Information
Composer: Arnold Bax
- Violin Sonata No. 2
- Ballad
- Legend
- Violin Sonata in G minor
- Violin Sonata in F major
Laurence Jackson, violin
Ashley Wass, piano
Date: 2007
Label: Naxos
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Cast in four linked movements and held together by a motto theme which also appears in the 1917 tone-poem November Woods, Bax’s storm-tossed Second Violin Sonata was conceived during the summer of 1915 at a time of great personal upheaval for the 31-year-old composer and comprehensively overhauled six years later. Be it in the seductive sway of the second movement (a ghostly waltz enigmatically entitled “The Grey Dancer in the Twilight”) or hair-raising final climax prior to the ecstatically serene epilogue, these dashingly poised newcomers give of their considerable best, with CBSO leader Laurence Jackson formidably secure in the solo part’s more scarily vertiginous exploits. On reflection, Tasmin Little and Martin Roscoe do evince the greater familiarity, affection and tender compassion in their admirable 1999 account (GMN, 3/01 – nla – and I prefer the more rounded tone, as recorded, of Little’s 1757 Guadagnini), but no one coming to this music for the first time will be left unstirred by its piercing beauty, urgency of expression and vaulting ambition.
In any case, what lifts this collection into the indispensable category are the spellbinding performances (all far more arresting than those by Robert Gibbs and Mary Mei-Loc Wu on ASV, 8/01 and 6/02) of the darkly smouldering Legend and Ballad from 1915 and 1916 respectively, as well as the Allegro appassionato in G minor (a likeable student effort from 1901) and unpublished F major Sonata of 1928 (which Bax subsequently recast as his captivating Nonet). The Potton Hall sound in these last four items (emanating from sessions a year after those for the Second Sonata) is particularly handsome and true, and the disc as a whole represents yet another “must have” within this extensive series.
-- Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone
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Arnold Bax (8 November 1883 – 3 October 1953) was an English composer, poet, and author. His prolific output includes songs, choral music, chamber pieces, and solo piano works, but he is best known for his orchestral music. In addition to a series of symphonic poems, he wrote seven symphonies and was for a time widely regarded as the leading British symphonist. In his last years he found his music regarded as old-fashioned, and after his death it was generally neglected. From the 1960s onwards his music was gradually rediscovered, although little of it is regularly heard in the concert hall.
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Violinist Laurence Jackson studied at the Chethams School of Music and the Royal Academy of Music with Emanuel Hurwitz, Maurice Hasson and Anne-Sophie Mutter. From 1994 to 2006, Jackson was leader of the Maggini Quartet, with whom he toured throughout the USA, Canada and Europe to much critical acclaim. Worldwide sales of their recordings for their Naxos series have exceeded 100,000 discs. In 2006, he accepted the position of Concertmaster of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, with whom he also appears as soloist. Jackson plays a violin made by J. B. Vuillaume, circa 1850.
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Ashley Wass (born 26 March 1977) is a British pianist. Graduating from the Royal Academy of Music in 2001, he was winner of the 1997 London Piano Competition, a prizewinner at the 2000 Leeds Piano Competition, and a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist. Wass has performed at many of the world's finest concert halls including Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall and Vienna Konzerthaus. He has also performed with numerous leading ensembles and partners. Wass was Professor of Piano at the Royal College of Music from 2008 to 2018, and has been Director of Music at the Yehudi Menuhin School since 2020.
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