Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site flairvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!decvax!decwrl!flairvax!ellis From: ellis@flairvax.UUCP (Michael Ellis) Newsgroups: net.music Subject: Re: Inquiry about composer Bax Message-ID: <408@flairvax.UUCP> Date: Mon, 26-Mar-84 01:47:28 EST Article-I.D.: flairvax.408 Posted: Mon Mar 26 01:47:28 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 21-Mar-84 02:37:08 EST Organization: Fairchild AI Lab, Palo Alto, CA Lines: 38 Several years back (~1977) I was really into Bax -- particularly his symphonies. They were ALL available on Musical Heritage Society recordings, which are not represented in the Schwann catalog, to the best of my knowledge (at least not back in 1977). That might explain your difficulty locating them. MHS is a relatively respectable mail-order-only label that will let you purchase (at a higher price) without joining, thereby avoiding the monthly send-in-the-card-or-else-you-get-this-record pain. Check out any classical rag and you'll probably see an ad somewhere... *=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=* Bax's symphonies themselves are very conservative -- my friends used to think I was into movie music -- but that's a problem all classical Anglophiles (though Bax is Celtic) seem to have to endure. If you like Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Walton, and Brian, you should find much pleasing in everything Bax wrote. My favorite Symphonies were 2 and 5. Gloomy dreamlike moods, occasionally broken by harsh (sometimes vulgar) orchestral displays seem to be Bax's hallmark. His music also seems to go on forever, without any point, towards some obscure resting place, much like Elgar (#2 is almost `modern', however). Connoisseurs of things that are superficially familiar but genuinely obscure should have a field day with this guy. British music is a strange topic. It seems that classical music was imported from the continent until Elgar and Vaughan Williams created the very aristocratic, backwards-looking British style around 1900. Before that date, you have to go back to Tallis/Byrd/Purcell during the Renaissance to find anything at all. Perhaps the revolutionary nature of British rock was interconnected somehow with the reactionary nature of its formal music. Fans of the British school should check out the Penguin guide to classical music, especially the edition available in 1979, which was severely biased towards these composers. -michael