When Vernon Handley recorded Bax’s Fourth Symphony
with the Guildford Philharmonic in 1964 it was the first of his
symphonies to have been recorded since Barbirolli’s pioneering
version of the Third two decades earlier. Three years later Richard
Itter issued Norman Del Mar’s fine recording of the Sixth on his
Lyrita label, and then came the First and Second under Myer Fredman
and the Fifth and Seventh under Raymond Leppard. Edward Downes’s
RCA recording of No.3 had appeared in 1969, and then came Fredman’s
ABC LP of the same symphony, though that was issued in Australia
and never became generally available elsewhere. The advent of
CD in 1983 certainly seems to have encouraged exploration of hitherto
neglected repertoire, and it was in that same year that the first
in Bryden Thomson’s cycle of the symphonies was issued by Chandos
with the Ulster Orchestra; in fact his recording of No.4 and Tintagel
was only the second CD of Bax’s works ever to be issued (the first
being his Chandos collection of four tone-poems); he subsequently
recorded the rest with the LPO. David Lloyd-Jones’s symphonic
cycle began in 1997 with No.1 and was concluded in October 2003
with No.7. His no-nonsense approach to Bax was a valuable antidote
to some of the more indulgent performances of other conductors
over the years, and the cheap price of the Naxos recordings encouraged
many people to take a chance with a composer who may have been
unfamiliar to them.
Nearly forty years after his Guildford recording
of No.4, Vernon Handley was finally asked to record a complete
cycle, something that Bax enthusiasts had been hoping for over
the intervening years. It was originally intended that he should
record only the Third for a free CD to be given away with an issue
of the BBC Music Magazine and we have Brian Pidgeon, the
BBC Philharmonic’s General Manager, to thank for his percipience
in realizing that here was something special and that all the
symphonies should be recorded to mark the fiftieth anniversary
of the composer’s death in October 1953.
Handley’s approach to the symphonies has changed
over the years. As he says in the interview on the bonus disc
that comes with this set, he takes the slow movements at a faster
tempo than before, and indeed, except in the case of the Sixth
Symphony, he takes generally faster tempi than other conductors
in the outer movements as well. I certainly like the quick speed
adopted by Handley for the opening movement of the First Symphony
(1921-22). There is a sense of urgency not present in Thomson’s
recording and, as in Lloyd-Jones’s version, he emphasizes the
barbaric quality of the music (the tenor drum comes across ferociously
here). Handley maintains a fast tempo for the development section,
where other conductors exaggerate the slight modifications of
tempo with which Bax liberally sprinkles the score. The speed
in the closing page and a half is again faster than usual, but
the menacing quality of the music comes across very well indeed.
The clarity of these new recordings is especially
demonstrated at the start of the powerful slow movement. The side
drum (with snares slack ‘as at a military funeral’, as Bax mentions
in a programme note) and the two harps, playing semiquaver arpeggios,
are clearly, but not obtrusively, audible. The build up to the
first big climax is powerful and the fanfares clearer than in
other recordings. Bax felt that this slow movement was one of
his best, and nobody hearing this searing performance would be
likely to contradict him. The opening of the finale, with its
brassy, very Russian sound, strikes me as being at just the right
tempo (some performances are too laboured here), and it leads
into the Allegro vivace. Bax adds the rider ‘ma non troppo presto’,
and again Handley has hit just the right tempo, I feel. At the
moment on page 97 of the score when the first subject from the
opening movement reappears, it can often sound as if the music
is being pulled back, but Handley makes sure that the momentum
is maintained despite the slower tempo indicated. The brazen Marcia
trionfale, with which the symphony concludes, is played for all
its worth, and the final page brings this tremendous score to
a shattering conclusion with its blaring brass and tolling bells.
The opening pages of the Second Symphony (1924-5)
are well played on all its recordings, but where Handley scores
is in the main Allegro moderato. This again is faster than in
previous versions, with playing that is very rhythmic and precise.
In contrast, Handley adopts a slower tempo than Thomson and Lloyd-Jones
for the second-subject group, which allows the music to breathe,
though I think the quicker tempos favoured by other conductors
have their merits too. Interesting to note that at the start of
the slow movement, the harpist arpeggiates the repeated, Holstian
chords where other performers play them unspread. The beautiful
melody introduced by the violins on the third page is well articulated,
and the shattering climax over an organ pedal is very powerful
indeed. The final page, with its tremolando strings, horns chords
and harp arpeggios (the latter clearer than usual) is spine-tingling.
In the finale, Handley again scores by the sheer
attack in the Allegro feroce, which he takes at a cracking pace,
faster than in any previous recording. It is this sense of ‘living
dangerously’ that I especially like about Handley’s performances,
in contrast to those of Bryden Thomson, who had a tendency to
hold back rather than let rip. (I remember him saying that music
should only be played at a speed at which the fastest notes could
be articulated clearly.) The great climax, with organ at full
throttle (to borrow Michael Oliver’s phrase) comes across powerfully
here, though I miss those menacing descending phrases on the trombones
just after figure 17, which David Lloyd-Jones turns into an almost
snarling sound; here they are less prominent. But the epilogue
is appropriately bleak, and for the first time in any recording
I could clearly hear the strange dominant thirteenth on which
the work ends (F and A on cellos, C and E on bassoons, with C
below on basses): in other recordings one or other of the tone
colours predominates, but here you can distinguish them. (Incidentally,
Bax’s short score for this work shows that he originally intended
to end it with a triumphal march, as in the First Symphony.)
I confess that I have not yet become accustomed
to the tempo that Handley adopts for the opening of the Third
Symphony (1928-9), which is faster than in any other performance
I have ever heard, except the one conducted by Sir Henry Wood
that can be found on Symposium CD 1150. In Barbirolli’s recording
it sounds as if the woodwind are improvising their meandering
lines; here it sounds as if everyone is in a hurry to get to the
Allegro moderato. I am also puzzled why the harp chords on page
2 of the score are, as in Lloyd-Jones’s recording, played without
being spread; and there is a slight discolouration of the first
note of the strings’ entry with the liturgical theme at the fifth
bar after figure 5. But thereafter Handley barely puts a foot
wrong. The Allegro feroce, though not the fastest on record, certainly
propels the music forward with a sense of purpose, and the famous
passage for five solo violins on p.30 come across very well indeed.
Handley refuses to linger over the Lento moderato, which begins
with the strings, but it certainly does not sound at all rushed.
Good horn solo a few pages later, and that dramatic moment at
fig.38, where the timpani play the first three notes of the ‘motto’
theme, would have pleased Wood, who used to tell his timpanist
to make them sound as if it were a horse kicking at a stable door!
I have certainly never heard the harp’s ‘glissando in four quavers’
just before fig.39 sound so clear. The climactic anvil stroke
(which appears in the manuscript score in Wood’s handwriting,
Bax originally having written a cymbal clash) is by far the best
I have ever heard: it often sounds as if someone in the percussion
section has accidentally dropped a small metallic object on the
floor; here it comes across as a resounding thwack. The rest of
the movement is brilliantly played. If I were a conductor, I might
have taken the Allegro coda a little faster (as David Lloyd-Jones
does) but Handley certainly brings this vast movement to an exciting
close.
The slow movement is all that it should be, with
very good solos from the horn and trumpet on the first two pages,
a sense of rapt concentration over the next few pages, a powerful
climax towards the end, and a suitably desolate ending with sensitive
playing from the principal bassoonist, Bax enthusiast David Chatwin,
who, as a student thirty-two years earlier, conducted the first
performance of the tone-poem, Cathaleen-ni-Hoolihan, at
the RCM, with Ken Russell in the audience; this was around the
time that Russell was working on his film The Devils and
was becoming interested in Bax’s music; he later sponsored the
Lyrita recordings of the First and Second Symphonies.
The third movement gets off to a cracking start.
On a first hearing I wished that the tenor drum were a little
more prominent, but it is after all marked ‘ad lib’ in the score
and with the dynamic p against the mf of the clarinets
and violas, so it is obvious that Bax wanted it to be subsidiary
to the tune. After the great fanfare on p.91, there is a più
mosso, with the additional indication ‘feroce’, and here I felt
that Handley was holding back a little; or maybe it was because
I am used to conductors taking this section at a faster tempo.
The climax before the epilogue is very well managed, and the epilogue
itself sensitively played but without being over-expressive. Handley
tells us in his interview that he finds Barbirolli’s performance
‘too beautiful’ here. This is not a problem that I have ever encountered
with it, but nonetheless Handley’s more straightforward account
lacks nothing in poise and a deep a sense of tranquillity. Perhaps
the horn solo on the last page begins a little too loudly, but
the final bars are as moving as they should be.
When I first heard the opening of the Fourth
Symphony(1931) from David Lloyd-Jones I was bowled over by its
sense of forward momentum and a feeling that powerful forces were
being unleashed. Handley’s opening is quite similar (a trifle
slower) but it has to be said that the greater depth of the recording
makes it sound even more bracing. The third trombone’s entry at
bar 4 registers very clearly here, as do the organ chords on p.2.
Handley succeeds very well indeed in holding the long first movement
together, and the final pages are most exhilarating, with Handley
making less than other conductors of the largamente. I have always
found the second movement of No.4 the least appealing of Bax’s
symphonic slow movements, but in this new recording I was caught
up in his unique sound-world from the very first bars. Fine trumpet
solo near the start, and as in his earlier recording (and like
Thomson but not Lloyd-Jones) Handley gets the clarinet just after
fig.23 to play the second written E natural (sounding C sharp)
instead of the E flat that is written in the published score (and
also in the manuscript). I greatly enjoyed the third movement,
and especially the Allegro scherzando at fig.22, which Handley
takes faster and with a lighter touch than previous conductors.
The final pages are again quicker than we usually hear, but that
is in keeping with the rest of his interpretation.
Handley’s liking for fast speeds is again in
evidence at the start of the Fifth Symphony (1932), but here (unlike
the Third) I feel that this is all to the good. The playing of
the introduction and the build up to the Allegro con fuoco are
tremendously exciting, though around the third bar before fig.6
there is an ensemble problem (the only one I’ve noticed in the
whole boxed set), with the second violins on the right not quite
together with the horns. No matter; it has gone as soon as you
notice it. I love the way Handley keeps this music moving forward;
very important in this movement, I feel, where there are so many
rapid changes of mood. The sheer beauty of the playing around
figs.24 and 25 is quite extraordinary.
The opening of the slow movement is played at
a steady pace, and Bax’s triadic brass fanfares, set against tremolando
strings, have never sounded so majestic. The wonderful, resonant
sound of the BBC Philharmonic’s lower strings that follow comes
across marvellously in this recording, as does the brazen climax
on p.79, with the side drum for once playing together with the
brass (in most performances it is a quaver behind here owing to
a mistake in the printed parts). The stark flourish for brass
and timpani on p.89 following the tuba solo is also much clearer
and emphatic than in previous recordings, and, unlike other conductors,
Handley is meticulous in getting the clarinet and trumpet at fig.16
to articulate their semiquavers, so that they sound distinct from
the bassoons’ quavers.
After the liturgical theme in fourths on the
first page of the finale, Handley sets a furious pace for the
ensuing, highly rhythmic Allegro, and the orchestra responds with
playing of tremendous panache and immaculate precision. Following
the darker slow section in the middle and the return to the fast
music, Handley builds up a tremendous climax leading into the
Epilogue, which starts serenely with an ostinato in the bass and
the liturgical theme on clarinets and strings, and here Handley’s
preference for having the second violins on the right pays off,
with their counter-melody much clearer than in previous recordings.
The build-up to the grandiose final pages is very well managed,
and the ending, with swirling woodwind and strings against the
brass chorale, sounds tremendous. This is undoubtedly the best
performance of Bax’s Fifth Symphony I have ever heard.
In his interview, Handley confesses that the
Sixth Symphony (1934-5) is his favourite and points out that many
people regard it as his masterpiece. The opening pages, with that
grinding ostinato in the bass and those stark wind chords above
them, come across very well. Like Del Mar and Lloyd-Jones, Handley
follows the printed score in placing the third cymbal clash in
the final bar before the Allegro con fuoco and correcting the
second clash by moving it to the preceding bar (the printed score
is obviously wrong here). But Bax’s manuscript confirms that he
actually wrote the third clash on the penultimate bar, and this
is what Bryden Thomson plays in his recording. However, I remember
Christopher Whelen telling me that when he was rehearsing the
work in the Winter Gardens, Bournemouth, with Bax himself by his
side, the composer agreed that the third clash should indeed be
in the bar before the Allegro. It is difficult to decide which
is the better: Bax’s original thought (as played by Thomson) or
his afterthought (or perhaps an incorrect recollection of what
he had actually written in the manuscript). I confess that I found
the Allegro con fuoco itself just a little too earthbound; Bax
has written ‘non pesante’ against the main theme, but it sounds
too heavy and lacking in momentum. The rest of the movement, however,
is very well played, though I think Lloyd-Jones has a more exciting
conclusion.
The slow movement, in contrast, is played faster
than in previous recordings, and I found that I soon became used
to the tempo. The slow march starting on p.69, which Lewis Foreman
has likened to a ‘procession of ghosts’, certainly has an unearthly
feel to it. I note, without any particular feelings on the matter,
that Handley instructs the tambourine player to continue his repetitions
beyond what Bax indicated in the manuscript or what is misprinted
in the score. There always seems to have been confusion about
this point, and I believe that the original printed tambourine
part had nothing at all in this passage. It may be recalled that
Lloyd-Jones, in a note to his Naxos recording, mentioned that
he had omitted the tambourine part here altogether, though in
fact it can be heard on disc (a different take having presumably
been used without his knowledge). Handley also omitted the tambourine
part in his performance with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
a few years ago.
John Bradbury, another of the BBC Philharmonic’s
Bax enthusiasts, plays the opening clarinet solo of the third
movement to perfection, and the rest of the Introduction is also
beautifully managed, especially the strings at fig.3. The transition
to the Scherzo is also very well done, and the opening bassoon
solo is clearer than in the Naxos recording. Handley’s tempo for
the Scherzo is slower than Lloyd-Jones’s but lacks nothing in
rhythmic drive. When it comes to the slower Trio, I have always
felt that Del Mar manages to choose just the right tempo here.
The other recordings, including this new one, are a little lethargic
for my taste; but this is all a matter of opinion, and other listeners
may prefer the slow speed adopted here. Handley does not have
the sheer excitement that I find in Lloyd-Jones’s working up to
the big climax, but the climax itself, with the liturgical theme
blared out by the trumpets, is better, with the upper notes of
the liturgical theme clearer than on the Naxos recording. That
horrendously difficult solo for trumpet at fig.37, where the poor
player is expected to descend from a top C to the very bottom
of his compass in a few bars playing piano and legato, is well
managed (on the Naxos CD the player has to stop for breath). The
Epilogue, with its horn solo and divided strings, is beautifully
played, and the tenor drum’s sinister tapping on p.125 of the
score is perfectly articulated.
Vernon Handley crowns his cycle with what is,
on balance, the best performance of the Seventh Symphony (1938-9)
that I have heard - and there have been some very fine performances
over the years, from Downes’s two broadcasts in the 1980s to Thomson’s
Chandos recording and David Lloyd-Jones’s for Naxos. The opening
is fairly steady but the clarity of the sound enables the listener
to hear details that are not apparent in other recordings, such
as the harp’s rapidly repeated notes starting at fig.1 and those
delightful downward arpeggios on p.84, which go for nothing in
other recordings. I also especially like the timpani’s dramatic
contributions at fig.26 and just after.
Somebody (I forget who) once remarked that the
slow movement of No.7 was a dud. Well, these things are a matter
of opinion, but there are certainly no real duds in any of the
performances of it that have been recorded. I always felt that
Thomson, in particular, was at his best here, but Handley’s performance
is in some respects even better. The final bars are especially
well done. The finale begins with what Bax described as ‘a real
18FORTY Romantic wallow’, and this is precisely what he gets from
Handley. Unlike other conductors, who feel that the tempo of the
ensuing Theme and Variations should relate to that of the introduction
(the new crotchet equalling the previous minim), Handley begins
it at a faster speed. For the Epilogue Handley instructed the
players not to use rubato, and the tempo for this reason sounds
a trifle faster than in, say, Thomson’s recording; but the solo
playing is wonderful and the ending is as finely managed as I
have ever heard.
The symphonies in this cycle are coupled two
to a CD as follows: 1 and 3, 2 and 4, and 5 and 6. No.7 shares
a disc with the first issued performance of the overture Rogue’s
Comedy (1936) and Bax’s most famous work, Tintagel
(1917-19). In 1994 Handley made a recording for Lyrita with the
LPO of three of Bax’s then unrecorded overtures: Rogue’s Comedy,
Overture to Adventure and Work in Progress. These
were intended as couplings for a proposed CD reissue of Del Mar’s
performance of No.6. But, alas!, as we all know, nothing has been
issued by Richard Itter for several years, and these fine performances
have never been released. The Overture to Adventure was
recorded again in 1998, this time by the Munich Symphony Orchestra
under Douglas Bostock for the Classico label, and now at last
Handley gives us a new recording of Rogue’s Comedy. Unlike
its close cousin, the Overture to a Picaresque Comedy (1930),
this score was never published and has probably received
no more than three performances since the world première
under Hamilton Harty in 1936. It shows Bax at his most unbuttoned,
and the BBC Philharmonic play it with tremendous gusto.
The overture is followed by a magnificent performance
of Tintagel. Handley has conducted this work innumerable
times over the years (and quite a few times in 2003 alone) and
he really knows the score inside out. This shows in the exemplary
pacing throughout, the outer sections being broader than in many
other recordings (of which there have been no fewer than twelve
all told). The return of the Big Tune on the horns on p.46 of
the score is a thrilling moment. I hesitate to say that this is
definitely the best performance I have ever heard (Bax himself
thought that Tintagel was nearly always well played on
account of its ‘broad lines’), but it is probably the performance
that I shall turn to most often. The fifth disc in this set is
taken up with an hour-long interview with Vernon Handley by Andrew
McGregor, and Lewis Foreman’s notes also include another interview
with the conductor.
In summing up this splendid boxed set, I should
say that the performances are all outstanding and that Vernon
Handley’s interpretations are, in most cases, the best yet recorded.
It is possible to point to specific passages and say that the
timpani in such-and-such a recording are crisper there, or that
those few bars sound more convincing under such-and-such a conductor
(and I think that, taken as a whole, David Lloyd-Jones’s performances
offer the greatest challenge to Handley). But these minor quibbles
pale into insignificance compared with the overall achievement.
The quality of the recordings really is superb, and Stephen Rinker
is to be congratulated on having provided such a lifelike sound
with great depth, clarity and warmth; and how good it is to be
able to hear Bax’s intricate harp parts for a change (a drawback
of the Naxos set). One of his colleagues jokingly remarked at
a recording session that the symphonies would be coming out in
‘Glorious Rinker Sound’ - and he was absolutely right. Congratulations
also to producer Mike George, who has done a marvellous job in
fitting all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together, and to Brian
Pidgeon, who was instrumental in getting this project off the
ground in the first place. Grateful thanks to Chandos too for
having the courage to issue it when they already had another cycle
in their catalogue. But the final vote of thanks must go to the
incomparable Vernon Handley. His Bax cycle has been a long time
in coming, but it has proved well worth the wait.
Graham Parlett
see also review by Rob Barnett
Richard Adams
The
Arnold bax Web-site
BBC Philharmonic/Vernon
Handley