Ireland, Bax & Delius: English Tone Pictures

Album review

The music of some British composers sometimes struggles to cross the Channel. This is the case for the three composers on this album, “English Tone Pictures”, depicting the English countryside and masterfully recorded in 1967 by EMI, with Sir John Barbirolli conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

John Ireland (1879-1962), like Sir Arnold Bax (1883-1953), was part of this movement following in the footsteps of Sir Edward Elgar. Born into a wealthy family, Ireland always composed according to his goodwill and without financial worries. Attracted by magic and a certain mystique, he was often inspired by Anglo-Norman legends. The London Overture at the head of this album is an exception to the rule, being a piece composed following a competition by the Crystal Brass Band in 1934. Later reworked for orchestra, it instead evokes the wanderings of a few night owls.

All of Sir Arnold Bax’s music is steeped in a romanticism which is largely inspired by the Celtic world and Ireland. His 1917 symphonic poem Tintagel, with its strong Debussy resonance, evokes this sombre castle perched on a wind-battered cliff with a rich orchestration particularly well rendered under the baton of the illustrious maestro Barbirolli.

From an earlier generation, Frederick Delius, born of German parents, spent most of his life in the United States and France where he died in 1934. His complex and sensual music was supported by Sir Henry Wood and, above all, by Sir Thomas Beecham to whom his posthumous fame owes much. It is to the latter that we owe the orchestral arrangement of Walk to the Paradise Garden, from the opera A Village Romeo and Juliette. His symphonic poem A Song of Summer and the prelude to his opera Irmelin round off this exciting programme which glorifies the late Romanticism that envelops all English music of this period in such a special way. © François Hudry/Qobuz