Sir Arnold Bax Society

The beginning of the Bax Edition – Symphonic Variations and Spring Fire
An Interview with George Owen

Editor’s Note:  I was fortunate to attend Ashley Wass’s Naxos recording of Sir Arnold Bax’s Symphonic Variations with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra at Lighthouse Poole in 2008 and I recall the extraordinary efforts made by the musicians to read their parts from an indecipherable hand-written manuscript that had been partially damaged during a WWII London blitz attack.  Ashley Wass told me he’d love to…

Editor’s Note: This interview is the product of two meetings with Vernon Handley at his home in Abergavenny, Wales .  The first interview took place in November 2001 and that was followed up by a second interview that took place just last year while Handley was in the middle of recording his monumental Bax symphony cycle for Chandos. My intent in interviewing the great Maestro was to encourage him to recollect on his remarkable life and career as well as discuss several great musical figures with whom he is…

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 he has taught at the University of Bristol, where he is Professor of…

Editor’s Note: David Owen Norris is one of the best-known and beloved figures in British music today. He is a pianist, broadcaster and composer as well as Professor of Musical Performance at the University of Southampton, Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Music and at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, and an Honorary Fellow of Keble College, Oxford.

David Owen Norris was the first winner of the…

Editor's Note: Michael McHale is unquestionably one of the most exciting and active young British pianists performing today. He is in demand as a solo and chamber player as well as an accompanist and he has nearly a dozen CDs currently out on the market. Michael was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1983 and he received his music education at both Cambridge and the Royal Academy of Music. He won both a first prize and the audience prize at the prestigious Terence Judd/Hallé Award finals in 2009 (previous…

John McCabe is one of the most distinguished British composers of the latter half of the 20th Century. He is also a magnificent pianist whose repertoire extends from Haydn to John Corigliano. He is president of the British Music Socitey and a devout champion of the music of Arnold Bax. What follows is an interview with John McCabe by Robert Barnett, editor of the British Music Society Newsletter. I want to think Rob for allowing me to post the interview on this site.   

Robert Barnett: When did you first…

Myer Fredman is best known to Baxians for his outstanding recordings of the First and Second Symphonies. These recordings appeared on Lyrita in the early 1970s and for many of us they were our introduction to these great works. It’s astonishing to learn from the interview below that Fredman learned these complicated scores in only 10 days for they are so idiomatic and concentrated. The First Symphony is available on LYRITA SRCD.232 coupled with Raymond Leppard’s performance of the Seventh Symphony. Let’s…

Editor's Note: It’s amazing to learn that Bax’s Violin Concerto had what is believed to be its first and only American performance just a few years ago. The musician responsible for this splendid revival is the adventurous American violinst/composer/conductor John McLaughlin Williams. John is an ardent admirer of Bax’s music and in the interview below, he presents a strong case why he considers Bax among the very greatest of British composers and why his music needs to be performed more often. I appreciate…

Editor's Note: Douglas Bostock, born in England in 1955, is one of the outstanding British Conductors of his generation. In 1991 he was appointed Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Carlsbad Symphony Orchestra, one of the leading orchestras in the Czech Republic, a position from which he resigned in May 1998. He has been Principal Guest Conductor of the Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra of Bohemia since 1991 and is Permanent Guest Conductor of the Munich Symphony Orchestra since 1997. He is a former…

Editor’s Note: The Maggini Quartet has became one of the most admired quartets due to their popular recordings of British chamber music for the Naxos label. Although their repertoire extends far beyond the music of Great Britain, it is for their interpretations of British composers that they have been so rightly honored. You would expect the Maggini to record the works of Britten, Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Walton (all of whom they have done brilliantly), but it is for their dedication to the works of…