Symphony No. 4 (Bax)

Last updated

The Symphony No. 4 by Arnold Bax was completed in 1930 and dedicated to Paul Corder. It was inspired by Bax's love of the sea and premiered in 1931 by British conductor Basil Cameron and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. [1]

Contents

Scoring

It is scored for piccolo, three flutes, two oboes, English horn, three clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, double bassoon, six horns, three trumpets, three trombones, euphonium, tuba, timpani, bass drum, snare drum, tambourine, cymbals, gong, xylophone, glockenspiel, celesta, organ, harp and strings.

Structure

It is in three movements:

  1. Allegro moderato
  2. Lento moderato – Piu mosso – Poco largemente – Tempo I
  3. Allegro – Allegro scherzando – Piu largamente – Vivo

The blustery opening movement begins with the strings and woodwinds playing a joyous melody, eventually joined by solo trumpet. It is probably the most imposing opening of the Bax symphonies, drawing inspiration from the sea. The organ is used and there are six horns (being the most in any Bax symphony). The second subject is much calmer and gorgeously melodic, being introduced by solo oboe and then taken up by the strings. The first movement ends triumphantly and joyously with brass major chords at its close.

The second movement is a quiet, dreamy movement with a memorable melody that is used effectively throughout. It closes peacefully and evokes a quiet day at sea.

The finale sees the return of the mood of the opening movement, being heroic and seascape and opening with distant trumpet trills and a blustery, joyful melody from the timpani and horns. Following this is an allegro scherzando section. The second subject is introduced by the oboe and returns at the end as a triumphal march before the symphony closes with a direct mood of happiness, not common in Bax symphony endings.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Symphony No. 1 (Brahms)</span> Symphony by Johannes Brahms

The Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68, is a symphony written by Johannes Brahms. Brahms spent at least fourteen years completing this work, whose sketches date from 1854. Brahms himself declared that the symphony, from sketches to finishing touches, took 21 years, from 1855 to 1876. The premiere of this symphony, conducted by the composer's friend Felix Otto Dessoff, occurred on 4 November 1876, in Karlsruhe, then in the Grand Duchy of Baden. A typical performance lasts between 45 and 50 minutes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piano Concerto No. 1 (Beethoven)</span>

Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15, was written in 1795, then revised in 1800. It was possibly first performed by Beethoven at his first public concert in Vienna on 29 March 1795. It was first published in 1801 in Vienna with dedication to his pupil Princess Anna Louise Barbara Odescalchi, known to her friends as "Babette".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Symphony No. 100 (Haydn)</span>

The Symphony No. 100 in G major, Hoboken I/100, is the eighth of the twelve London symphonies written by Joseph Haydn and completed in 1793 or 1794. It is popularly known as the Military Symphony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Symphony No. 3 (Sibelius)</span> Symphony in three movements by Jean Sibelius

The Symphony No. 3 in C major, Op. 52, by Jean Sibelius is a symphony in three movements composed in 1907. Coming between the romantic intensity of Sibelius's first two symphonies and the more austere complexity of his later symphonies, it is a good-natured, triumphal, and deceptively simple-sounding piece. The symphony's first performance was given by the Helsinki Philharmonic Society, conducted by the composer, on 25 September 1907. In the same concert, his suite from the incidental music to Belshazzar's Feast, Op. 51, was also performed for the first time. It is dedicated to the British composer Granville Bantock, an early champion of his work in the UK.

The Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, Op. 55, was written by Alexander Glazunov from April to October 1895. Although in this symphony Glazunov returned to his conventional four-movement layout he frequently utilizes thematic transformation.

The Symphony No. 2 in E minor and C major by Arnold Bax was completed in 1926, after he had worked on it for two years. It was dedicated to Serge Koussevitzky, who conducted the first two performances of the work on 13 and 14 December 1929.

The Symphony No. 6 by Arnold Bax was completed on February 10, 1935. The symphony is dedicated to Sir Adrian Boult. It is, according to David Parlett, "[Bax's] own favourite and widely regarded as his greatest ... powerful and tightly controlled". It was given its world premiere by the Royal Philharmonic on November 21 of the year of composition, 1935.

The Symphony No. 3 by Arnold Bax was completed in 1929. It was dedicated to Sir Henry Wood and is perhaps the most performed and most immediately approachable of Bax's symphonies.

The Symphony No. 1 by Arnold Bax was completed in 1922 and dedicated to John Ireland. Its outer movements were based on a Piano Sonata in E♭ that Bax subsequently orchestrated, while the central movement was newly composed for the symphony.

The Symphony No. 5 by Arnold Bax was completed in 1932 and dedicated to Jean Sibelius. It is in many ways heavily influenced by Sibelius.

The Symphony No. 7 by Arnold Bax was completed in 1939 and dedicated to "The People of America". The work received its first performance in Carnegie Hall, New York City, by the New York Philharmonic on 10 June 1939 under the baton of Sir Adrian Boult. It was commissioned by the British Council to be played at the 1939 New York World's Fair, along with Arthur Bliss's Piano Concerto in B-flat, and Ralph Vaughan Williams' Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piano Concerto (Scriabin)</span>

The Piano Concerto in F sharp minor, Op. 20, is an early work of the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin (1872–1915). Written in 1896, when he was 24, it was his first work for orchestra and the only concerto he composed. Scriabin completed the concerto in only a few days in the fall of 1896, but did not finish the orchestration until the following May. Belyayev paid the composer 600 rubles ; it premiered in October 1897 and was finally published in 1898.

Rustic Wedding Symphony, Op. 26 is a symphony in E flat major by Karl Goldmark, written in 1875, a year before his renowned Violin Concerto No. 1. The symphony was premiered in Vienna on 5 March 1876, conducted by Hans Richter. Johannes Brahms, who was a frequent walking companion of Goldmark's, and whose own Symphony No. 1 was not premiered until November 1876, told him "That is the best thing you have done; clear-cut and faultless, it sprang into being a finished thing, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter". Its first American performance was at a New York Philharmonic Society concert, conducted by Theodore Thomas on 13 January 1877.

The Third Symphony by Alfred Schnittke was his fourth composition in the symphonic form, completed in 1981.

Felix Mendelssohn wrote thirteen string symphonies between 1821 and 1823, when he was between 12 and 14 years old.. These symphonies were tributes to Classical symphonies especially by Joseph Haydn, Johann Christian Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Symphony No. 2 (Villa-Lobos)</span>

Symphony No. 2, Ascensão (Ascension) is a composition by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, written between 1917 and 1944.

Bruce Broughton originally wrote the Tuba Concerto as a sonata for tuba and 24 orchestral winds in 1987. He later rewrote it for tuba and piano accompaniment. In 2003, Broughton reworked the sonata into a concerto so that it could be performed by a full orchestra. The tuba concerto was originally written for Tommy Johnson.

The Concerto for Viola and Orchestra is a musical composition for viola and orchestra by the American composer Walter Piston. The work was written in 1957 for the violist Joseph de Pasquale, who first performed the piece with the Boston Symphony Orchestra on March 7, 1958.

Russian composer Alfred Schnittke's Symphony No. 8 was composed in 1994. Its dedicatee Gennady Rozhdestvensky conducted the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in the symphony's premiere in Stockholm on 10 November 1994.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Symphony No. 2 (Kalinnikov)</span> Symphony by Vasily Kalinnikov

The Symphony No. 2 in A major by Russian composer Vasily Kalinnikov was composed from 1895–1897 and first published in 1901. The symphony is dedicated to Alexander Winogradsky.

References

  1. Liner notes for Naxos recording