Search - Bax, Thomson, Ulster Orchestra :: Tale the Pine Trees Knew / Into the Twilight

Bax Glories continued

K. Farrington | Missegre, France | 03/31/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Volume 2 of the Bax tone poems is a continuation of the glorious tone poems which Thomson hit us with during the tail end of the Bax centenary celebrations during the mid 1980's. The conductor and orchestra obviously relish this virtuoso music that had remained unrecorded for so long. If you listen closely, to for example, the opening of 'In the Fairy Hills', you can hear the uncompromising demands Bax makes on his individual instrument players within the orchestra itself, with the woodwind jumping around, cackling and jiggling in an irregular direction, the concentration of strings divisi which need to be rehearsed again and again until the thing is right and the difficult brass passges which take us up to the technical limits of the instruments themselves. Perhaps this is why recording companies have been shy of Bax for so long and this is why our gratitude goes out to Chandos for undertaking this ambitious task and actually fulfilling it. This achievement can be contrasted with, for example, another company which undertook a similar task with another sadly neglected English composer and now seem to be failing at this worthwhile enterprise. 'The Tale the Pine Trees Knew' is Bax in his northern mood which I will admit is not my favorite side to Bax's range of styles. However, this particular work is very atmospheric but it is episodic and veterans of the old vinyl version of this work will remember, amongst the hiss and crackle, how the conductor struggled with the tempi and volume dynamics. Thomson takes a sanguine view of this piece and gives a convincing performance by 'damping down' the woodwind and brass who can get carried away in the second half of the work and unbalance the thing altogether by making it sound like a more generic post-Straussian work. Bax is altogther a tauter composer than the German master and Thomson understands that when he is in an ebullient mood, Bax still holds back a little. This is because this Weltenschauung is not his own. You, the conductor, can give it all you've got when Bax explodes with grief as in his early symphonies or when becomes ecstatic as in 'Fand' but never in good humour. The 'Tale' score is wintery, lacking those little instrumental touches, twisting harmonies and rich phrasing that his earlier works possesed but he still has here some astounding effects that will continually fascinate listeners, particularly with the use of percussion. The musical heart of this CD is the pair of two Irish-inspired tone poems 'Into the Twilight' and 'In the Fairy Hills'. The first of these opens in a dawn-like drum roll and searching woodwind which evolves into a motto theme which Bax develops into a characteristic climax. 'In the Fairy Hills' or 'An Sluagh Sidhe' comes from 1909 and shows how bewitched Bax must have been at just living and breathing Irish air at this time. Bax was sitting under Mount Brandon and in an introspective mood (not unusual for him) when thoughts inspired by his mentor Yeats moved him artistically to produce this superb work. This tone poem by all rights deserves to be played around the world with the best. The central section is based on Yeats' 'The Wanderings of Usheen', the poetry-catalyst that started it all in Bax's imagination years before as a teenager in England and he certainly bares his soul here. To my mind, these are among the most inspired and profound pages he ever penned. I ask anyone who does not know this work to play this tone poem through and just listen to the detail of luxuriant emotional music. Naxos have come out with another recording of this work recently which I have never heard but I cannot imagine this Thomson ever being bettered in sheer emotion. 'Roscatha' means 'Battle Hymn' in Irish Gaelic and Bax attempts here to summon up the atmosphere of old Ireland with is warring clans for a prelude for his projected opera 'Deirdre'. He was trying something like Smetana in his 'Sarka' from Ma Vlast. Unlike the Czech composer, Bax is not at his best in this modus operandi although there are some splendid brass passages which are stirring. Bax was not a painter of military scenes like David with his 'Napoleon crossing the Alps' or 'The Horatii swearing an oath'. He was more like Turner who mixed light and texture to portray nature as seen by a passionate and sensitive soul, reflecting outwardly the storms within. Perhaps Bax found out that he could not keep up this kind of pugilistic mood and that is why he never brought this project to its conclusion. First class all round!"