If you enjoy Romantic orchestral music with grand sonorities, atmospheric writing, and long, yearning melodies, then Arnold Bax’s seven symphonies may be for you. But you’ll need to give them some time. This isn’t music to hear while rushing around, and it won’t reveal itself after a single listen. It asks for patience, but if you let these works play a few times through your speakers or headphones, you may gain a lifelong companion.
The English composer Arnold Bax (1883–1953) grew up in a wealthy London family and never had to worry about earning a living. Perhaps that freedom allowed him to shape an entirely personal style, untouched by the rest of English musical life. He simply wrote the music he wanted to write. As a composer he resembles no one else in his country, and his influences came from elsewhere—Wagner, Strauss, Sibelius, and the Russians.
Bax was a major figure in English music during the 1920s and 30s. His tone poems and symphonies were seen as the most modern works of their time in the British Isles. Later, however, his music was overshadowed by Vaughan Williams, Walton, and Britten. By the time he died, his Romantic voice had fallen out of fashion, and new modernist ideals dominated British music. In recent decades, though, interest in Bax has returned, and his works have been recorded widely, even if they are still rare in concert halls.
The seven symphonies were written between 1921 and 1939. Listening to them feels like entering a world of its own, with an atmosphere unlike anything else. For me, nature stands at the centre—humans bending to its whims through eerie desolation, relentless storms, and thunderous outbursts—yet at times the light breaks through, offering warmth and reassurance. These are symphonies for the inward-looking listener; there is something searching and enigmatic in his musical language, despite all the drama and blazing climaxes.
The first three symphonies feel intensely charged but also lyrically atmospheric; perhaps they reflect Bax’s interest in Celtic and Nordic myths. The Fourth stands apart—brighter, more pared-back, more optimistic. Then come the final three: the majestic Fifth, with its grand symphonic arc leading to the summit of the last movement, where the spirit of Sibelius lingers; the Sixth, maybe the greatest of the cycle, dark and shadowed with demonic undertones; and the Seventh, clearer and more resigned, unmistakably a farewell, even though Bax lived another fourteen years.
The symphonies have been recorded in complete cycles three times. Two are on Chandos—first by Bryden Thomson with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Ulster Orchestra, and then in the early 2000s by Vernon Handley with the BBC Philharmonic. Naxos released David Lloyd-Jones’s cycle in the late 1990s and early 2000s with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
In the British press, Handley’s versions have been praised above all others. For me, it took several listens before I began to appreciate them. His interpretations are less dramatic than the other two cycles, but his deep understanding of the works appears in the detail, the nuances, and the melancholy tone.
Bryden Thomson’s cycle was the first complete one ever recorded, and he also recorded a great deal of Bax’s other orchestral music around the same time. These performances have the necessary weight, and the orchestras play with brilliance and sensitivity while preserving the atmosphere. The dynamic Chandos sound—much better here than on Handley’s recordings for the same label—is a definite bonus.
David Lloyd-Jones’s complete set on Naxos is also of very high quality, even if the sound is a bit drier and flatter. His readings are more straightforward, with attention to the symphonies’ architecture. He generally can’t match Handley, for example, in atmosphere and mystery, but his interpretations still have a strong overall impact—not least his Sixth, the finest I’ve heard, unmatched in intensity.
Bonus
Don’t miss the Lyrita recordings from the 1960s and 70s: Symphony No. 1 and 2 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Myer Fredman; No. 5 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Raymond Leppard; No. 6 with the New Philharmonia Orchestra and Norman Del Mar; and No. 7 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Raymond Leppard. These were the first stereo recordings of these works and carry a strong sense of discovery. They also offer an appealingly clear and warm sound.
