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“November Woods remains the stand-out offering, a performance of thrusting purpose and refreshing involvement…” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2005

“…Bax's monumental Symphonic Variations was written in 1916-18 at the height of his torrid affair with Harriet Cohen… Ashley Wass and James Judd… seem to find an extra degree of rhythmic excitement in the bravura 'Strife' variation, and Wass's playing of the big solo at the start of the finale is eloquent...” BBC Music Magazine, May 2009 *****

“Wass is a superbly clear, commanding and fluent soloist, while Judd conjures vivid accompaniments from the orchestra.” Classic FM Magazine, July 2011 *****

“Composed between 1916 and 1918, the SymphonicVariations for piano and orchestra bear a dedication to Bax's muse and lover, Harriet Cohen. It's an expansive and highly virtuoso work in two parts, whose six sections are apportioned titles ('The Temple' being the most eyecatching) that tantalisingly suggest some underlying programme. Borrowings from Bax's own First Violin Sonata and (more crucially) his 1916 setting of George 'AE' Russell's poem Parting, add a further layer of autobiographical intrigue.
Best to sit back and let the piece weave its uniquely potent spell, for it contains page after page as raptly beautiful and ecstatically sensuous as even Bax ever conceived.
James Judd keeps a firm hand on the structural and motivic tiller and there's no disputing that Ashley Wass is the most stylish, characterful and charismatic of the three soloists to have recorded the work: the way he shapes the spellbinding opening paragraph of the final section ('Triumph', one of Bax's symphonic epilogues in all but name) is sheer magic and betokens a true poet of the keyboard.
The 1949 Concertante, written (again) for Harriet Cohen after she had lost the use of her right hand in a domestic accident, is smaller fry – but it can boast an absolute gem of a slow movement.
Again, the performance is a very persuasive one. A hearty welcome for this conspicuously successful pairing.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“A marvellous musical team weaves its magic in this spellbinding repertoire. …Ashley Wass is the most stylish, characterful and charismatic of the three soloists: the way he shapes the spellbinding opening paragraph of the final section ("Triumph", one of Bax's symphonic epilogues in all but name) is sheer magic and betokens a true poet of the keyboard.” Gramophone Magazine, June 2009

“From the grinding dissonances at the outset through to the inconsolable coda, Lloyd-Jones and his orchestra bring out the unremitting toughness of Bax's uncompromising, breathtakingly scored Second Symphony; even the gorgeous secondary material in the first movement offers an occasional shaft of pale, wintry sunlight.
It helps, too, that Lloyd-Jones has clearly thought hard about the task in hand. How lucidly, for example, he expounds the arresting introduction, where the symphony's main building- blocks are laid out before us, and how well he brings out the distinctive tenor of Bax's highly imaginative writing for low wind and brass. The Scottish brass have a field-day.
Lloyd-Jones proves an equally clear-sighted navigator through the storm-buffeted landscape of November Woods, for many people, Bax's greatest tone-poem. Thoroughly refreshing in its enthusiasm and exhilarating sense of orchestral spectacle, this recording has a physical impact and emotional involvement that genuinely compel. A veritable blockbuster.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Lloyd-Jones "keeps his lines defined in the vital slow music of I and the Lento, clarifying textures while probing, molding, and shaping phrases to produce an ebb and flow. In doing so, he draws a link to Elgar by revealing the same nooks and crannies that make up Elgar's melodic lines?ust as wisely, Lloyd-Jones does not blur orchestral textures to create 'impressionism'. His woodwinds stand out, adding important color, energy, and briskness; the first violins are sweet and silvery, and the brass are crisp and clean. (The latter could be darker, but I'm quibbling.) Suddenly we notice the interweaving strings in the slow passage of I; the eerie spell before the muted trumpets (14:02) the shocking climax at 15:30 and the following brass fanfares, the way the trumpet solo in the Lento breathes rather than is just slow, etc.” American Record Guide

“Dedicated to Sir Henry Wood, Bax's Symphony No 3 boasts arguably the richest store of memorable melodic invention to be found in any of the composer's cycle of seven, culminating in an inspired epilogue of wondrous, jaw-dropping beauty. David Lloyd-Jones's clear-headed, purposeful conducting of this intoxicating repertoire is the most judiciously paced and satisfyingly cogent Bax Third we've had since Barbirolli's pioneering 1943-4 Hallé account.
Moreover, not only does Lloyd-Jones keep a firm hand on the tiller, he also draws some enthusiastic playing from the RSNO, which responds throughout with commendable polish and keen application.
Finely poised, affectingly full-throated solo work from principal horn and trumpet illuminates the progress of the ensuing Lento, whose ravishing landscape Lloyd-Jones surveys in less lingering fashion than either Barbirolli or Thomson. The first half of the finale, too, is a great success, Lloyd-Jones negotiating the fiendish twists and turns dictated by Bax's copious tempo markings with impressive aplomb.
Only in the epilogue do you feel a need for a touch more rapt poetry. Tim Handley's excellently balanced recording is rich and refined, though the perspective is perhaps fractionally closer than ideal for The Happy Forest, which receives a performance of bounding vigour, gleeful mischief and muscular fibre; just that last, crucial drop of enchantment remains elusive. No matter, a disc not to be missed.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

"Another triumph in Lloyd-Jones's on-going cycle of Bax symphonies. I look forward with eager anticipation to his realization of the apocalyptic Sixth Symphony" - Ian Lace, Fanfare, November/December 2002, The Want List 2002

“David Lloyd-Jones and the RSNO continue their stimulating championship of Bax with this extremely persuasive account of the Fourth Symphony. It's at once the most exuberantly inventive and most colourful of the cycle (the instrumentation includes six horns and organ).
Lloyd-Jones steers a tauter, more athletic course through the eventful first movement than his Gramophone Award-winning rival (Bryden Thomson on Chandos), yet there's no want of playful affection, and the orchestral playing satisfyingly combines polish and eagerness.
In the gorgeous central Lento moderato Lloyd-Jones perceptively evokes a bracing, northerly chill wafting across Bax's dappled seascape. The unashamedly affirmative finale is a great success, its festive pomp and twinkling sense of fun conveyed with personable panache and swagger. If the symphony's jubilant closing pages reverberate in Thomson's version with just that crucial bit of extra weight and splendour in Belfast's Ulster Hall, Tim Handley's expert sound and balance do ample justice to Bax's distinctive scoring and his writing for low woodwind in particular.The Overture to a PicaresqueComedy makes an apt and boisterous curtain-raiser, Lloyd-Jones's rip-roaring rendering knocking Thomson's limp LPO version into a cocked hat. Nympholept could hardly form a greater contrast: a ravishing naturepoem in Bax's most enchanted Celtic vein.
Again, this sensitive account is far preferable to Thomson's curiously laboured conception.
Altogether a superb release.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“The Fifth is perhaps the most characteristic of Bax's symphonies. For all the music's powerful range of emotion and its seemingly bewildering profusion of material and countless moments of bewitching beauty, its resourceful symphonic processes aren't easy to assimilate on first hearing. Lloyd-Jones's intelligent and purposeful direction pays handsome dividends, and a well-drilled RSNO responds with sensitivity and enthusiasm. Lloyd-Jones excels in the opening movement's tightly knit canvas, its epic ambition matched by a compelling sense of momentum, architectural grandeur and organic 'wholeness'. In the slow movement Lloyd-Jones paints a chillier, more troubled landscape than does Bryden Thomson (Chandos).
The finale's main Allegro sets out with gleeful dash and a fine rhythmic snap to its heels. Lloyd-Jones judges that tricky, crisisridden transition into the epilogue well, and the apotheosis is a hard-won, grudging victory.
The 1931 tone-poem The Tale the Pine TreesKnew makes an ideal bedfellow, foreshadowing as it does the bracingly 'northern' (to quote the composer) demeanour of the Fifth. Lloyd- Jones's comparatively extrovert treatment of the work's exultant final climax works perfectly convincingly within the context of his overall conception. Another eminently truthful, judiciously balanced sound picture from producer/ engineer Tim Handley.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Part of an excellent cycle of Bax symphonies. Start with this disc and I'll bet you'll want the rest.” Stereophile (USA), June 2001

“David Lloyd-Jones's Bax series goes from strength to strength with this clear-headed interpretation of the exhilarating Sixth Symphony (arguably the last work to show the composer at creative white heat).
Lloyd-Jones rides the tempest of the opening movement with particular success, while still allowing himself plenty of expressive leeway for the ravishing secondary material. In the central Lento he paints a bleakly beautiful, snow-flecked landscape. As for the ambitious finale (a tour deforce of structural innovation and thematic integration), the conductor steers a superbly confident course, and the RSNO respond with unflagging spirit and no mean skill.
Both Lloyd-Jones's fill-ups are sensitively done, although Into the Twilight doesn't equal the fragrant beauty and haunting allure of Thomson's intoxicating Ulster version. Unfortunately, the sound, while enormously vivid and wide ranging, is neither quite as natural in timbre nor judiciously blended as on previous instalments (bigger tuttis tend towards an aggressive blur). None the less, a firm recommendation.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“everything is superbly developed and orchestrated, and there's no mistaking the cumulative power of a major statement...Ashley Wass brings impressive clarity and firepower to all three works; James Judd and the Bournemouth orchestra accompany with sharp-focus excellence.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2011 ****

“This is the talented Ashley Wass's eighth Bax disc for Naxos, and he is kept fully occupied throughout all three works.” Classic FM Magazine, July 2011 ***

“Textually, Wass follows Cohen's lead and proves a comparably imperious champion, his partnership with James Judd and an eagerly responsive Bournemouth SO resulting in the most thrustingly cogent account to date. Not only is Wass unfazed by the solo part's considerable technical hurdles, he also displays melting poetry and limpid poise in abundance.” Gramophone Magazine, June 2011

“Winter Legends is easily the most substantial work here...It's one of those dark-hued Bax pieces in which Sibelius seems the dominant influence. The short Morning Song is more obviously pictorial, as its subtitle Maytime in Sussex reveals, while Saga Fragment...is far more abrasive, though it still has its more typically succulent moments.” The Guardian, 19th May 2011 ***

“Ashley Wass has cornered the market in recordings of Arnold Bax’s piano music, and here he brilliantly conveys the vibrant spirit that Harriet Cohen, Bax’s muse, must have triggered...The performances throughout are thoroughly winning.” The Telegraph, 5th May 2011 ****