Bax's chamber music is extensive but the music for cello and piano is the
most neglected within the medium. We have not been overrun with recordings.
The cello and piano collection in mono by Florence Hooton - Handy's teacher
at the Royal Academy - and Wilfrid Parry (
Lyrita REAM.2104) sounds rather long in the tooth now. It
is important, however, for its connections back to the original performing
tradition. It offers all the above works in mono minus the rarely heard
Rhapsodic Ballad but with the lanky 1932 Sonata instead.
The
Sonatina is in three concentrated movements: an
attractively upbeat
Allegro Risoluto, played here with plenty of
attack and impetus; a rolling and rocking
Andante; and a jaunty and
lightly glinting
Moderato given to the sort of delightful poetic
asides for which Bax is famed. The
Rhapsodic
Ballad is huskily put across by Handy - very much a work of
atmosphere and legendary fantasy though intensely serious. It was written
for Beatrice Harrison - as were the 1923 and 1943 sonatas. Its stars were
not well favoured. Harrison never played it and it languished until taken up
by Bernard Vocadlo in 1966 and then a year later by Rohan de Saram, who
recorded it for issue on a Pearl LP (SHE 547). That was a fine recording and
even now I wish it could find a home on CD. Raphael Wallfisch, who knows the
Bax Cello Concerto so well and recorded it for Chandos (
CHAN8494), has also recorded the
Rhapsodic Ballad
(CHAN8499).
The overture-length
Folk-Tale comes from the
year after
Tintagel and
November Woods. It has a
distinctly and dreamily Irish aspect and a sense of instinctive progress
impelled by lyricism rather than rhythmic grit. The
Legend-Sonata seemed to lack conviction in the
other recorded versions. Handy turns that around here. Its three movements
work very well and the typically resolute writing encountered in the
Rondo allegro finale is given with convincing determination and
spirit. The flame of inspiration burnt wildly in this writing dating from
the beginning of the decade before Bax's death.
The booklet is attractively done and Lewis Foreman's notes - fluent and to
the point - are well worth reading. They bear the depth of his erudition
lightly.
The closest match for this collection in modern-ish sound is the now
deleted ASV CD collection (DCA 896) with Bernard Gregor-Smith and Yolande
Wrigley. Allowing for the fact that the coupling is not identical I see no
reason for you to go seeking out that disc in the face of the riches on
display here.
Rob Barnett
