the young Bach walked 250 miles to Lübeck to hear Buxtehude perform. Johann Sebastian knew a good thing when he heard it and so, clearly, does Ton Koopman, whose scholarly edition of Buxtehude’s oeuvre is making available to us a substantial hoard of buried treasure from the early German Baroque. This is volume 17 of Koopman’s complete survey and, like its predecessors, it reveals the breadth and variety of the composer’s output. The double CD contains chorale settings, sacred arias and cantatas but if that sounds stock in trade you’d be surprised at the musical novelties herein. Buxtehude wrote for church but also for familial occasions, his famous evening concerts and town celebratory events. The performances are thoroughly idiomatic, Koopman encouraging a natural approach and embracing a quasi-improvisatory feel where appropriate. Original keys are restored (generally higher than the norm) and if these pose challenges to soloists, they are by and large met with aplomb. His sopranos blend perfectly despite some fearsome agility tests – listen to Gerlinde Sämann and Amarylis Dieltiens in the rapturous Laudate, pueri Dominum. Countertenor Maarten Engeltjes is ravishing in the poignant Klag-Lied, written to commemorate the death of Buxtehude’s father….

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