John Pickard is among today’s most accomplished and performed 21st Century British composers. He was born in Burnley, Lancashire, England in 1963 and at an early age decided to become a composer. He studied music and composition at the University of Wales, with the Welsh composer William Mathias, and later in The Netherlands with Louis Andriessen and in 1989 was awarded a PhD in composition from the University of Wales. Since 1993 ...

With this disc, Lionel Handy completes his survey of Bax’s cello music including the much-maligned Cello Concerto that appeared on an earlier Lyrita disc. Here he performs Bax’s Cello Sonata from 1923 and couples it with the cello sonata of his close friend John Ireland from the same year. The third item on this disc is Handy’s brilliant transcription for cello of Delius’ Third Violin Sonata. Admirers of British chamber ...

Dr Clifford Wilfred Gillam, the founder of the original Arnold Bax Society, died peacefully on 2 June, seven weeks short of his 90th birthday. I first came across his name when I read an article by him in the Bax Society Bulletin of October 1968, p. 40. It was called ‘A Lost Work by Bax’ and began: ‘In 1953, when I was doing some research on Keats, I came across ...

Self-quotation may be a sign of age, idleness or both; but I can’t avoid referring back to my 2007 review of this performance of Bax’s Symphony No.2, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sir Eugene Goossens in 1956 (Dutton CDBP 9779):If I’m less enthusiastic about the off-air Symphony No.2, that’s no reflection on Goossens’ vigorous attack and dramatic intensity, as impressive as any conductor recorded in this most urgent, ...

Given the power of Bax’s symphonies and tone poems, it is easy sometimes to forget the equal mastery of his major piano and chamber works, let alone the best of his countless productions for the human voice. Hearing this excellent new recording of Bax’s major unaccompanied (or in one case, slightly accompanied) choral pieces is a reminder of their quality. Two of them – the magnificent Mater Ora Filium (1921) ...