Bax: Tone Poems Vol 2 (Incls 'The Happy Forest' & 'Nympholept')

Editor's Choice Gramophone Magazine June 2008

MusicWeb - Recording of the Year 2008

'Vernon Handley's revelatory Bax odyssey for Chandos comes up trumps again with this generous feast spanning a quarter of a century from the enchanted Donegal glens of the youthful Into the twilight (1908) to the rugged, wintry seascape of the Second Northern ballad, completed in 1934… if I encounter a more rewarding issue all year, I shall be very surprised.'
Gramophone Editor's Choice

'Handley's command of this unfamiliar music is wonderfully assured; the BBC Philharmonic play superbly for him, and it is hard to imagine anyone else doing it better or with more commitment.'
The Guardian

'…Handley's rapport with this music is so satisfying and convincing it makes this release self-recommending, one to delight Baxians and audiophiles alike. I would not wish to limit appreciation to those who already have the Baxian bug, for I cannot imagine a music lover drawn to Debussy, Ravel, Scriabin, Sibelius (and maybe Wagner) not responding enthusiastically to the musical wonders here.'
International Record Review

'Handley Champions Bax as Beecham did Delius. The excellent Chandos series pairing the former continues with seven richly nuanced, nimbly danced and sensitively phrased performances of tone poems composed just before, and orchestrated most just after the First World War. The BBC Philharmonic revels in Bax's subtle unstrumental variety - the nervous harp in Into the Twilight, the gurgling bass-clarinet in Nympholept that handley summons like a snake-charmer. A sense of magic pervades much of the disc. Few conductors have found so much in Bax before, but many will in future.'
The Times

This is Volume 2 in the Chandos series devoted to Bax's tone poems and includes the Three Northern Ballads, three orchestral movements not previously performed together. The conductor Vernon Handley has been keen to promote them as a unified and almost symphonic whole. Red Autumn was originally an early solo piano work which Bax later arranged for two pianos. Subsequently the Bax Trust commissioned Graham Parlett to orchestrate the work in the style of Bax's early orchestral writing. The other works are The Happy Forest, Nympholept and Into the Twilight. International Record Review wrote of Vol. 1: 'This is the greatest single Bax record that I have heard; the orchestral playing is magnificent throughout… over and above the excellence of this fine orchestra [BBC Philharmonic] is the profound musicianship of Vernon Handley's conducting.'