Editing Arnold Bax (section)

===Early years===
Bax was born on 8 November 1883 in the London suburb of [[Streatham]], Surrey, to a prosperous Victorian family. He was the eldest son of Alfred Ridley Bax (1844–1918) and his wife, Charlotte Ellen (1860–1940), daughter of Rev. William Knibb Lea, of [[Xiamen|Amoy]], China.<ref name=dnb>Foreman, Lewis. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30645 "Bax, Sir Arnold Edward Trevor"], Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, retrieved 16 September 2015 {{ODNBsub}}</ref><ref>Armorial Families: A Directory of Gentlemen of Coat-Armour, A. C. Fox-Davies, T. C. & E. C. Jack, 1910, p. 106</ref> The couple's youngest son, [[Clifford Bax|Clifford Lea Bax]], became a playwright and essayist.{{refn|Their siblings were Alfred (1884–95) and Evelyn (1887–1984).<ref name=p7>Parlett, p. 7</ref>|group= n}} Alfred Bax was a [[barrister]] of the [[Middle Temple]], but having a private income he did not practise. In 1896 the family moved to a mansion in  [[Hampstead]]. Bax later wrote that although it would have been good to be raised in the country, the large gardens of the family house were the next best thing.<ref>Foreman (1971), p. 60</ref> He was a musical child: "I cannot remember the long-lost day when I was unable to play the piano – inaccurately".<ref>Bax, p. 7</ref>

After a [[Preparatory school (United Kingdom)|preparatory school]] in [[Balham]],<ref name=p7/> Bax attended the Hampstead Conservatoire during the 1890s. The establishment was run – "with considerable personal pomp", according to Bax – by [[Cecil Sharp]],<ref>Bax, p. 11</ref> whose passion for English folk-song and folk-dance excited no response in his pupil.<ref name=archive>Herbage, Julian. [https://archive.org/stream/dictionaryofnati19511960lees/dictionaryofnati19511960lees_djvu.txt "Bax, Sir Arnold Edward Trevor"], Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 1971, retrieved 9 July 2021</ref> An enthusiasm for folk music was widespread among British composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including [[Hubert Parry|Parry]], [[Charles Villiers Stanford|Stanford]], [[Ralph Vaughan Williams|Vaughan Williams]] and [[Gustav Holst|Holst]];<ref>Onderdonk, p. 84</ref> [[Arthur Sullivan|Sullivan]] and [[Edward Elgar|Elgar]] stood aloof,<ref>Hughes, p. 143; and Stradling and Hughes, p. 140</ref> as did Bax, who later put into general circulation the saying, "You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing."<ref name=b12>Bax, p. 12</ref>{{refn|This ''bon mot'', often misattributed to [[Thomas Beecham|Sir Thomas Beecham]],<ref>Sherrin, p. 109</ref> first appeared in print in Bax's memoirs, ascribed to an unnamed "sympathetic Scot",<ref name=b12/> later identified as the conductor [[Guy Warrack]].<ref>Lloyd (2014), p. 37; and Schaarwächter, p. 578</ref>|group= n}}

[[File:Frederick Corder 001.jpg|thumb|alt=portrait of bald, moustached man in middle age|upright|[[Frederick Corder]] (in 1913), Bax's composition teacher]]
In 1900 Bax moved on to the [[Royal Academy of Music]], where he remained until 1905, studying composition with [[Frederick Corder]] and piano with [[Tobias Matthay]]. Corder was a devotee of the works of [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]], whose music was Bax's principal inspiration in his early years. He later observed, "For a dozen years of my youth I wallowed in Wagner's music to the almost total exclusion – until I became aware of [[Richard Strauss]] – of any other".<ref>Foreman (1971), p. 62</ref> Bax also discovered and privately studied the works of [[Claude Debussy|Debussy]], whose music, like that of Strauss, was frowned on by the largely conservative faculty of the academy.<ref name=archive/>

Although Bax won a [[George Alexander Macfarren|Macfarren]] Scholarship for composition and other important prizes, and was known for his exceptional ability to read complex modern scores on sight, he attracted less recognition than his contemporaries [[Benjamin Dale]] and [[York Bowen]].<ref name=archive/><ref name=grove>Foreman, Lewis. [http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/02380 "Bax, Sir Arnold"], Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, retrieved 16 September 2015 {{subscription required}}</ref> His keyboard technique was formidable, but he had no desire for a career as a soloist.{{refn|He had even less desire to conduct, vowed never to do so, and broke the vow only once, in 1906.<ref>Foreman (1971), p. 64</ref>|group= n}} Unlike most of his contemporaries, he had private means that made him free to pursue his musical career as he chose, without the necessity of earning an income.<ref>Foreman (1971), pp. 60 and 65</ref> ''The Times'' considered that Bax's independence and disinclination to heed his teachers ultimately damaged his art, because he did not develop the discipline to express his imagination to the greatest effect.<ref name=times>"Obituary: Sir Arnold Bax", ''The Times'', 5 October 1953, p. 11</ref>

After leaving the Academy Bax visited Dresden, where he saw the original production of Strauss's ''[[Salome (opera)|Salome]]'', and first heard the music of [[Gustav Mahler|Mahler]], which he found "eccentric, long-winded, muddle-headed, and yet always interesting".<ref>Bax, p. 29</ref> Among the influences on the young Bax was the Irish poet [[W. B. Yeats]]; Bax's brother Clifford introduced him to Yeats's poetry and to Ireland.<ref name=grove/> Influenced by Yeats's ''[[The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems|The Wanderings of Oisin]]'', Bax visited the west coast of Ireland in 1902, and found that "in a moment the Celt within me stood revealed".<ref name=grove/> His first composition to be performed – at an academy concert in 1902 – was an Irish dialect song called "The Grand Match".<ref>Foreman (1971), p. 63</ref>