Arnold Bax - Winter Legends; Saga Fragment (Margaret Fingerhut; Bryden Thomson)

Information

Composer: Arnold Bax

• Winter Legends, for piano & orchestra
• Saga Fragment, for piano & small orchestra

Margaret Fingerhut, piano

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Bryden Thomson, conductor

Date: 1986

Label: Chandos

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Review

Almost any 90-second fragment of Bax's Winter Legends, heard at random, will persuade you that it must be one of his most striking and effective works. The assault of drums and the driving Prokofievian piano toccata at the outset, the rather bardic declamatory piano solo that occurs a few minutes later, the curiously Petrushka-like dance that heralds the triumphant conclusion, the imaginative alternation at the beginning of the next movement of a beautiful but shadowed idea for the bassoon and delicately clashing figures for the soloist, the lovely horn solo that begins this movement's dreaming central section, the mysterious tuba melody (accompanied, octaves above, by piano filigree) that introduces the finale—all these are strong and potentially fruitful ideas, and there are many more of them in this 45 - minute, three-movement quasi-concerto. But does Bax do anything more with them than lay them end to end, abandoning each and moving on to another as the fancy takes him?

After two or three hearings a few unifying ideas do reveal themselves: a recurring rhythmic figure in the opening movement, an occasional cross-reference from one part of the work to another. But Bax's description of the first movement (''the form is free''—the reason he gave for not calling the piece a symphony) still seems something of an understatement for the work as a whole: why does the first movement end triumphantly? Precious little thematic or tonal conflict has been established—let alone resolved—to justify it (contrast, yes, in abundance, but that is not quite the same thing). Why does the predominantly unquiet, often turbulent central Lento end with a progression from darkness to light? Bax hinted at a programme for the work but did not reveal it, so the listener must do his best to provide one, as a reason for the movements (or even their various constituent parts) being played in this order rather than some other. The parts are splendid, however, representing most of Bax's moods from the barbaric to the melting, from sumptuous saturated colour to the craggiest of brutal rhythms, and in a performance as assured as this (Margaret Fingerhut copes admirably with Bax's demands for a languishing Rachmaninovian manner at one moment, a pounding Bartokian percussiveness the next) there are plenty of inducements to continue attempting to solve the enigma.

And perhaps the Saga Fragment (Bax's own arrangement, for piano and chamber orchestra, of a one-movement piano quartet) is a clue. It is as schizoid in its contrasts of mood as Winter Legends, but because it is shorter (about 11 minutes) and there are fewer ideas to cope with, its 'plot' is more easily perceived: the archetypally Baxian lyricism of its second paragraph does not so much vanquish the spiky forcefulness of the opening matter as channel it, first into Sibelian gravity (oh, yes: there are distinct overtones of Sibelius's similarly unspecified En saga), then into optimism. It, too, is finely played, and in both works Bryden Thomson deploys Bax's juxtapositions of violent and shaded colour with great precision. Excellent orchestral playing and a first-rate recording, the pianist in a much more natural perspective than is customary these days.

-- Michael Oliver, 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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Bax

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Margaret Fingerhut (born 30 March 1955) is a British classical pianist who is known for her innovative programmes and recordings in which she explores lesser known piano repertoire. She studied at the Royal College of Music with Cyril Smith and Angus Morrison, and afterwards with Vlado Perlemuter in Paris, and Leon Fleisher and Adele Marcus in the USA. Her discs on Chandos include works by Bainton, Bax, Berkeley, Bloch, Dukas, Falla, Grieg, Howells, Leighton, Moeran, Novák, Stanford, Suk and Tansman, as well as several pioneering collections of 19th century Russian and early 20th century French piano music.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Fingerhut

https://www.margaretfingerhut.co.uk/

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Bryden Thomson (16 July 1928 – 14 November 1991) was a Scottish conductor. He studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, then with Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt at the Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg, and with Igor Markevitch at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg. Thomson is remembered especially for his championship of British and Scandinavian composers. His recordings include influential surveys of the orchestral music of Hamilton Harty and Arnold Bax. He was principal conductor of several British orchestras, including the Ulster Orchestra, which flourished under his tenure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryden_Thomson

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