Bax: Legend

“With Michael Hampton the sensitive accompanist, Matthew Jones give consistently fine performances, beautifully recorded.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2011

“[Moser] brings out an armoury of colours and articulation [in the Bridge], along with a fine sense of architecture which places this performance with the very best...Rivinius, too, brings a rare energy to all three sonatas, together with great sensitivity. Theirs is a probing performance of the Britten, highlighting its debt to Shostakovich and Prokofiev...Two exciting talents who deserve a serious international profile.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2011 ****

“Moser plays with a full, dark tone that fits the Romantic flow of the Bridge Sonata well, and he and Paul Rivinius capture its brooding intensity and lyrical flights...They are responsive to the rapidly changing moods and quirky, sometimes humorous, sometimes savage interjections of Britten's five-movement work.” Classic FM Magazine, November 2010 ****

“Jackson and Wass are well acclimatised to Bax's elusive idioms, and Jackson's sensitivity and sustained singing tone in places such as the Legend and the slow movement of the Second Sonata are as admirable as Wass's command of the often challenging piano parts in the fiercer movements.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2008 ****

“Cast in four linked movements and held together by a motto theme which also appears in the 1917 tone-poem November Woods, Bax's storm-tossed Second Violin Sonata was conceived during the summer of 1915 at a time of great personal upheaval for the 31-year-old composer and comprehensively overhauled six years later. Be it in the seductive sway of the second movement (a ghostly waltz enigmatically entitled 'The Grey Dancer in the Twilight') or hair-raising final climax prior to the ecstatically serene epilogue, these dashingly poised newcomers give of their considerable best, with CBSO leader Laurence Jackson formidably secure in the solo part's more scarily vertiginous exploits. No one coming to this music for the first time will be left unstirred by its piercing beauty, urgency of expression and vaulting ambition.
In any case, what lifts this collection into the indispensable category are the spellbinding performances of the darkly smouldering Legend and Ballad from 1915 and 1916 respectively, as well as the Allegro appassionato in G minor (a likeable student effort from 1901) and unpublished F major Sonata of 1928 (which Bax subsequently recast as his captivating Nonet). The Potton Hall sound in these last four items (emanating from sessions a year after those for the Second Sonata) is particularly handsome and true, and the disc as a whole represents yet another 'must have' within this extensive series.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“…in…Bax's storm-tossed Second Violin Sonata… these dashingly poised newcomers give of their considerable best, with CBSO leader Laurence Jackson formidably secure in the solo part's more scarily vertiginous exploits. …what lifts this collection into the indispensable category are the spellbinding performances... of the darkly smouldering Legend and Ballad... as well as the Allegro appassionato in G minor... and unpublished F major Sonata of 1928...” Gramophone Magazine, Janurary 2008

“Here is a stunningly coordinated reading of urgent drive, bold contrasts and edge-of-seat drama reminiscent of dedicatee Lionel Tertis's even fleeter 1929 recording with the composer and manages to knock more than four minutes off that of their transatlantic rivals. It's sensationally exciting in its way, but there's no escaping the fact that others convey the greater bardic poetry and affectionate warmth. Although a tad dry, Naxos's sound is accommodating.
Reservations evaporate in the flamboyant Concert Piece (1904) and wintry Legend from 1929, both convincingly done, and proceedings conclude with the 1906 Trio in one movement for piano, violin and viola. In his autobiography Farewell,My Youth, Bax witheringly refers to it as 'a derivative and formless farrago', but the 'Irish' skip some five minutes in is characteristic. This dashing performance has real fire in its belly and strikes me as every bit the equal of Naxos's own rival version (see below) from Robert Plane and colleagues where the viola part is assigned to the clarinet (an option authorised by the composer).
Don't let my minor niggles concerning the sonata deter you. Expertly annnotated by Lewis Foreman, here's a release that all Baxians should check out.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“This beautifully recorded collection of eleven short works is played with exquisite refinement by Wass.” Classic FM Magazine

“Wass summons up all the tone color and sustaining power needed to convey the orchestral sensibility of the piano writing…In short, collectors who've enjoyed Wass' previous Bax discs also will find this well-recorded, superbly annotated release to their liking” Classics Today

“As on previous volumes… Wass allows the music sample time to breathe and he brings an immaculate touch, refinement and unflinching concentration to everything he does.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2006

“The First Sonata is a passionate, deeply personal outpouring, essayed here with rapt understanding and tender intimacy. The rival Chandos performance may exhibit rather more in the way of commanding projection and urgent expression, but these newcomers' keen poetic instincts are never in doubt. Both the Legend and Ballad date from the First World War years (of the broodingly elegiac Legend – much liked by Vaughan Williams, apparently – Bax later recalled to violinist May Harrison that it 'came straight out of the horror of that time'), whereas the single-movement Sonata in G minor is an amiable, confidently argued student effort from November 1901. Again, Gibbs and Wu lend consistently idiomatic and warm-hearted advocacy to this material. A very appealing collection, in short, and a mandatory purchase for confirmed Baxians.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010