Arnold Bax - Music for Viola and Piano/Harp (Ivo-Jan van der Werff)

Information

Composer: Arnold Bax

• (01) Fantasy Sonata for Viola and Harp
• (05) Legend for Viola and Piano
• (06) Concert Piece for Viola and Piano
• (07) Sonata for Viola and Piano

Ivo-Jan van der Werff, viola
Hugh Webb, harp
Simon Marlow, piano

Date: 2001
Label: Koch Schwann

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Review

A likeable compendium‚ crowned by the Viola Sonata – one of Bax’s most characteristic and compelling utterances

We’ve long needed a decent modern recording of Bax’s masterly 1921­22 Viola Sonata‚ so a warm welcome to this useful Koch collection. Refined of tone and admirably secure in terms of technique‚ Ivo­Jan van der Werff (violist with the Medici Quartet for nearly two decades now) forms a thoughtful and shapely partnership with pianist Simon Marlow.

Dedicatee Lionel Tertis made an unusually propulsive world première recording in 1929 with the composer at the piano‚ though that was never officially approved for release and was only belatedly issued on a Pearl LP (7/81 – nla). William Primrose’s commanding version with Harriet Cohen – recorded in 1937­39 by Columbia – has remarkably similar timings to that of the new recording‚ but reveals perhaps a stronger sense of line and a slumbering atmosphere very different from Tertis’s account. Just occasionally I wondered whether van der Werff might have benefited from a fractionally closer balance‚ but he and Marlow generate a satisfying rapport none the less‚ and theirs is undoubtedly a real meeting of minds.

Elsewhere‚ these skilful newcomers lend passionate advocacy to the bleakly beautiful 1929 Legend and they certainly extract every ounce of eloquence from the early Concert Piece (a sparkily ambitious and assured 16­minute essay written for Tertis in the spring of 1904 when the 20­year­old Bax was still a student at the Royal Academy of Music). For the lovely Fantasy Sonata from 1927‚ van der Werff teams up with harpist Hugh Webb to give a sparkling and poetic performance which easily matches its admirable Naxos rival. The sound here is particularly truthful‚ and‚ taken as a whole‚ this is a supremely enjoyable survey.

-- Gramophone

More reviews:
BBC Music Magazine  PERFORMANCE: **** / SOUND: ****
ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 9 / SOUND QUALITY: 9

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Arnold Bax (8 November 1883 – 3 October 1953) was an English composer, poet, and author. His prolific output includes songs, choral music, chamber pieces, and solo piano works, but he is best known for his orchestral music. In addition to a series of symphonic poems he wrote seven symphonies and was for a time widely regarded as the leading British symphonist. In his last years Bax found his music regarded as old-fashioned, and after his death it was generally neglected. From the 1960s onwards, mainly through a growing number of commercial recordings, his music was gradually rediscovered.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Bax

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As a member of the Medici String Quartet for 28 years, violist Ivo-Jan van der Werff has performed in over 2,000 concerts in major festivals and venues world wide, broadcasting regularly on radio and television. The Medici quartet made more than 40 recordings for EMI, Nimbus, Hyperion and Koch, winning many awards. Van der Werff has also performed as recitalist and recorded for ASV, Koch and Guild labels. As a teacher, he has been a professor of viola and chamber music at the Royal College of Music and is now a professor at Rice University. Van der Werff plays on a viola by Giovanni Grancino, of Milan, c1690.
http://ivo-janvanderwerff.com/

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