Bax: Symphony No. 2 & Winter Legends

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The symphonies of Arnold Bax aren't commonly heard, even in Britain, and this 1956 BBC recording of the Symphony No. 2 makes a fine place to start with them. The conductor of the BBC Symphony is Eugene Goossens, who gave the first British performance of the symphony in 1930 (the world premiere was in Boston, under Sergey Koussevitzky, the previous year), and he enters ideally into its extremes of mood and its Wagnerian sweep. You might sample the first movement, not only to hear Goossens' way with Bax's marvelous variety of orchestration in the quieter romantic passages, but also to see how you feel about the mid-'50s BBC sound, far outstripped by American studios of the period. The pairing with the Winter Legends for piano and orchestra of 1930 is a happy one: The symphony, with its evocative contrasts of moods, has the flavor of a tone poem, while the four-movement Winter Legends has aspects of a piano concerto or symphony (really one of its most fascinating aspects is the subtle role of the piano, which is more than a member of the orchestra, yet not quite a soloist). This performance also features two musicians who were young at the time and went on to stellar careers, conductor Raymond Leppard, leading the able BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra, and pianist John McCabe. A strong pick for lovers of British music of the 20th century.

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