Bax: Symphony No. 3 / The Happy Forest

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Here's an irresistible opportunity to acquaint yourself with one of the most lovable of all British symphonies in a finely engineered performance of infectious dedication and impressive power. Bax completed the third of his seven symphonies in early 1929. It's one of his very best scores, crammed full of bewitchingly beautiful melody (nowhere more so than in the wonderfully serene epilogue) and thrillingly evocative of the rugged coastline and mountains in and around Morar (Bax's Scottish winter retreat). David Lloyd-Jones's bright-eyed interpretation is, on balance, the most satisfyingly lucid since Sir John Barbirolli's wartime premier recording with the Hallé. Moreover, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra rises to the challenge with unstinting fervor and impressive polish. For a filler we get a enjoyably robust, at times boisterous, reading of the earlier, toothsome tone poem The Happy Forest, its gorgeous central portion lacking just a fraction in rapt wonderment. Overall, though, yet another British music winner from Naxos, and an absolute must at the price. --Andrew Achenbach

Tracks:

Symphony No. 3: Lento moderato - Allegro moderato - Allegro feroce - Lento moderato - Allegro moederato - Piu lento - Allegro
Symphony No. 3: Lento
Symphony No. 3: Moderato - Epilogue: Poco lento
The Happy Forest: Nature Poem For Orchestra

Amazon.com

Here's an irresistible opportunity to acquaint yourself with one of the most lovable of all British symphonies in a finely engineered performance of infectious dedication and impressive power. Bax completed the third of his seven symphonies in early 1929. It's one of his very best scores, crammed full of bewitchingly beautiful melody (nowhere more so than in the wonderfully serene epilogue) and thrillingly evocative of the rugged coastline and mountains in and around Morar (Bax's Scottish winter retreat). David Lloyd-Jones's bright-eyed interpretation is, on balance, the most satisfyingly lucid since Sir John Barbirolli's wartime premier recording with the Hallé. Moreover, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra rises to the challenge with unstinting fervor and impressive polish. For a filler we get a enjoyably robust, at times boisterous, reading of the earlier, toothsome tone poem The Happy Forest, its gorgeous central portion lacking just a fraction in rapt wonderment. Overall, though, yet another British music winner from Naxos, and an absolute must at the price. --Andrew Achenbach

Customer Reviews:

The best contemporary recording.......2004-04-17

David Lloyd-Jones gives a commanding and sensitive performance of the 3rd Symphony. It flows easily, sensitive in delicate moments, rising to passion and vehemence in the climaxes. His tempi and treatment are closest to the Barbirolli interpretation on Dutton transferred from 78s - obviously not the definitive recording but definitive performance in my view, as Bax and Barbirolli were great friends. Lloyd-Jones fully captures the magic of the second movement and the lyrically beautiful, if simple, epilogue to the third movement. He also brings off the contrast and tension between moments of respite and violent outbursts, characterising this sympony, with finesse.
This is a superior performance to Bryden Thompson's with his well-known quirky tempi (he managed to make Elgar's 2nd Symphony last 1/4 hour longer than anyone elses - now thankfully deleted). Thompson makes a complete hash of the third movement, his tempi bear no resemblance to Bax's score markings. Further, Thompson's rendering was recorded in a venue with almost a cathedral acoustic - fine for works conforming to early harmonic principles but far too blurry for chromatically romantic composers such as Bax. It almost sounds like Bax played in the Sistine Chapel without its drapes.
So, for sheer value for price, the Lloyd Jones performance is outstanding.

buy Bryden Thomson's version.......2002-01-30

I'm sorry to disagree, but this is a great symphony, agruably Bax's best, in a mediocre performance and murky recording. Especially disappointing is the all important third movement.

The standard against which all performances must be judged is Bryden Thomsons Chandos version, followed by the recently reissued Dutton Barbirolli from 60 some years ago. The latter is a very different perfomance, marred some by the technical quality of this mono recording, entirely understandable for it's age.

The chief virtue of this Naxos recording is it's price.

Maybe people who haven't heard Bax before will but it, like it and go on the the magical, mystical, crystal clear Thomson recordings of the Bax symphonies.

Bax would have approved of this!.......2001-08-11

Bax's third symphony is not an easy work; it is full of tempo changes and subtle rubati that make the job of the conductor difficult. From the interpretation viewpoint, it is compounded by the total absense of metronome markings in the score.

David Lloyd-Jones does an excellent job. But what persuades me about his version is that it most closely approximates John Barbirolli's interpretation back in the early 1940s. Bax had heard this symphony performed many times in the 1930s (it was famous enough for the British Council to award it a recording grant); he was a friend of Barbirolli and it is fair to say that Barbirolli's version closely met with Bax's approval.

Lloyd-Jones' reading is certainly an improvement over the quirky, idiosyncratic version put out by Bryden Thomson (and recorded in an echoing acoustic that makes a mess of Bax's harmonic rhythm (and even the physical rhythm where it counts in the first and third movements). It is also better than Downes' impersonal, passion-free version back in the 1970s where he succeeds in completely losing any sense of climax. This work is torn between angry outbursts and long periods of respite and reflection, and Lloyd-Jones has the right touch to bring this off. He does not lose the climax of the first movement which everyone else seems to and he maintains the tensions such that those moments of tranquil feel well-earned. The Epilogue (which almost amounts to a 4th movement), like the opening of the second movement, is magical. What's even more magical is the price.

Splendid Conductorial Control.......2000-10-05

Two or three of Sir Arnold Bax's (1883-1953) big works suffer from the embarrassment of a too-complicated first movement. The Violin Concerto (1937) is one: Its First Movement consists of an "Overture," so called, interrupted by a "Ballade," so called, interrupted by a Scherzo. The Third Symphony (1929) is another. Here, the First Movement consists of episodes - Lento Moderato... Allegro Moderato... Allegro feroce... etc. - that, unless the transitions come under exceedingly careful control, individually subvert the sense of a unified musical sequence. David Lloyd-Jones' success in the Naxos recording of this symphony arises from his imposition on that wayward opening phase of the Third something like a genuine organic unity. In this he beats out John Barbirolli, Edward Downes, and Bryden Thomson, all of whom over the decades have also set down playback versions of this score. Lloyd-Jones discovers the First Movement's unity in the derivation of all its episodes from the serpentine bassoon melody with which it commences. This twisting minor-key improvisation almost immediately forms a canon with the other woodwinds, and eventually develops into a fully fledged orchestral fugue. Again, Lloyd-Jones understands that the stretto of the fugue is the climax of the movement, the rest being denouement. With the central slow movement of the Third, no problem exists, as in the First Movement. This is a nocturne, as crystalline and timeless as anything that the obsessively otherworldly Bax ever wrote. Our insightful conductor also takes the Finale with a clear view of its inner-structure and its relation to the first two parts of the symphony. The "Epilogue" of the Third is legendary; so poignantly beautiful did it strike the early auditors of this work that one of them, Ralph Vaughan-Williams, quoted it in his own Piano Concerto, although he later rewrote the work so that the allusion to Bax was less direct quotation than passing reference. It is a shame that the usually intractable First Movement of the Third has kept it from a firmer place in the repertory. And yet, of the seven Bax symphonies, the Third has been the most frequently played in the concert hall. Naxos appends Bax's sunny orchestral sketch, "The Happy Forest," inspired by Theocritus and Swinburne, among others, as the honorable makeweight of this recorded program. It's well worth exploration and cheap at the price.

Worth value, if just for the first movement.......2000-06-02

The first movement of the 3rd symphony justifies the investment on the CD

The music is so distant, and at the same time so close, that drives you into the description.

Good quality of recording and a clean performance

Music Review: