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) ...

George Parris is a singer, conductor and scholar of early-twentieth-century Anglo-Irish music. He was awarded the Elgar Society's Certificate of Merit for initiating an Elgar Festival as his school, St Edward's Oxford. In the same year, he founded The Carice Singers, and has since directed the choir in a number of concerts and recordings. While studying at Cambridge, he was Artistic Director of the Sidney Sussex Arts Festival 2013 and ...

At 2 p.m. on the afternoon of Saturday, 14 January 2017, the distinguished pianist Philip Mead began a marathon all-Bax programme in the Recital Room of Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge—a very rare event that included two world premières. The concert was listed as a ‘private piano recital’, by invitation only, and thus the audience consisted of no more than about fifteen people. After a general introduction in which Mead ...

‘For the Fallen’, Elgar: The Spirit of England Op.80*, A Voice in the Wilderness Op.77$, Grania and Diarmid Op.42#, Bax: In Memoriam, Hallé Choir and Orchestra, Rachel Nicolls (soprano)*; Joshua Ellicott (narrator), Jennifer France (soprano)$; Madeleine Shaw (mezzo-soprano)#, Sir Mark Elder, conductor, Hallé CD HLL 7544 [67:15]Review by Christopher WebberIt may come as a shock to find that this is the first, new recording of a Bax tone poem to emerge since Chandos’s excellent collection under Andrew ...

Bax: Variations for Orchestra and works by George Butterworth and Cyril Scott (all premieres) Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Aleksei Kiseliov (cello) Martin Yates, conductor Dutton Epoch CDLX7326 [61:55]Review by Richard R. AdamsMartin Yates continues his resurrection efforts on behalf of British composers by giving us a disc of recorded premieres including a Fantasia for Orchestra by George Butterworth, a tone poem for cello and orchestra by Cyril Scott and the ...