wimpel69
10-28-2016, 12:46 PM
Please request the FLAC links (including the covers
and individual booklets, plus the box booklet) in this thread. PMs will be ignored!
These are my own rips. Please do not share my material further, also please
add to my reputation!
These are Bryden Thomson's complete recordings of Arnold Bax's orchestral works
on Chandos. There are three complete Bax cycles, of which Handley is the best in many
works, but Thomson surpasses him in some (like the Symphonies Nos. 1 & 6).
Born of cultured and wealthy parents, Arnold Bax (1883-1953) was insulated from the loss of direction that many composers
felt during, and immediately after, the First World War. For him the prewar world of Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky was still alive in
all its myth and mystery. He described himself as "a brazen romantic," and in many respects could be considered the last of the
European post-Romantic school of composers.
During his five years at the Royal Academy of Music, Bax was deeply impressed by the poetry of W.B. Yeats, founder of the Irish
National Theater, an influence that led to a close association with Celtic culture and legend for the rest of his life. He wrote poetry
under the pseudonym Dermot O'Byrne, and assisted his brother, the playwright and critic Clifford Bax, in editing a magazine
called Orpheus, dedicated to the mystical arts.
His first mature work, In the Fairy Hills, is typical of the fantastic and exotic nature of his orchestral writing, chromatic and
opulent, with a broad melodic sweep and luminous harmonies. The Garden of Fand (1916), an imaginative evocation of an
ancient legend of sea gods and goddesses, is similarly impressionistic, though less naturalistic, than Debussy's La Mer. Tintagel,
a tone poem inspired by traditional English stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table was composed in 1919
after a holiday in Cornwall and quickly became Bax's most frequently performed work.
Living in the shadow of composers of the stature of Elgar and Vaughan Williams, Bax received little public recognition until
late in life. Up to the late 1930s, his songs, choral works, and chamber music were rarely heard, and, had it not been for a
broadening of his style and the championship of Sir Adrian Boult, conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bax would
probably be remembered, if at all, for his comparatively youthful works. Even in the 1960s the English music critic Burnett
James was moved to call this neglect "myopic and moronic."
On a visit to Scandinavia in 1932, Bax met Sibelius and the two composers became friends; while Sibelius' influence is not
obvious in Bax's symphonic style, he is clearly indebted to the Finnish master in Winter Legends and The tale the pine
trees knew.
The symphony, a form to which he turned again and again between 1922 and 1939, provided an outlet for a more taut,
structured and contrapuntal approach that nevertheless retains elements of fantasy and mysticism. Symphony No. 1,
the only one recorded in his lifetime, was first performed in 1922, and followed by six more. The fifth is dedicated to
Sibelius and the sixth contains a theme from Sibelius' tone poem Tapiola.
Bax did not take well to approaching old age. He became withdrawn and dependent on alcohol. In 1943, he wrote a
bitterly nostalgic memoir of his earlier years called Farewell to my youth (edited by Lewis Foreman; Scolar [sic] Press
(Now Ashgate); 1992). In 1942, he was appointed Master of the Kings' Music and received a knighthood. His last work,
written to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953, is a set of madrigals called What is it like to be young and
fair. He died while on holiday in Cork, Ireland.
Also included in this collection:
Violin Concerto
Cello Concerto
Winter Legends
Symphonic Variations
Morning Song
Christmas Eve
Nympholept
Dance of Wild Irravel
Paean
Russian Suite
Festival Overture
Four Songs
Tintagel
Northern Ballad No.3
Cort�ge
Mediterranean
Overture to a Picaresque Comedy
November Woods
The Happy Forest
The Garden of Fand
Summer Music
The Tale the Pine-Trees Knew
Into the Twilight
In the Faery Hills
Roscatha
The Truth about the Russian Dancers
From Dusk Till Dawn
A Legend
Romantic Overture
Golden Eagle
Saga Fragment
Music Composed by
Arnold Bax
Played by the
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Ulster Orchestra
With
Margaret Fingerhut (piano)
Lydia Mordkovitch (violin)
Martyn Hill (tenor)
Conducted by
Bryden Thomson
"During his extensive conducting career spanning nearly five decades, Bryden 'Jack' Thomson (1928-1991)
was recognized as a leading interpreter of music from the British Isles. His legacy includes nearly fifty recordings
made for the Chandos label, including pioneering recordings of both William Walton's Symphony No. 2 and the
Complete Symphonies by Sir Arnold Bax.
Born in Ayr, Scotland in 1928, Thomson began his studies at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music in Glasgow.
In an effort to further his education, he traveled to Germany and Austria; first to the Staatliche Hochschule f�r
Musik in Hamburg, where he studied with Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt beginning in 1954, and later to the Salzburg
Mozarteum where he worked with conducting virtuoso Igor Markevitch.
Upon his return to home in 1958, Thomson received his first major appointment with the BBC Scottish Symphony
Orchestra, where he served as the assistant conductor to music director Ian Whyte. As fate would have it, Whyte
became stricken with a terminal illness and was forced to delegate a number of performances to Thomson, who
commanded great praise from musicians, audiences, and critics alike. Within months of these successful concerts,
Thomson's guest conducting appearances grew more and more frequent, with orchestras both at home and abroad,
including Canada, Scandinavia, and South Africa. He left the Scottish Symphony in 1962, in order to focus on his
guest conducting. He was appointed as the associate conductor of the Scottish National Orchestra in 1966.
In 1968, only two years after his first major music director appointment, Thomson became the music director of
the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra in Manchester (since 1982 this orchestra has been known as the BBC
Philharmonic). He also assumed the post of music director with the Ulster Orchestra in Belfast, Ireland, which
he held until 1985.
From 1970 to 1988, Thomson recorded nearly fifty compact discs for Chandos records, most of which feature
composers from the British Isles, although his notable affinity for Nielsen and Martinu spawned several fine
recordings of works by these composers. In addition to his set of Bax symphonies, Thomson also recorded the
Symphony cycles of Martinu, Elgar and Vaughan Williams, in addition to a number of works by lesser-known
composers.
In 1988, Thomson returned to the (now Royal) Scottish National Orchestra, where he was invited to succeed
Neeme J�rvi as music director. Always active as a commissioner of new works, Thomson commissioned fellow
Scottish composer John Maxwell Geddes for his Symphony No. 2. Unfortunately, Thomson died before the work
could be completed. Once finished, Geddes added the subtitle 'In memoriam Bryden Thomson'."
Source: Chandos Records CDs (My rips!)
Quality: FLAC 16-44 files (each disc incl. cover & booklet)
File Sizes: 247 MB / 263 MB / 242 MB / 248 MB / 267 MB / 229 MB / 288 MB / 274 MB / 224 MB / 240 MB / 242 MB / 285 MB / 328 MB / 230 MB
Total Size: 3.6 GB
Please request the FLAC links (including the covers
and individual booklets, plus the box booklet) in this thread. PMs will be ignored!
These are my own rips. Please do not share my material further, also please
add to my reputation!
and individual booklets, plus the box booklet) in this thread. PMs will be ignored!
These are my own rips. Please do not share my material further, also please
add to my reputation!
These are Bryden Thomson's complete recordings of Arnold Bax's orchestral works
on Chandos. There are three complete Bax cycles, of which Handley is the best in many
works, but Thomson surpasses him in some (like the Symphonies Nos. 1 & 6).
Born of cultured and wealthy parents, Arnold Bax (1883-1953) was insulated from the loss of direction that many composers
felt during, and immediately after, the First World War. For him the prewar world of Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky was still alive in
all its myth and mystery. He described himself as "a brazen romantic," and in many respects could be considered the last of the
European post-Romantic school of composers.
During his five years at the Royal Academy of Music, Bax was deeply impressed by the poetry of W.B. Yeats, founder of the Irish
National Theater, an influence that led to a close association with Celtic culture and legend for the rest of his life. He wrote poetry
under the pseudonym Dermot O'Byrne, and assisted his brother, the playwright and critic Clifford Bax, in editing a magazine
called Orpheus, dedicated to the mystical arts.
His first mature work, In the Fairy Hills, is typical of the fantastic and exotic nature of his orchestral writing, chromatic and
opulent, with a broad melodic sweep and luminous harmonies. The Garden of Fand (1916), an imaginative evocation of an
ancient legend of sea gods and goddesses, is similarly impressionistic, though less naturalistic, than Debussy's La Mer. Tintagel,
a tone poem inspired by traditional English stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table was composed in 1919
after a holiday in Cornwall and quickly became Bax's most frequently performed work.
Living in the shadow of composers of the stature of Elgar and Vaughan Williams, Bax received little public recognition until
late in life. Up to the late 1930s, his songs, choral works, and chamber music were rarely heard, and, had it not been for a
broadening of his style and the championship of Sir Adrian Boult, conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bax would
probably be remembered, if at all, for his comparatively youthful works. Even in the 1960s the English music critic Burnett
James was moved to call this neglect "myopic and moronic."
On a visit to Scandinavia in 1932, Bax met Sibelius and the two composers became friends; while Sibelius' influence is not
obvious in Bax's symphonic style, he is clearly indebted to the Finnish master in Winter Legends and The tale the pine
trees knew.
The symphony, a form to which he turned again and again between 1922 and 1939, provided an outlet for a more taut,
structured and contrapuntal approach that nevertheless retains elements of fantasy and mysticism. Symphony No. 1,
the only one recorded in his lifetime, was first performed in 1922, and followed by six more. The fifth is dedicated to
Sibelius and the sixth contains a theme from Sibelius' tone poem Tapiola.
Bax did not take well to approaching old age. He became withdrawn and dependent on alcohol. In 1943, he wrote a
bitterly nostalgic memoir of his earlier years called Farewell to my youth (edited by Lewis Foreman; Scolar [sic] Press
(Now Ashgate); 1992). In 1942, he was appointed Master of the Kings' Music and received a knighthood. His last work,
written to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953, is a set of madrigals called What is it like to be young and
fair. He died while on holiday in Cork, Ireland.
Also included in this collection:
Violin Concerto
Cello Concerto
Winter Legends
Symphonic Variations
Morning Song
Christmas Eve
Nympholept
Dance of Wild Irravel
Paean
Russian Suite
Festival Overture
Four Songs
Tintagel
Northern Ballad No.3
Cort�ge
Mediterranean
Overture to a Picaresque Comedy
November Woods
The Happy Forest
The Garden of Fand
Summer Music
The Tale the Pine-Trees Knew
Into the Twilight
In the Faery Hills
Roscatha
The Truth about the Russian Dancers
From Dusk Till Dawn
A Legend
Romantic Overture
Golden Eagle
Saga Fragment
Music Composed by
Arnold Bax
Played by the
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Ulster Orchestra
With
Margaret Fingerhut (piano)
Lydia Mordkovitch (violin)
Martyn Hill (tenor)
Conducted by
Bryden Thomson
"During his extensive conducting career spanning nearly five decades, Bryden 'Jack' Thomson (1928-1991)
was recognized as a leading interpreter of music from the British Isles. His legacy includes nearly fifty recordings
made for the Chandos label, including pioneering recordings of both William Walton's Symphony No. 2 and the
Complete Symphonies by Sir Arnold Bax.
Born in Ayr, Scotland in 1928, Thomson began his studies at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music in Glasgow.
In an effort to further his education, he traveled to Germany and Austria; first to the Staatliche Hochschule f�r
Musik in Hamburg, where he studied with Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt beginning in 1954, and later to the Salzburg
Mozarteum where he worked with conducting virtuoso Igor Markevitch.
Upon his return to home in 1958, Thomson received his first major appointment with the BBC Scottish Symphony
Orchestra, where he served as the assistant conductor to music director Ian Whyte. As fate would have it, Whyte
became stricken with a terminal illness and was forced to delegate a number of performances to Thomson, who
commanded great praise from musicians, audiences, and critics alike. Within months of these successful concerts,
Thomson's guest conducting appearances grew more and more frequent, with orchestras both at home and abroad,
including Canada, Scandinavia, and South Africa. He left the Scottish Symphony in 1962, in order to focus on his
guest conducting. He was appointed as the associate conductor of the Scottish National Orchestra in 1966.
In 1968, only two years after his first major music director appointment, Thomson became the music director of
the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra in Manchester (since 1982 this orchestra has been known as the BBC
Philharmonic). He also assumed the post of music director with the Ulster Orchestra in Belfast, Ireland, which
he held until 1985.
From 1970 to 1988, Thomson recorded nearly fifty compact discs for Chandos records, most of which feature
composers from the British Isles, although his notable affinity for Nielsen and Martinu spawned several fine
recordings of works by these composers. In addition to his set of Bax symphonies, Thomson also recorded the
Symphony cycles of Martinu, Elgar and Vaughan Williams, in addition to a number of works by lesser-known
composers.
In 1988, Thomson returned to the (now Royal) Scottish National Orchestra, where he was invited to succeed
Neeme J�rvi as music director. Always active as a commissioner of new works, Thomson commissioned fellow
Scottish composer John Maxwell Geddes for his Symphony No. 2. Unfortunately, Thomson died before the work
could be completed. Once finished, Geddes added the subtitle 'In memoriam Bryden Thomson'."
Source: Chandos Records CDs (My rips!)
Quality: FLAC 16-44 files (each disc incl. cover & booklet)
File Sizes: 247 MB / 263 MB / 242 MB / 248 MB / 267 MB / 229 MB / 288 MB / 274 MB / 224 MB / 240 MB / 242 MB / 285 MB / 328 MB / 230 MB
Total Size: 3.6 GB
Please request the FLAC links (including the covers
and individual booklets, plus the box booklet) in this thread. PMs will be ignored!
These are my own rips. Please do not share my material further, also please
add to my reputation!
