Bax: Symphony No. 7; Tintagel

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Music reviews of Bax: Symphony No. 7; Tintagel

Music Review: SPLENDID!
Rating: 5 Stars

Coupled with the Seventh Symphony, though, is Bax's most famous orchestral piece, 'Tintagel.' It is a symphonic poem that was inspired by a six-week sojourn in the area of Tintagel, on the northern Cornish coast. Tintagel sits on a high cliff overlooking the distant Atlantic, and the tone poem is really more about the sea than about the castle or the landscape. Indeed, it is Bax's 'La Mer.' David Lloyd Jones leads the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in a rich full-throated performance of this alternately romantically lyrical and tempestuous piece. It certainly stands among the best versions I've ever heard.

Bax's final essay in symphonic form, the Seventh Symphony, in three movements like all Bax's symphonies, was premièred in 1939 by the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra (as it was then called) under the direction of the Bax enthusiast Sir Adrian Boult. The opening Allegro is a buoyant, even playful, piece interrupted by a lyrically melancholy section; one wonders if this latter is in any way inspired by the war clouds then massing in Europe. The slow movement begins with a slow, lazy, richly harmonized opening featuring languorous oboe/English horn solos and eventually supplanted by a somewhat more vigorous middle section subtitled 'In a Legendary Mood.' There is a vigorous climax before the music settles back into the opening dreamlike mood. The final movement is a theme-and-variations based on a solemn theme stated, after a stirring fanfare introduction, in the low strings and then taken through changing moods and tempi, becoming more and more agitated (but with some lyrical episodes and even some comic relief along the way) before a subdued, one might even say resigned, conclusion.

After the Seventh Symphony (and the start in earnest of World War II) Bax lapsed into a several years' silence before being named Master of the King's Music. He never composed anything very significant afterwards.

These performances are fully the equal of the earlier releases in this Naxos series. You really cannot do better than that.

Scott Morrison

Description of Bax: Symphony No. 7; Tintagel

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