It was in the summer of 1902, while he was a
student at the Royal Academy of Music, that Bax read Yeats’s The
Wanderings of Oisin and instantly became (in his own words)
‘a kind of honorary Irishman’. A few months after this revelation,
he completed his earliest known string quartet, which predates
his first published one by sixteen years. This Quartet in A was
given a single performance exactly a century ago, in November
1903, two weeks after the composer’s twentieth birthday, but then
lay unplayed (except for the slow movement) until it was recorded
for this new Dutton CD. It proves to be a well-wrought student
composition, full of high spirits, with some attractive tunes,
effective counterpoint, and a good ear for the string quartet
medium. The musical material itself seldom sounds like the mature
Bax and, had I come upon it without knowing the composer, I am
not sure whether I should have guessed his identity. But while
it may lack the individuality of the Quartet in G of 1918, the
youthful Bax certainly had something to say and knew how to say
it, though he often makes strenuous demands on his players’ technique.
He originally wrote a lively ending to the first movement, but
the page is crossed through in the manuscript and replaced by
a slow, poetic coda, which proves to contain some of the most
individual music in the entire score, especially the final fourteen
or so bars, which really do sound Baxian.
I first heard the slow movement of this quartet
at a Wigmore Hall concert in 1989, and it made little impression
on me. Hearing it in context and so well played, I find it a much
more attractive piece, with melodies that are gradually finding
their way towards his later style. As with the Sonata in G minor
of 1901 (recorded on ASV) there are a few salon-like passages,
a style that Bax would soon outgrow, but the movement is well
constructed and creates a favourable impression. The third movement
is a boisterous romp, full of deft touches, and somehow the tunes
never quite seem to go in the direction you expect them to. It
is also the earliest example of the composer’s predilection for
combining the functions of scherzo and finale into a single movement,
as in the symphonies and in many
of his other multi-movement works. The melodic material is very
engaging (the first theme briefly brought the scherzo from Martinů’s
Fourth Symphony to mind), and Bax’s treatment of his material
is arresting and often unexpected (those high squeaks on
the second violin about 30 seconds into the movement, for example).
There are one or two moments when Bax’s true voice shines through
(around 3'50 and again at 7'35), and the final bars come as a
complete, not to say abrupt, surprise.
In his programme note, Lewis Foreman wonders whether Ireland or
Bohemia predominates in this dance-like movement; I should say
the score is Bohemia 9, Ireland 1: the influence of Dvořák
is much more apparent to my ears than that of Irish folk music,
but I thought I also detected nods in the direction of Edward
German, whom Bax liked (he once sent him a letter expressing admiration
for his ‘very English music’).
The other piece on this disc is the unpublished
four-movement String Quintet in G of 1908, which also remained
unplayed for over ninety years until Divertimenti gave a performance
in Lichfield Cathedral in 2001. It was first played in July 1908,
but what we have on this CD is not exactly what that audience
of long ago would have heard. The first movement is given complete,
but the editor, Paul Barritt, in consultation with his fellow
performers, has made some judicious cuts in the third and fourth
movements in order to tighten their structures; and in the second
movement he has made a transcription of a revised version with
two violas instead of two cellos that Bax published in 1923 under
the title Lyrical Interlude (recorded by the Maggini Quartet
on Naxos 8.555953). This skilfully constructed performing edition
thus enables us at last to hear a score full of youthful exuberance
and teeming with fresh and attractive ideas. The sound-world is
much closer to Bax’s later style than with the Quartet in A. The
opening theme in the first movement makes much use of the Scotch
snap, and then, after a characteristically Baxian transition,
the first part of the second subject group has a ravishing melody
with an Irish flavour (beautifully played here) that many listeners
will recognize from its use in the later piano miniature A
Hill Tune, though in this version its continuation sounds
more Straussian than Irish. The melody that follows put me in
mind of Moeran, though of course the work predates any of that
composer’s music. Bax welds all this material into an attractive,
well constructed whole.
The slow movement — one of the most beautiful
in any of his chamber works — will be familiar to many listeners
from the Naxos recording of its revision as the Lyrical Interlude.
Next comes an amiable scherzo, much of it in 6/8, and here again
I was occasionally put in mind of the early Moeran. The notes
liken it to a sequence of dances at an Irish ceilidh, and
Paul Barritt has pointed out a resemblance to Brahms’s G major
Sextet near the start. The finale is another sunny, dance-like
movement full of Irish allusions and infectious rhythms and with
a delightful second-subject melody.
The playing of the Divertimenti Ensemble on this
Dutton CD is superlative throughout, as is the warm and clear
recording. The booklet, with its attractive cover design, has
detailed notes by the indefatigable Lewis Foreman, reproductions
of pages from the two holograph manuscripts, and a splendid colour
photograph of the composer taken by his friend Paul Corder in
1907, the first time it has ever been published other than in
monochrome. Highly recommended, not only to Bax enthusiasts but
to anyone who feels like exploring some attractive, out-of-the-way
English music from the early years of the twentieth century.
Graham Parlett
Divertimenti Ensemble:
Paul Barritt, Rachel Isserlis (vlns.), Jonathan Barritt (vla.), Josephine
Horder, Sebastian Comberti (vlcs.)