Sir Arnold Bax Society

Conductor Vernon Handley in an interview with Ian Lace as printed in The British Music Society Newsletter – Dec 1995
“I came across (BAX) when I was a student learning the repertory and a lot of British music. I took…

About the Author: Dr Claire Colebourn is a Consultant Critical Care Physician at University Hospitals Oxford and the current President of the British Society of Echocardiography. This article is based on a scientific article being published in the Journal of…

Introduction:  Arnold Bax’s Concerto, later the Phantasy, for viola and orchestra, was written for, and dedicated to, the violist Lionel Tertis. It was premiered by him during a Philharmonic Society concert on 17 November 1921. The Phantasy was played several…

Discography (adapted from Graham Parlett)
(1) Iris Loveridge. Lyrita LP: RCS 10 (m); Musical Heritage Society LP: MHS 7011 (m); CD: REAM 3113 (m). (2) Frank Merrick. Frank Merrick Society LP: FMS 7 (m). (3) James Roche. Sound…

When in 1996 I created the Sir Arnold Bax Website, I knew immediately the first couple of luminaries I wanted to interview.  Vernon (Tod) Handley was my initial preference, but the media-shy conductor turned out to be very evasive; so…

Note: Arnold Bax spent at least two months on the Skarzhinska Estate at Kruglik, near Lubny in Ukraine between May and July 1910.  Alan Sutton recently visited Lubny and Kruglik and found some interesting historical background to the Skarzhinska family…

In 1911 Bax fulfilled his long-cherished dream of living in Ireland, and for nearly three years he and his wife rented a house on the outskirts of Dublin, where he became friends with many of the leading lights of the…

Editor’s Note: William B. Hannam is a part-time professor of music appreciation and musicology at Kent State University. His doctoral dissertation, completed in 2008, was titled “Arnold Bax and the Poetry of ‘Tintagel'” and won Kent State University’s 2009 Dissertation…

If Bax’s name means anything to the average concert-goer, it will most likely be for one work alone – Tintagel. This fifteen minute tone poem has been the first port of call for many who have gone on to…

Bax’s dislike of writing music for the cinema is well documented, and it was with considerable reluctance that he embarked on his first film score, for the twenty-minute documentary Malta , G.C., in the summer of 1942. ‘Have just finished…