MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


DOWNLOAD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger



Download: Chandos

 

Sir Arnold BAX (1883-1953)
Symphony No.7 (1938-9) [47:34]
Four Songs for Tenor and Orchestra (Glamour (1921) [8:59]; Slumber Song (1910, orch. 1914) [3:21]; Eternity (1925, orch. 1934) [2:57]; A Lyke-Wake (1908, orch. 1934) [7:04])
Martyn Hill (tenor)
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Bryden Thomson
rec. All Saints Church, Tooting, London, 11-12 April 1988. DDD.
CHANDOS CHAN8628 [70:20]
Experience Classicsonline


DOWNLOAD REVIEW

This is another of their deleted recordings which Chandos have made available online as an mp3 recording for £6.
 

The First and Seventh Symphonies have never enjoyed the same exposure as his central symphonic output, Numbers Two to Six. In the case of the Seventh the neglect is understandable since, by the time of its composition Bax had been replaced in popular esteem as the successor to Elgar by Vaughan Williams and Walton. Yet, though Bax’s imagination seems to have been burning at a lower intensity, the Seventh is still well worth hearing at the hands of Bryden Thomson, David Lloyd-Jones (Naxos), Raymond Leppard (Lyrita) or Vernon Handley, whose more recent box set of all the Bax Symphonies has ousted this recording from the main Chandos catalogue. 

Comparisons with Lloyd-Jones, Leppard and Handley show that, as usual, Thomson’s timings on paper seem slow, especially in the second movement where Leppard’s 14:06, Handley’s 13:32 and Lloyd-Jones’s 12:45 contrast markedly with Thomson’s 16:23 – and, indeed, with each other. Only in the finale is Thomson (14:09) faster than Lloyd-Jones (14:41). 

If you have read my reviews of the other Bryden Thomson recordings of Bax’s Symphonies, you will not be surprised to discover that I found his interpretation of the Seventh fully acceptable within its own terms. As usual, I found myself in his more leisurely company enjoying the scenery. 

The issue of couplings is particularly complex in the case of the Seventh Symphony. In CD format the Vernon Handley performance is available only as part of a box set, but in download form the disc coupling the Seventh, Tintagel and the Rogue’s Comedy Overture is available separately for £8.40 (mp3 at 320kbps) or £10 (lossless version). For anyone who has not yet acquired a version of the justly popular Tintagel, this may be the best option – but is there a Bax lover who does not already have at least one account of this piece? 

Lloyd-Jones (Naxos 8.557145) also offers Tintagel as a coupling, albeit the sole coupling – again, most collectors will probably have at least one version of Tintagel and, at 56:55, this Naxos disc offers the shortest value. It is, however, well worth considering, either on CD or as a download from classicsonline or emusic. For reviews of this version by RB and IL follow the links. 

Lyrita (SRCD232) offer the best value time-wise (77:51) with their coupling of the First and Seventh Symphonies under Myer Fredman and Raymond Leppard respectively. Their bravery in coupling Bax’s two least popular symphonies deserves our admiration at the very least. CC thought that it deserved more than that – see his review. The mp3 version of this coupling from emusic will cost you a mere six tracks of whatever monthly allocation you may have signed up for (or £1.44 for the whole programme if you take the 50-track-per-month option).

The Chandos/Thomson coupling is also generous but I must admit that these four songs did not exactly fire my enthusiasm, though Martyn Hill sings them sympathetically. A Lyke-Wake begs comparison with Britten’s haunting – and far superior – setting of the same traditional ballad. You may prefer to choose just the three tracks containing the symphony for £5.50 – after all, there’s no reason always to download a whole disc if you’re going to sync the tracks to your mp3 player. I must admit, however, that I like to burn the tracks to CD as well, if only to provide a home for the booklet which, as usual, can be downloaded as a pdf. document and printed. As with the rest of the series, those notes are well worth having. Even if you go for another version, they can be printed out free of charge. 

I found the recording more than acceptable, whether played via my mp3 player plugged into the Aux. socket of the Arcam Solo or burned to CD. This is not one of Chandos’s newer 320kbps recordings and there is no lossless equivalent – clicking on the icon of what purports to be a lossless version, with a W suffix, will lead you to a dead end. (Some of these deleted recordings are available in lossless format, however.) If you are happy with the quality of BBC Radio 3 on FM or DAB, except when the latter is reduced to 160kbps to accommodate sports broadcasts on Radio 5, you should not have any problems with this recording.

Brian Wilson


 


 




 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.