"Northern Ballad No.2" Symphonic Poem - Arnold Bax

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley. I - Moderato (alla breve) - Poco più mosso - Tempo I (Moderato) - Poco più mosso: 0:00 Bax's "Northern Balland No.2" was composed probably between 1932-3 (although some date it as early as 1927). It was premiered in London's Royal Albert Hall on February 16 of 1946, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Basil Cameron. The work quickly sank into obscurity, and wasn't performed again until a 1977 broadcast on the BBC Radio London, performed by the Kensington Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leslie Head. Written between the fifth and sixth symphonies, the northern ballad was composed in period of creative crisis, when the enigma of symphonic form and the quest for perfection had almost become obsessions in the composer's mind. After a period of doubt, Bax himself regarded the piece as one of the most successful of his late music. In a letter to Julius Herbage, he wrote "It suggests merely an atmosphere of the dark north and perhaps dark happenings among the mists", but when scoring the piece, Bax was actually living within the world he was depicting, taking his usual winter sojourn at Morar, Inverness-shire, with his lover Mary Gleaves. We can consider it a rugged musical landscape of Sibelian influence, a composer Bax greatly admired. While nothing like the nature music that Bax had composed twenty years before, this Ballad occupies the same world as his Sixth Symphony, which followed almost immediately, and is argued on a similar symphonic scale. The composer, once obsessed with Ireland, now was looking to the Nordic countries for imagery and inspiration. Bax shows himself a master of wonderfully eloquent woodwind and horn writing that creates a powerful musical landscape of storm and desolation, which yet is informed by a forceful emotional pull, as is clear from the work’s climactic close. Bax manipulates the orchestra expertly in this concise 16-minute work to convey tremendous emotional power. It begins with low woodwinds introducing a series of darkly coloured motives, from which the entire piece is built, most important being a four-note motive on horns. An anxious and agitated main theme grows on full orchestra from these roots. The entire piece proceeds juxtaposing families of instruments. Bax's experimentation with woodwind-dominated instrumental colours in the ballad would inform the rest of his symphonies. The music grows more intense and dissonant, reaching a powerful climax. After a diminuendo, the central section opens with a deeply lyrical second theme also on woodwinds, which initially seems to constitute a gentle idyll but quickly becomes restless and chromatic, rising in two expressive climaxes. A struggle then begins with a series of alternations of the material, before the main theme finally returns in full force and dissonance, beginning a vigorous coda that ends the work triumphally. Picture: "Stormy Landscape with Ruins on a Plain" attributed to the French painter Georges Michel. Musical analysis mostly written by myself. Sources: https://tinyurl.com/24jcq9we and https://tinyurl.com/27lwldwm Unfortunately, the score is not available.