Editing Arnold Bax

{{Short description|English composer (1883–1953)}}
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[[File:Arnold-Bax-iln-2Dec22p.jpg|thumb|alt=profile head and shoulders of clean-shaven man in middle age|right|Portrait by [[Herbert Lambert]], {{circa|1922}}]]
'''Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|KCVO}} (8 November 1883 – 3 October 1953) was an English composer, poet, and author. His prolific output includes songs, [[choral music]], [[chamber piece]]s, and solo piano works, but he is best known for his orchestral music. In addition to a series of [[symphonic poem]]s, he wrote seven symphonies and was for a time widely regarded as the leading British symphonist.

Bax was born in the London suburb of [[Streatham]] to a prosperous family. He was encouraged by his parents to pursue a career in music, and his private income enabled him to follow his own path as a composer without regard for fashion or orthodoxy. Consequently, he came to be regarded in musical circles as an important but isolated figure. While still a student at the [[Royal Academy of Music]] Bax became fascinated with Ireland and [[Celts (modern)|Celtic]] culture, which became a strong influence on his early development. In the years before the First World War he lived in Ireland and became a member of Dublin literary circles, writing fiction and verse under the pseudonym '''Dermot O'Byrne'''. Later, he developed an affinity with [[Nordic countries|Nordic]] culture, which for a time superseded his Celtic influences in the years after the First World War.

Between 1910 and 1920 Bax wrote a large amount of music, including the symphonic poem ''[[Tintagel (Bax)|Tintagel]]'', his best-known work. During this period he formed a lifelong association with the pianist [[Harriet Cohen]] – at first an affair, then a friendship, and always a close professional relationship. In the 1920s he began the series of seven symphonies which form the heart of his orchestral output. In 1942 Bax was appointed [[Master of the King's Music]], but composed little in that capacity. In his last years he found his music regarded as old-fashioned, and after his death it was generally neglected. From the 1960s onwards, mainly through a growing number of commercial recordings,  his music was gradually rediscovered, although little of it is regularly heard in the concert hall.

==Life and career==
===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>

===Early career===
{{Quote box| quoted=true|width=30%|bgcolor=#FFFFF0|align=right|quote= I worked very hard at the Irish language and steeped myself in its history and saga, folk-tale and fairy-lore.&nbsp;... Under this domination, my musical style became strengthened&nbsp;... I began to write Irishly, using figures and melodies of a definitely Celtic curve.|salign = right|source= Bax in his memoirs, 1943<ref>Bax, p. 41</ref>}}
Musically, Bax veered away from the influence of Wagner and Strauss, and deliberately adopted what he conceived of as a Celtic idiom. In 1908 he began a cycle of tone poems called ''Eire'', described by his biographer [[Lewis Foreman]] as the beginning of the composer's truly mature style. The first of these pieces, ''Into the Twilight'', was premiered by [[Thomas Beecham]] and the [[New Symphony Orchestra (London)|New Symphony Orchestra]] in April 1909, and the following year, at Elgar's instigation, [[Henry Wood]], commissioned the second in the cycle, ''[[In the Faëry Hills]]''.<ref name=f66>Foreman (1971), p. 66</ref>  The work received mixed notices. ''[[The Manchester Guardian]]'''s reviewer wrote, "Mr Bax has happily suggested the appropriate atmosphere of mystery";<ref>"Music in London", ''The Manchester Guardian'', 31 August 1910, p. 6</ref> ''[[The Observer]]'' found the piece "very undeterminate and unsatisfying, but not difficult to follow".<ref>"Music: The Promenades", ''The Observer'', 4 September 1910, p. 4</ref> ''[[The Times]]'' commented on the "rather second-hand language" at some points, derivative of Wagner and Debussy, although "there is still a great deal which is wholly individual".<ref>"Promenade Concerts", ''The Times'', 31 August 1910, p. 9</ref> ''[[The Musical Times]]'' praised "a mystic glamour that could not fail to be felt by the listener" although the coherence of the piece "was not instantly discernible".<ref>[http://www.jstor.org/stable/906005 "The Promenade Concerts"], ''The Musical Times'', October 1910, pp. 657–658 {{subscription required}}</ref> A third work in the cycle, ''Roscatha'', was not performed in the composer's lifetime.{{refn|The work was recorded in 1985 by the [[Ulster Orchestra]] conducted by [[Bryden Thomson]].<ref>[https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/71761312 "The tale the pine-trees knew; Into the twilight; In the faery hills; Roscatha"], WorldCat, retrieved 16 September 2015</ref>|group=n}}

Bax's private means enabled him to travel to the [[Russian Empire]] in 1910. He was in pursuit of [[Natalia Skarginska]], a young Ukrainian whom he had met in London – one of several women with whom he fell in love over the years.<ref name=f67>Foreman (1983), p. 67</ref> The visit eventually proved a failure from the romantic point of view but musically enriched him. In [[Saint Petersburg]] he discovered and immediately loved ballet; he absorbed Russian musical influences that inspired material for the First Piano Sonata, the piano pieces, "May Night in the Ukraine" and "Gopak", and the First Violin Sonata, dedicated to Skarginska.<ref name=archive/><ref name=f67/> Foreman describes him in this period as "a musical magpie, celebrating his latest discoveries in new compositions"; Foreman adds that Bax's own musical personality was strong enough for him to assimilate his influences and make them into his own.{{refn|Foreman lists among those who influenced Bax: Wagner, Strauss, Debussy, the Russian "Five" ([[Mily Balakirev|Balakirev]], [[César Cui|Cui]], [[Modest Mussorgsky|Mussorgsky]], [[Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov|Rimsky-Korsakov]] and [[Alexander Borodin|Borodin]]), [[Alexander Glazunov|Glazunov]], [[Maurice Ravel|Ravel]], [[Jean Sibelius|Sibelius]] and early [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]].<ref name=dnb/>|group= n}} Russian music continued to influence him until the First World War. An unfinished ballet ''Tamara'', "a little-Russian fairy tale in action and dance", provided material the composer reused in post-war works.<ref name=dnb/>

Having given up his pursuit of Skarginska, Bax returned to England; in January 1911 he married the pianist Elsita Luisa Sobrino (b. 1885 or 1886), daughter of the teacher and pianist, Carlos Sobrino, and his wife, Luise, ''née'' Schmitz, a singer.{{refn|Luise taught at the Hampstead Conservatoire, and Bax had known Elsita since his time there.<ref>Scott-Sutherland, p. 30</ref>|group= n}} Bax and his wife lived first in Chester Terrace, [[Regent's Park]], London,<ref>Foreman (1983), p. 83</ref> and then moved to Ireland, taking a house in [[Rathgar]], a well-to-do suburb of Dublin.<ref>Foreman (1983), p. 96</ref> They had two children, Dermot (1912–1976) and Maeve Astrid (1913–1987).<ref>Foreman (1983), p. 95</ref>  Bax became known in Dublin literary circles under the pseudonym "Dermot O'Byrne"; he mixed with the writer [[George William Russell]] and his associates, and published stories, verses and a play.<ref>Foreman (1983), p. 89</ref> Reviewing a selection of the prose and poetry reissued in 1980, Stephen Banfield found most of Bax's earlier poems "like his early music, over-written, cluttered with the secondhand lumber of early Yeats, though the weakness is one of loosely chosen language rather than complexity." Banfield had better things to say of the later poems, where Bax "focuses matters, whether laconically and colloquially upon the grim futility of the 1916 [[Easter rising|Easter Uprising]]&nbsp;... or pungently upon his recurrent disillusionment about love."<ref>Banfield, p. 781</ref>  Some of Bax's writings as O'Byrne were regarded as subversively sympathetic to the [[Irish republicanism|Irish republican]] cause, and the government censor prohibited their publication.<ref>Jeffery, p. 94</ref>

===First World War===
At the beginning of the war Bax returned to England. A heart complaint, from which he suffered intermittently throughout his life, made him unfit for military service; he acted as a [[special constable]] for a period.<ref name=dnb/><ref name=grove/> At a time when fellow composers including Vaughan Williams, [[Arthur Bliss]], [[George Butterworth]] and [[Ivor Gurney]] were serving overseas, Bax was able to produce a large body of music, finding, in Foreman's phrase, "his technical and artistic maturity" in his early thirties.  Among his better-known works from the period are the orchestral [[symphonic poem|tone poems]] ''[[November Woods]]'' (1916) and  ''[[Tintagel (Bax)|Tintagel]]'' (1917–19).<ref name=grove/>

[[File:Sackville Street (Dublin) after the 1916 Easter Rising.JPG|alt=external scene showing ruined buildings in a city street|thumb|left|The Easter rising in Dublin and its aftermath shocked and distressed Bax]]
{{Quote box|width=25%|bgcolor=#FFFFF0|align=right|quote=And when the devil's made us wise<br>
Each in his own peculiar hell<br>
With desert hearts and drunken eyes<br>
We're free to sentimentalise<br>
By corners where the martyrs fell.|salign = right|source= From Bax's poem "A Dublin Ballad", 1916.<ref>O'Byrne, p. 63</ref>}}
During his time in Dublin, Bax had made many republican friends. The Easter rising in April 1916 and the subsequent execution of the ringleaders shocked him deeply. He expressed his feelings in some of his music such as the orchestral ''In Memoriam'' and the "Elegiac Trio" for flute, viola, and harp (1916), as well as in his poetry.<ref name=dnb/>

In addition to his Irish influences, Bax also drew on a Nordic tradition, being inspired by the Norwegian poet [[Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson]] and Icelandic sagas. Bax's Symphonic Variations for Piano and Orchestra (1917) is seen by the [[musicologist]] [[Julian Herbage]] as the turning-point from the Celtic to the Nordic in Bax's oeuvre; Herbage views it as a further indication of the shift that ''Winter Legends'', composed thirteen years later, has a Nordic rather than a Celtic setting.<ref name=archive/>

During the war Bax began an affair with the pianist [[Harriet Cohen]], for whom he left his wife and children.{{refn|The affair was not publicly known, though it was common knowledge in musical circles; Vaughan Williams was greatly amused to find in a musical dictionary an entry for Harriet Cohen which read, "– see under Bax".<ref>Rothwell, p. 154</ref> Elsita Bax refused her husband a divorce, and remained his wife until her death in 1947.<ref name=p10>Parlett, p. 10</ref>|group= n}} Musically, she was his muse for the rest of his life; he wrote numerous pieces for her, and she was the dedicatee of eighteen of his works.<ref>Parlett, p. 321</ref>  He took a flat in [[Swiss Cottage]], London, where he lived until the start of the Second World War. He sketched many of his mature works there, often taking them in [[short score]] to his favoured rural retreats, [[Glencolmcille]] in [[Ulster]], Ireland, and then from 1928 onwards [[Morar]] in  Scotland, to work on the full score at leisure.<ref>Foreman and Foreman, p. 204</ref><ref>Scott-Sutherland, p. 142</ref>

===Inter-war years===
In a study of Bax in 1919 his friend and confidante, the critic Edwin Evans, commented on the waning of the Celtic influence in the composer's music and the emergence of "a more austere, abstract art".<ref name=evans1>Evans (March 1919), p. 204</ref> From the 1920s onwards Bax seldom turned to poetic legend for inspiration.<ref name=h556>Herbage, p. 556</ref> In Foreman's view, in the post-war years Bax was recognised for the first time as an important, though isolated, figure in British music. The many substantial works he wrote during the war  years were heard in public, and he started writing symphonies. Few English composers had so far written symphonies that occupied a secure place in the repertoire, the best known being Elgar ([[Symphony No. 1 (Elgar)|A{{music|flat}}]] and [[Symphony No. 2 (Elgar)|E{{music|flat}}]] symphonies) and Vaughan Williams (''[[A Sea Symphony|Sea]]'', ''[[A London Symphony|London]]'' and ''[[Pastoral Symphony (Vaughan Williams)|Pastoral]]'' symphonies).<ref>Scott-Sutherland, p. 117</ref> During the 1920s and into the 1930s Bax was seen by many as the leading British symphonist.<ref name=grove/>
[[File:Harriet-Cohen-1922.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=profile of young woman with dark hair|[[Harriet Cohen]], Bax's muse, in 1920]]
Bax's [[Symphony No. 1 (Bax)|First Symphony]] was written in 1921–22, and when first given it was a great success, despite its ferocity of tone. The critics found the work dark and severe.<ref name=ym>"Yesterday's Music: The Bax Symphony Reheard", ''The Observer'', 13 January 1924, p. 15</ref> ''[[The Daily News (UK)|The Daily News]]'' commented, "It is full of arrogant, almost blatant, virility. Its prevailing tone colour is dark, very dark – thick clouds with only here and there a ray of sunlight."<ref name=ym/> ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'' suggested that if there was any humour in the piece, it was sardonic.<ref name=ym/> ''[[The Manchester Guardian]]'' noted the severity of the work, but declared it "a truly great English symphony".<ref>"Bax's Symphony", ''The Manchester Guardian'', 14 January 1924, p. 10</ref> The work was a box-office attraction at the [[the Proms|Proms]] for several years after the premiere.<ref name=h556 /> In Foreman's view, Bax was at his musical peak for a fairly short time, and his reputation was overtaken by those of Vaughan Williams and [[William Walton]].<ref name=dnb/> The [[Symphony No. 3 (Bax)|Third Symphony]] was completed in 1929 and, championed by Wood, remained for some time among the composer's most popular works.<ref>"Promenade Concert", ''The Times'', 26 September 1930, p. 10</ref><ref>Hull, p. 33</ref>

In the mid-1920s, while his affair with Cohen continued, Bax met the twenty-three-year-old Mary Gleaves, and for more than two decades he maintained relationships with both women. His affair with Cohen ripened into warm friendship and continuing musical partnership.<ref name=dnb/> Gleaves became his companion from the later 1920s until his death.<ref>Foreman (1983), p. 241</ref>{{refn|Cohen chose to ignore the nature of Bax's relationship with Gleaves, and referred to her in later years as "Sir Arnold's nurse".<ref>Foreman, Lewis. [http://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-colin-scott-sutherland-bank-manager-and-writer-1-2794788 "Obituary: Colin Scott-Sutherland"], ''[[The Scotsman]]'', 16 February 2013</ref>|group= n}}

In the 1930s, Bax composed the last four of his seven symphonies. Other works from the decade include the popular ''[[Overture to a Picaresque Comedy]]'' (1930), several works for chamber groups, including a nonet (1930), a string quintet (1933), an octet for horn, piano, and strings (1934) and his  third and last string quartet (1936). The Cello Concerto (1932) was commissioned by and dedicated to [[Gaspar Cassadó]], who quickly dropped the work from his repertoire. Although [[Beatrice Harrison]] championed the concerto in the 1930s and 40s, Bax said, "The fact that nobody has ever taken up this work has been one of the major disappointments of my musical life".<ref name=chandos/><ref>Foreman (1983), p. 290</ref>

Bax was [[knight bachelor|knighted]] in 1937; he had neither expected nor sought the honour, and was more surprised than delighted to receive it.<ref>Foreman (1983) pp. 309–310</ref> As the decade progressed, he became less prolific; he commented that he wanted to "retire, like a grocer".<ref>Scott-Sutherland, p. 75</ref>  Among his compositions from the period was the Violin Concerto (1938). Although not written to commission, he had composed it with the violin virtuoso [[Jascha Heifetz]] in mind. Heifetz never played it, and it was premiered in 1942 by [[Eda Kersey]] with the [[BBC Symphony Orchestra]] and Wood.<ref>Petrocelli, p. 58</ref>

===1940s and 50s===
After the death of the [[Master of the King's Music]],{{refn|The antiquated spelling "Master of the [Queen's] Musick" persisted in the columns of ''The Times'' and elsewhere into the 1970s, but was officially changed to "Master of the [King's] Music during the tenure of Elgar (1924–34).<ref>[http://www.royal.gov.uk/TheRoyalHousehold/OfficialRoyalposts/MasterofTheQueensMusic.aspx "Master of the Queen's Music"] The official website of the British Monarchy, retrieved 16 September 2015</ref> Bax was [[London Gazette|gazetted]] as "Master of the Music".<ref>[https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/39616/supplement/4201 Supplement, 5 August 1952], ''The London Gazette''</ref>|group= n}} [[Walford Davies|Sir Walford Davies]], in 1941, Bax was appointed to succeed him. The choice surprised many. Bax, despite his knighthood, was not an Establishment figure;<ref>Duck, p. 257</ref> he himself had expressed a disinclination to "shuffle around in knee-breeches".<ref name=archive/> In the opinion of ''The Times'' the appointment was not a good one: "Bax was not cut out for official duties and found their performance irksome".<ref name=times/> Nonetheless, Bax wrote a handful of occasional pieces for royal events, including a march for the [[Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II|Coronation]] in 1953.<ref name=times/>

[[File:Storrington.JPG|thumb|left|alt=image of an English country town|Storrington, Bax's home in his last years]]
After the Second World War began, Bax moved to Sussex, taking up residence at the White Horse Hotel, [[Storrington]], where he lived for the rest of his life.<ref>Parlett, p. 9</ref> He abandoned composition and completed a book of memoirs about his early years, ''Farewell, My Youth''. ''The Times'' found it at times waspish, at times reticent, surprising in parts, and regrettably short.<ref>"A Composer's Reminiscences", ''The Times'', 9 April 1943, p. 6</ref> Later in the war Bax was persuaded to contribute incidental music for a short film, ''Malta G. C.''; he subsequently wrote music for [[David Lean]]'s ''[[Oliver Twist (1948 film)|Oliver Twist]]'' (1948) and a second short film, ''Journey into History'' (1952). His other works from the period include the short ''Morning Song'' for piano and orchestra, and the Left-Hand Concertante (1949), both written for Cohen.<ref name=dnb/> Bax and the [[Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom|Poet Laureate]], [[John Masefield]], worked on a pageant, ''The Play of Saint George'' in 1947, but the project was not completed.<ref name=p10/>

In his last years, Bax maintained a contented retirement for much of the time. Walton commented, "an important cricket match at [[Lord's Cricket Ground|Lord's]] would bring him hurrying up to town from his pub at Storrington with much greater excitement than a performance of one of his works".<ref>Bliss ''et al'', p. 14</ref> In 1950, after hearing his Third Symphony played at [[Bournemouth]], he said, "I ought perhaps to be thinking of an eighth", but by this time he had begun to drink quite heavily, which aged him rapidly and impaired his ability to concentrate on a large-scale composition.<ref>Parlett, p. 328; and Foreman (1983), p. 356</ref>  He wrote in 1952, "I doubt whether I shall write anything else{{space}}… I have said all I have to say and it is of no use to repeat myself."<ref>Foreman (1983), p. 355</ref> Celebrations were planned by the [[the Hallé|Hallé Orchestra]] and others to celebrate Bax's seventieth birthday in November 1953.<ref name=cardus/> The celebrations became memorials: while visiting [[Cork (city)|Cork]] in October 1953 Bax died suddenly of heart failure aged 69.<ref>Fry, p. 284</ref> He was interred in [[St. Finbarr's Cemetery]], Cork.<ref>Scott-Sutherland, p. 188</ref>

==Music==
{{see also|List of compositions by Arnold Bax}}
{{Quote box| quoted=true|width=33%|bgcolor=#FFFFF0|align=right|quote= Bax's music is never simply rhapsodic or formless&nbsp;... but the tendency to be diffuse, to a point where the listener's attention insists on wandering, the love of picaresque construction and the absence of clear outlines—these faults account for the general apathy towards music that is intrinsically noble, humane, and capable of a certain melancholy grandeur.|salign = right|source= ''[[The Record Guide]]'', 1955<ref name=rg>Sackville-West and Shawe-Taylor, pp. 75–76</ref>}}
Bax's fellow composer [[Arthur Benjamin]] wrote that Bax was "a fount of music", whose "spontaneous and inexhaustible outpourings", unique among his contemporaries, were comparable to those of [[Franz Schubert|Schubert]] and [[Antonin Dvořák|Dvořák]].<ref>Bliss ''et al'', pp. 1–2</ref> Evans has suggested that Bax's music paradoxically combines robustness and wistfulness,<ref name=evans1/> a view that later commentators including Herbage have endorsed.<ref name=archive/> The early music is often instrumentally difficult or orchestrally and harmonically complex; from about 1913 onwards he moved towards a simpler, sparer style.<ref name=evans1/> The composer and musicologist [[Anthony Payne]] considered that Bax's best works date from the period between 1910 and 1925: he instances ''The Garden of Fand'','' Tintagel'', ''November Woods'', the Second Piano Sonata, Viola Sonata, and first two symphonies.<ref>Payne Anthony [http://www.jstor.org/stable/957574 "Review: Bax at Length"], ''The Musical Times'', August 1973, 114 (1566), p. 798</ref> By the 1930s Bax's music ceased to be regarded as new and difficult, and towards the end of that decade it was attracting less attention than before.<ref name=grove/>

The conductor [[Vernon Handley]], long associated with Bax's music, commented that the composer's influences include [[Sergei Rachmaninoff|Rachmaninoff]] and [[Jean Sibelius|Sibelius]] as well as Richard Strauss and Wagner: "He was aware of jazz and many more composers on the European scene than we are now. That finds its way into a person's psyche and personality and into his technique as a musician."<ref>Anderson, p. 93</ref>

The critic [[Neville Cardus]] wrote of Bax's music:
{{blockquote|The paradox is that Bax's methods, his idiom and tonal atmosphere are impersonal: that is to say, there is no direct unfolding of an individual state of mind or soul as we find in Elgar or Gustav Mahler. Yet there is no mistaking the Bax physiognomy or psychology: always through the gloom and thickets of the symphonies the warm rays of an approachable, lovable man and nature may be felt.<ref name=cardus>Cardus, Neville. "Arnold Bax's Character in his Music: A Happy Man – But Tragic Themes", ''The Manchester Guardian'', 5 October 1953, p. 3</ref>}}

York Bowen thought it regrettable that Bax's orchestral works frequently call for exceptionally large forces: "When the score demands such luxuries as triple or quadruple woodwind, six horns, three or four trumpets, extra percussion and perhaps organ, it is undoubtedly throwing extra difficulties in the way of performance."<ref>Bliss ''et al'', p. 6</ref> The composer [[Eric Coates]] commented that Bax's music appealed greatly to orchestral players: "whichever instrument he wrote for, it was as if he played that instrument himself, so well did he seem to write for it".<ref>Bliss ''et al'', p. 7</ref>{{refn|Orchestral players' regard for Bax was reciprocated: his ''London Pageant'' (1937) is dedicated "To my friends of the BBC Orchestra".<ref>Parlett, p. 219</ref>|group= n}}

===Symphonies===
While in Dresden in 1907 Bax began work on what he later called "a colossal symphony which would have occupied quite an hour in performance, were such a cloud-cuckoo dream to become an actuality".<ref>Bax, p. 31</ref> He added "Happily, it never has!", but he left a complete piano sketch, which was orchestrated in 2012–13 by [[Martin Yates]], and recorded for the [[Dutton Vocalion]] label; it lasts for 77 minutes. The four-movement work, more conventional in structure than his completed symphonies, shows a strong Russian influence in its material.<ref name=abw>[http://arnoldbax.com/baxs-early-symphony-in-f-premiere-recording-on-dutton/ "Bax’s early Symphony in F – Premiere recording on Dutton"], The Sir Arnold Bax Website, retrieved 4 October 2015</ref>

Bax wrote his seven completed symphonies between 1921 and 1939. In a study of the seven, David Cox wrote in 1967 that they were "often dismissed as amorphous by those who imagine that Bax consists only of Celtic mistiness and 'atmosphere'. In fact they have considerable strength and frequent astringence; and formally the thematic material is presented with consistency and purpose."<ref>Cox, pp. 155–156</ref> In Herbage's view, the cycle can be seen to fall into two groups – the first three and the last three – with the [[Symphony No. 4 (Bax)|Fourth Symphony]] as "an extrovert interlude between these largely introspective works".<ref name=archive/> Handley agreed that the first three could be grouped together; Foreman sees a Celtic influence in all three, with Bax's emotions about the Easter rising and its aftermath discernible.<ref name=dnb/> The Fourth is generally regarded as a more optimistic work than its predecessors and successors. Handley calls it "festive", but comments that its ideas developed into darker mood in the [[Symphony No. 5 (Bax)|Fifth]] and [[Symphony No. 6 (Bax)|Sixth]].<ref>Anderson, p. 94</ref> The Fifth is, for Herbage, "the greatest ''tour-de-force''"; the Sixth stands out for its "magnificent final movement", which the critic [[Peter J. Pirie]] said "tears the earth up by its roots";<ref>Anderson, p. 95</ref> and the [[Symphony No. 7 (Bax)|Seventh]], in the view of the ''[[Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]]'', has an elegiac tone, its simplicity far removed from the discursive and complex music of Bax's earlier years.<ref name=archive/><ref name=h556/>

===Concertante works===
Bax's first work for solo instrument and orchestra was the 50-minute ''Symphonic Variations'' in E{{music|flat}} (1919), written for Harriet Cohen. ''The Times'' considered it "like one of those deeds of recklessness which in the Army may be followed either by a Court-martial or a V.C. We incline to favour the Court-martial, and to award the V.C. to Miss Harriet Cohen for her part in the enterprise."<ref>"Progress in Music", ''The Times'', 19 April 1924, p. 8</ref>

The Cello Concerto (1932) was Bax's first attempt at a full-scale conventional concerto. It calls for a smaller orchestra than he customarily employed, with no trombones or tuba, and no percussion apart from timpani. Foreman points to many subtleties of scoring, but notes that it has never ranked high among the composer's mature works.<ref name=chandos>Foreman, Lewis (1987). Notes to Chandos CD 8494, OCLC 705060287</ref> The Violin Concerto (1937–38) is, like the last symphony, in a more relaxed vein than most of Bax's earlier music. Cardus singled it out as "unusually fine",<ref name=cardus/> although Heifetz may have felt it not virtuosic enough.<ref>Lloyd (2001), p. 165</ref> The composer described it as in the romantic tradition of [[Joachim Raff]].<ref name=b11/>

Among the minor concertante works is ''Variations on the Name Gabriel Fauré'' (1949) for harp and strings, in a style more neoclassical than most of Bax's music.<ref>[[Edward Greenfield|Greenfield, Edward]]. [http://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/english-music-for-strings "English music for strings"], ''[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]'',  retrieved 16 September 2015</ref>  Bax's last concertante piece was a short work for piano and orchestra (1947) written in his capacity as Master of the King's Music, marking [[Elizabeth II|Princess Elizabeth]]'s twenty-first birthday.<ref name=grove/>

===Other orchestral works===
[[File:Bax-In-the-Faery-Hills.jpg|thumb|alt=bars of a printed orchestral score|upright=2|''[[In the Faëry Hills]]'', 1910 symphonic poem]]
Bax's tone poems are in a variety of styles and have varied sharply in their popularity. His  impressionistic tone poem ''In the Faëry Hills'' is described by ''Grove'' as "a succinct and attractive piece". It was modestly successful, but ''Spring Fire'' (1913) is instanced by Foreman as a difficult work; it was not performed in Bax's lifetime.<ref name=grove/> During the First World War Bax wrote three tone poems, two of which – ''[[The Garden of Fand]]'' (1913–16) and ''[[November Woods]]'' (1917) – have remained on the fringes of the modern repertoire, and a third – ''[[Tintagel (Bax)|Tintagel]]'' (1917–19) – which in the decade after his death was the only work by which Bax was known to the public.<ref name=grove/> ''Grove'' characterises all three as musical evocations of nature, with little expression of subjective personal response. The orchestral piece that was neglected longest was ''In memoriam'' (1917), a lament for [[Patrick Pearse]], who was shot for his part in the Easter rising; the work was not played until 1998. Bax reused the main melody for his incidental music to ''[[Oliver Twist (1948 film)|Oliver Twist]]'' (1948).<ref>Foreman, Lewis (1999). Notes to Chandos CD 9715, OCLC 41148812</ref>

''Oliver Twist'' was the second of Bax's film scores. The first was for a short wartime propaganda film, ''Malta, G. C.''. A four-movement suite was published after the release of the latter,<ref>Foreman, Lewis (2003). Notes to Chandos CD 10126, OCLC 872996638</ref>  containing what ''[[The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music]]'' calls "a notable March with a genuine ''nobilmente'' theme in the best Elgarian tradition".<ref>March, p. 80</ref> Bax's third and last cinema score was for a ten-minute short film ''Journey into History'' in 1952.<ref>Brooke, Michael. [http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/705508/index.html "Journey into History"], British Film Institute, retrieved 17 September 2015</ref>

Other orchestral works include ''Overture, Elegy and Rondo'' (1927) – a lightweight piece, according to ''Grove''. The ''[[Overture to a Picaresque Comedy]]'' (1930), was for a time one of his most popular works.<ref name=chandos/> It was described by the composer as "Straussian pastiche" and by ''The Times'' as "gay and impudent, and with that tendency to vulgarity which so easily besets the instinctively refined composer determined to let himself go",<ref>"Royal Philharmonic Society", ''The Times'', 2 April 1937, p. 10</ref> Cardus thought the work so appealing that to live up to the overture the putative comedy would have to be "written by [[Hugo von Hofmannsthal|Hofmannsthal]] and [[George Bernard Shaw|Shaw]] in collaboration. Not often is English music so free and audacious as this, so gay and winning."<ref name=nc>Cardus, Neville. "The Halle Concert", ''The Manchester Guardian'', 20 November 1931, p, 11</ref>

===Vocal music===
The critic Peter Latham remarked that he was surprised that Bax had never set any of Yeats's poems to music. Bax replied, "What, I? I should never dare!". Latham added that Bax's sensitiveness to poetic values made him "painfully aware of the violence that even the best musical setting must do to a poem". Eventually this feeling caused him to give up song-writing completely.<ref name=b11>Bliss ''et al'', p. 11</ref>
[[File:Bax's-poets.jpg|thumb|left|alt=four head and shoulders portraits of British poets|Among Bax's settings were poems by (clockwise from top left) [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson|Tennyson]], [[Robert Burns|Burns]], [[Geoffrey Chaucer|Chaucer]] and [[James Joyce|Joyce]]]]
At the start of his composing career, songs, together with piano music, formed the core of Bax's work. Some of the songs, mainly the early ones, are conspicuous for the virtuosity of their piano parts, which tend to overwhelm the voice.<ref name=Hold233>Hold, p. 233</ref> ''Grove'' contrasts the virtuoso accompaniment of "The Fairies" (1905) with  the simpler "The White Peace" (1907), one of his most popular songs. The musical analyst Trevor Hold writes that the piano "goes berserk" in "Glamour" (1920).<ref>Hold, p. 219</ref> Among the poets whose verses Bax set were his brother Clifford, [[Robert Burns|Burns]], [[Geoffrey Chaucer|Chaucer]], [[Thomas Hardy|Hardy]], [[A. E. Housman|Housman]],  [[James Joyce|Joyce]], [[J. M. Synge|Synge]] and [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson|Tennyson]].<ref name=grove/> The composer himself singled out for mention in his ''[[Who's Who (UK)|Who's Who]]'' article "A Celtic Song-Cycle" (1904) to words by "Fiona Macleod" (a pen name of the poet [[William Sharp (writer)|William Sharp]]).<ref name=who>[http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U234539 "Bax, Sir Arnold Edward Trevor"], ''Who Was Who'', Oxford University Press, 2014, retrieved 16 September 2015 {{ODNBsub}}</ref> Among the post-war songs, Hold considers Bax's "In the Morning" (1926) to be one of the best of all settings of Housman's works, "and it makes you wish that Bax had made further explorations into the Shropshire landscape."<ref>Hold, p. 227</ref> Hold classes that song, together with "Across the Door" (1921), "Rann of Exile" (1922) and "Watching the Needleboats" (1932), as "truly modern, 20th-century masterpieces of song".<ref name=Hold233 />

Bax wrote a substantial number of choral works, mostly secular but some religious. He was a nominal member of the [[Church of England]], but in the view of the critic Paul Spicer, "None of Bax's choral music can be described as devotional or even suitable for church use{{space}}… Here is a secular composer writing voluptuous music."<ref name=spicer/> The choral works with religious texts include his largest-scale unaccompanied vocal piece, ''Mater ora Filium'' (1921), inspired by [[William Byrd]]'s [[Mass for Five Voices|Five Part Mass]]; it is a setting of a medieval carol from a manuscript held by [[Balliol College, Oxford]].<ref name=spicer>Spicer, Paul (1993). Notes to Chandos CD 9139, OCLC 29688294</ref> The composer [[Patrick Hadley]] considered it "an unsurpassed example of modern unaccompanied vocal writing".<ref>Bliss ''et al'', p. 9</ref>  Bax's other choral works include settings of words by [[Percy Bysshe Shelley|Shelley]] (''Enchanted Summer'', 1910), [[Henry Vaughan]] (''The Morning Watch'', 1935), [[John Masefield|Masefield]] (''To Russia'', 1944), and [[Edmund Spenser|Spenser]] (''Epithalamium'', 1947).<ref name=grove/>

===Chamber and solo piano music===
[[File:Bax-Second-Violin-Sonata-scherzo.jpg|thumb|alt=bars of printed score for solo violin and piano accompaniment|upright=2|Scherzo of Bax's Second Violin Sonata (1915)]]
In his overview of Bax's earlier chamber works, Evans identifies as among the most successful the Phantasy for viola, the Trio for piano, violin, and viola and "a String Quintet of such difficulty that an adequate performance has seldom if ever been possible". He rates the Second Violin Sonata (1915) as the composer's most individual work to that date. For Evans, the culminating point of Bax's early chamber music was the Piano Quintet, a work "of such richness of invention that it would be an ornament to the musical literature of any country or period".<ref>Evans (April 1919), p. 154</ref>  Foreman makes particular mention of the First String Quartet (1918 – "a classical clarity of texture and form to its Celtic inspiration", and the "grittier" Second Quartet (1925), the Viola Sonata (1922), the Phantasy Sonata for viola and harp (1927) and the Sonata for Flute and Harp (1928).<ref name=grove/>

The composer and musical scholar [[Christopher Palmer]] points out that Bax was unusual among British composers in composing a substantial oeuvre for solo piano.{{refn|Palmer comments that of the major British composers, Elgar, Delius, Vaughan Williams, Holst, Walton and Britten showed little interest in the solo piano and seldom wrote for it.<ref name=cp2>Palmer, Christopher (1988). Notes to Chandos CD 8497, OCLC 602145160</ref>|group= n}} Bax published four piano sonatas (1910–32), which are, in Palmer's view, as central to the composer's piano music as the symphonies are to the orchestral output.<ref name=cp1>Palmer, Christopher (1987). Notes to Chandos CD 8496, OCLC 602371238</ref> The first two sonatas are each in a single movement, of about twenty minutes; the third and fourth are in conventional three-movement form.<ref name=cp2/><ref name=cp1/> The First Symphony was originally planned as a large-scale piano sonata in E{{music|flat}} (1921); the manuscript score of the latter came to light in the early 1980s and was performed for the first time in 1983.<ref>Foreman, Lewis (1994). Notes to Continuum CD CCD 1045 DDD, OCLC 223356733</ref>        Bax's own virtuosity as a pianist is reflected in the demands of many of his piano pieces. Palmer cites [[Frédéric Chopin|Chopin]] and [[Franz Liszt|Liszt]] as major influences on Bax's piano style as well as Balakirev and the other Russians whose influence is seen throughout the composer's work.<ref name=cp2/> For piano duo Bax composed two tone poems, ''Moy Mell'' (1917) and ''Red Autumn'' (1931).<ref name=cp1/> His shorter piano pieces include picturesque miniatures such as ''In a Vodka Shop'' (1915), ''A Hill Tune'' (1920) and ''Water Music'' (1929).<ref name=cp2/>

==Neglect and revival==
In his later years Bax's music fell into neglect. [[John Barbirolli|Sir John Barbirolli]] wrote, "I think he felt keenly that his richly wrought and masterly scores were no longer 'fashionable' to-day, but nothing could deter him from the path of complete honesty and sincerity in his musical thought."<ref name=cardus/> The neglect became more complete after the composer's death. He had always sustained a [[Romanticism (music)|Romantic]] outlook, distancing himself from [[Modernism (music)|musical modernism]] and especially [[Arnold Schoenberg]]'s [[serialism]], of which Bax wrote in 1951:
{{blockquote|I believe that there is little probability that the twelve-note scale will ever produce anything more than morbid or entirely cerebral growths. It might deal successfully with neuroses of various kinds, but I cannot imagine it associated with any healthy and happy concept such as young love or the coming of spring.<ref>Amis ''et al'', p. 307</ref>|}}

Neither Bax's views nor his works were fashionable in the two decades after his death. The critic [[Michael Kennedy (music critic)|Michael Kennedy]] writes that the mid-1950s were a time of "immense change and transition in influential musical circles."<ref name=k200>Kennedy, p. 200</ref> The music favoured by the cultural establishment until then was regarded as having made Britain musically parochial and indifferent to the developments of the past half-century. In Kennedy's words, "[[Edmund Rubbra|Rubbra]], Bax and [[John Ireland (composer)|Ireland]] found themselves out in the cold".<ref name=k200/>

Foreman comments that in the years after Bax's death his reputation was kept alive by a single work – ''Tintagel''. Kennedy estimates that it took "twenty painful years" before the music of the British romantics including Bax made headway against the dominance of modernism.<ref name=k200/> Foreman dates the revival of Bax's music to Handley's performances of the Fourth Symphony and other works with the Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1960s, and the pioneering recordings by [[Lyrita|Lyrita Recorded Edition]] of five of the symphonies.{{refn|The First and Second were conducted by [[Myer Fredman]] (1970), the Fifth by [[Raymond Leppard]] (1971), the Sixth by [[Norman Del Mar]] (1966) and the Seventh by Leppard (1974).<ref name=d>Stuart, Philip. [http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/discography/decca.html ''Decca Classical, 1929–2009''], Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, retrieved 18 September 2015</ref>|group= n}} Scholarly consideration of Bax's life and music came with studies by Colin Scott-Sutherland (1973) and Foreman (1983). Bax's centenary in 1983 was marked by twenty programmes on [[BBC Radio 3]], covering a wide range of the composer's music.<ref>[http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/search/0/20?adv=1&q=Arnold+Bax&yf=1983&yt=1983#search “Arnold Bax”], BBC Genome, retrieved 17 September 2015</ref> In 1985 the Sir Arnold Bax Trust was established to promote the composer's work including the sponsoring of live performances and recording and publication of his music and writings.<ref>[http://opencharities.org/charities/326841 “The Sir Arnold Bax Trust”], Open Charities, retrieved 17 September 2015</ref> Since then a large number of Bax's works, major and minor, have been recorded (see below). The proliferation of Bax recordings has not been matched by a revival in his fortunes in the concert hall; the critic Stephen Moss observed in ''[[The Guardian]]'' in 2007, "Bax is considered the promotional kiss of death."<ref>Moss, Stephen. [http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2007/oct/11/buildingaclassicalmusiclib4  "Building a classical music library: Arnold Bax"], ''The Guardian'', 11 October 2007</ref> In 1999 the [[Oxford University Press]] published a complete catalogue of Bax's works compiled and annotated by Graham Parlett; ''[[Music & Letters]]'' called it "a benchmark for any future researchers seeking to compile a catalogue of a composer's works".<ref>Pike, p. 145</ref>

==Recordings==
Two recordings of Bax as a pianist were made in 1929. With [[Lionel Tertis]] he recorded his own Viola Sonata for [[Columbia Graphophone Company|Columbia]], and with [[May Harrison]] he recorded [[Frederick Delius|Delius]]'s Violin Sonata No 1 for the rival [[His Master's Voice (British record label)|His Master's Voice]] label.<ref name=disco/> Of the symphonies, only the Third was recorded in the composer's lifetime; it was played by the Hallé under Barbirolli and released in 1944.<ref>"Recent Gramophone Records", ''The Manchester Guardian'', 14 April 1944, p. 3</ref> The Viola Sonata, Nonet and ''Mater ora Filium'' were recorded under the auspices of the English Music Society in 1937 and 1938.<ref>[https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/48536147 "Music of Arnold Bax"], WorldCat, retrieved 18 September 2015</ref> The Phantasy Sonata for Viola and Harp, the Sonata for Two Pianos and a handful of the songs were recorded on [[78 rpm]] discs.<ref>[https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=kw%3AArnold+Bax&fq=yr%3A1910..1953+%3E+%3E+x0%3Amusic&dblist=638&start=11&qt=next_page "Arnold Bax"], WorldCat, retrieved 18 September 2015</ref> Of the tone poems, [[Eugene Aynsley Goossens|Eugene Goossens]] conducted the first recording of ''Tintagel'', in 1928;<ref>Dibble, Jeremy. [https://www.proquest.com/docview/1712711036 "The Gramophone Collection: Arnold Bax's ''Tintagel''"],  ''Gramophone'', August 2015, p. 93 {{subscription required}}</ref> twenty years later a set  of ''The Garden of Fand'' with Beecham and the [[Royal Philharmonic Orchestra]] was released by [[His Master's Voice (British record label)|His Master's Voice]].<ref>[http://www.jstor.org/stable/933827 "His Master's Voice"], ''The Musical Times'', August 1948, p. 231 {{subscription required}}</ref> By 1955 Bax on record was so scarce that ''[[The Record Guide]]'' listed only ''Tintagel'', the ''Coronation March'', the unaccompanied choral work ''What is it Like to be Young and Fair?'' and the solo piano piece ''Paean''.<ref name=rg/>

Parlett included an extensive discography in his 1999 ''A Catalogue of the Works of Sir Arnold Bax'',<ref>Parlett, Appendix 3</ref> later expanded and updated in a website. At 2015 the latter lists more than 250 works by Bax that have been recorded and published.<ref name=disco>Parlett, Graham. [http://arnoldbax.com/discography/ "Discography"], The Sir Arnold Bax Website, retrieved 19 September 2015</ref> The discography includes three complete cycles of Bax's symphonies released on CD, two by [[Chandos Records]], the first conducted by [[Bryden Thomson]] (recorded 1983–88) and the second by Handley (2003); between them was a cycle issued by [[Naxos Records]] conducted by [[David Lloyd-Jones (conductor)|David Lloyd-Jones]] (recorded 1997–2001).<ref>[http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=Arnold+Bax+Symphonies&qt=results_page "Arnold Bax Symphonies"], WorldCat, retrieved 19 September 2015</ref> The major tone poems and other orchestral works have been recorded, many of them in several different versions.<ref name=disco/> Bax's chamber music is well represented on disc, with recordings of most of the works, and multiple versions of many, including the Elegiac Trio, the Clarinet Sonata and the Fantasy Sonata.<ref name=disco/> Much of the piano music has been recorded by pianists including [[Iris Loveridge]], [[John McCabe (composer)|John McCabe]], [[Ashley Wass]] and [[Michael Endres]], though by 2015 no integral survey had yet been recorded.<ref name=disco/> Of the vocal works, by far the most often recorded is ''Mater ora Filium'', but other choral works, and a representative selection of the songs are on disc.<ref name=disco/>

==Honours and legacy==
Bax received the gold medals of the [[Royal Philharmonic Society]] (1931) and the [[Worshipful Company of Musicians]] (1931), and the Cobbett medal for chamber music (1931). He was awarded honorary doctorates by the universities of [[University of Oxford|Oxford]] (1934) and [[University of Durham|Durham]] (1935) and the [[National University of Ireland]] (1947). A Bax Memorial Room at University College, Cork, was opened by Vaughan Williams in 1955.<ref name=abw/>       After Bax's knighthood in 1937 he was advanced to [[Royal Victorian Order|KCVO]] in 1953.<ref name=dnb/><ref name=who/> An [[English Heritage]] [[blue plaque]], unveiled in 1993, commemorates Bax at his birthplace, 13 Pendennis Road in Streatham.<ref>[https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/arnold-bax/ "Bax, Sir Arnold (1883–1953)"], English Heritage, retrieved 17 September 2015</ref>

In 1992 [[Ken Russell]] made a television film dramatising Bax's later years, ''The Secret Life of Arnold Bax''. Russell himself portrayed Bax and [[Glenda Jackson]], in her final role before leaving acting for 23 years to pursue her political career, appeared as Harriet Cohen.<ref>[http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b7c288419 "The Secret Life of Arnold Bax"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150516143317/http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b7c288419 |date=16 May 2015 }}, British Film Institute, retrieved 18 September 2015</ref>

In 2022 a bronze plaque was installed at the Morar Hotel in [[Morar]] to commemorate Bax, who frequently stayed there from 1928 to 1940 and composed several significant works during this period. The initiative was led by the [[British Music Society]], with support from [[Historic Environment Scotland]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-04-01 |title=Arnold Bax to be recognised in Scotland - British Music Society |url=https://www.britishmusicsociety.co.uk/2020/04/5795/ |access-date=2024-08-19 |language=en-GB}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-07-09 |title=Bax plaque installed in Morar - British Music Society |url=https://www.britishmusicsociety.co.uk/2022/07/bax-plaque-installed-in-morar/ |access-date=2024-08-19 |language=en-GB}}</ref>

==Notes, references and sources==

===Notes===
{{Reflist|group=n|colwidth=24em}}

===References===
{{Reflist}}

===Sources===
{{refbegin|25em}}
* {{cite journal | last=Amis | first=John | authorlink=John Amis | author2=and 24 others including Arnold Bax | title=Arnold Schōnberg 1874–1951 | journal=Music & Letters | date=October 1951 | volume=32 | issue=4 | pages=305–323 | jstor=729063 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/729063}} {{subscription required}}
* {{cite journal | last=Anderson | first=Colin | title=Vernon Handley discusses Bax | journal=Fanfare | date=March 2004 | pages=93–96 | url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1264271| id={{ProQuest|1264271}} }} {{subscription required}}
* {{cite journal | last=Banfield | first=Stephen | title=Review: Bax as Poet | journal=The Musical Times | date=December 1980 | pages=780–781 | doi=10.2307/962521 | jstor=962521 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/962521}} {{subscription required}}
* {{cite book | last=Bax | first=Arnold | title=Farewell, My Youth | year=1992 | orig-date=1943 | location=Aldershot | publisher=Scolar Press | isbn=978-0-85967-793-6}}
* {{cite journal | last=Bliss | first=Arthur | authorlink=Arthur Bliss | author2=and nine others including Arthur Benjamin, York Bowen, Eric Coates, Patrick Hadley, Peter Latham and William Walton | title=Arnold Bax: 1883–1953 | journal=Music & Letters | date=January 1954 | volume=35 | issue=1 | pages=1–14 | doi=10.1093/ml/XXXV.1.1 | jstor=730227 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/730227}} {{subscription required}}
* {{cite book | chapter=Arnold Bax | title=The Symphony: Elgar to the Present Day | last=Cox | first=David | editor=Simpson, Robert | publisher=Pelican Books | location=Harmondsworth | year=1967 | oclc=221594461}}
* {{cite journal | last=Duck | first=Leonard | title=Masters of the Sovereign's Music | journal=The Musical Times | date=June 1954 | volume=94 | issue=1324 | pages=255–258 | doi=10.2307/934669 | jstor=934669 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/934669}} {{subscription required}}
* {{cite journal | last=Evans | first=Edwin | title=Modern British Composers, II – Arnold Bax | journal=The Musical Times | date=March 1919 | volume=60 | issue=913 | pages=103–105 | doi=10.2307/3701644 | jstor=3701644 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/3701644}}
* {{cite journal | last=Evans | first=Edwin | title=Modern British Composers. II. Arnold Bax (Continued) | journal=The Musical Times | date=April 1919 | volume=60 | issue=914 | pages=154–156 | doi=10.2307/3701614 | jstor=3701614 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/3701614}}
* {{cite journal | last=Foreman | first=Lewis | title=The Musical Development of Arnold Bax | journal=Music & Letters | pages=59–68 | date=January 1971 | volume=52 | issue=1 | doi=10.1093/ml/LII.1.59 | jstor=731834 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/731834 }} {{subscription required}}
* {{cite book | last=Foreman | first=Lewis | title=Bax: A Composer and his Times | year=1983 | location=London and Berkeley | publisher=Scolar Press | isbn=978-0-85967-643-4 }}
* {{cite book | last=Foreman | first=Lewis | author2=Susan Foreman | title=London: A Musical Gazetteer | year=2005 | location=New Haven | publisher=Yale University Press | isbn=978-0-300-10402-8 }}
* {{cite book | last=Fry | first=Helen | authorlink=Helen Fry | title=Music and Men, the Life and Loves of Harriet Cohen | year=2008 | location=Stroud | publisher=The History Press | isbn=978-0-7509-4817-3}}
* {{cite journal | last=Herbage | first=Julian | title=The Music of Arnold Bax | journal=The Musical Times | date=December 1953 | volume=94 | issue=1330 | pages=555–557 | jstor=933544 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/933544}} {{subscription required}}
* {{cite book | last=Hold | first=Trevor | title=Parry to Finzi: Twenty English Song-composers | year=2005 | location=Woodbridge | publisher=Boydell Press | isbn=978-1-84383-174-7 }}
* {{cite book | last=Hughes | first=Gervase | authorlink=Gervase Hughes | year=1959 | title=The Music of Sir Arthur Sullivan | location=London | publisher=Macmillan | oclc=500626743}}
* {{cite book | last=Hull | first=Robert H.| authorlink=Robin Hull (music critic) | year=1932 | title=A Handbook of Arnold Bax's Symphonies| location=London | publisher=Murdoch, Murdoch & Co}}
* {{cite book | last=Jeffery | first=Keith |authorlink=Keith Jeffery | title=Ireland and the Great War | year=2001 | location=Cambridge and New York | publisher=Cambridge University Press | isbn=978-0-521-77323-2}}
* {{cite book | last=Kennedy | first=Michael | title=Portrait of Walton | location=Oxford | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=1989 | isbn=978-0-19-816705-1}}
* {{cite book | last=Lloyd | first=Stephen | title=William Walton: Muse of Fire | year=2001 | location=Woodbridge | publisher=Boydell Press | isbn=978-0-85115-803-7 }}
* {{cite book | last=Lloyd | first=Stephen | title=Constant Lambert: Beyond the Rio Grande | year=2014 | location=Woodbridge | publisher=Boydell Press | isbn=978-1-84383-898-2}}
* {{cite book | last=March | first=Ivan | author2=Edward Greenfield; Robert Layton; Paul Czajkowski | title=The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music 2009 | year=2008 | location=London | publisher=Penguin | isbn=978-0-141-03335-8}}
* {{cite journal | last=Onderdonk | first=Julian | title=Review: The English Musical Renaissance, 1860–1940 | journal=Notes | date=September 1995 | pages=63–66 | doi=10.2307/898796 | jstor=898796 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/898796}} {{subscription required}}
* {{cite book | last= O'Byrne| first= Dermot | editor=Lewis Foreman | title=Poems by Arnold Bax| year= 1979| location=London | publisher=Thames Publishing | isbn= 978-0-905210-11-7}}
* {{cite book | last=Parlett | first=Graham | title=A Catalogue of the Works of Sir Arnold Bax | year=1999 | location=Oxford | publisher=Clarendon Press | isbn=978-0-19-816586-6}}
* {{cite book | last=Petrocelli | first=Paolo | title=The Resonance of a Small Voice: William Walton and the Violin Concerto in England between 1900 and 1940 | year=2010 | location=Newcastle-upon-Tyne | publisher=Cambridge Scholars | isbn=978-1-4438-1721-9 }}
* {{cite journal | last=Pike | first=Lionel | title=Review: A Catalogue of the Works of Sir Arnold Bax by Graham Parlett | journal=Music & Letters | date=February 2000 | pages=144–145 | doi=10.1093/ml/81.1.144 | jstor=855343 | doi-access=free }} {{subscription required}}
* {{cite book | last= Rothwell | first= Evelyn |authorlink=Evelyn Barbirolli | title= Life with Glorious John: A Portrait of Sir John Barbirolli| year= 2002| location= London | publisher= Robson | isbn= 978-1-86105-474-6}}
* {{cite book | last=Sackville-West | authorlink=Edward Sackville-West, 5th Baron Sackville | first=Edward | author2=[[Desmond Shawe-Taylor (music critic)|Desmond Shawe-Taylor]] | year=1955 | title=The Record Guide | location=London | publisher=Collins | oclc=500373060}}
* {{cite book | last=Schaarwächter | first=Jürgen | title=Two Centuries of British Symphonism | year=2015 | location=Hildesheim | publisher=Georg Olms Verlag | isbn=978-3-487-15226-4}}
* {{cite book | last=Scott-Sutherland | first=Colin | title=Arnold Bax | year=1973 | location=London | publisher=J M Dent | isbn=978-0-460-03861-4 }}
* {{cite book | last=Sherrin | first=Ned | authorlink=Ned Sherrin | title=Cutting Edge, Or, "Back in the Knife Box, Miss Sharp" | year=1984 | location=London | publisher=J M Dent | isbn=978-0-460-04594-0}}
* {{cite book | last=Stradling | first=Robert | author2=Meirion Hughes | year=2001 | title=The English Musical Renaissance, 1840–1940: Constructing a National Music | location=Manchester | publisher=Manchester University Press | isbn=978-0-7190-5829-5}}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin}}
*Beechey, Gwilym (August 1983). "The Legacy of Arnold Bax (1883-1953)." [[Musical Opinion]], vol. 106, nos. 1270–1271, pp.&nbsp;348–351, 357–363, 383. 
*Foreman, Lewis (February 1970). "Bax, the Symphony and Sibelius." [[Musical Opinion]], vol. 93, no. 1109, pp.&nbsp;245–246. 
*Handley, Vernon (August 1992). "Back to Bax. Vernon Handley on His Enthusiasm for a Neglected Composer." [[The Musical Times]], vol. 133, no. 1794, pp.&nbsp;377–378. 
* {{cite journal |last=Payne |first=Anthony |author-link=Anthony Payne |date=September 1984 |title=Bax: A Centenary Assessment |journal=[[Tempo (journal)|Tempo]] |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |issue=150 |pages=29–32 |jstor=946079 |ref=none }}
*Pirie, Peter J. (February 1957). "The Nordic Element: Bax and Sibelius." [[Musical Opinion]], vol. 80, no. 953, pp.&nbsp;277, 279. 
*Pirie, Peter J. (September 1961). "The Odd Case of Arnold Bax." [[The Musical Times]], vol. 102, no. 1423, pp.&nbsp;559–560. 
*Thomson, Aidan J. (2012–2013). "Bax and the Celtic North." ''Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland'', Vol. 8, pp.&nbsp;51–87.
{{refend}}

==External links==
*{{YouTube|QS7Ob7fOQW4|Bax Piano Sonata no. 1}} played by [[Jonathan Powell (musician)|Jonathan Powell]]
* [https://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_settings.html?ComposerId=3332 The Lied and Art Song Texts Page created and maintained from Emily Ezust] Texts of the songs of Bax.
* [http://hdl.handle.net/1802/1231 Quintet for harp and strings] from the Sibley Music Library Digital Score Collection
* {{IMSLP|id=Bax, Arnold|cname=Arnold Bax}}
* [http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/person.asp?search=ss&sText=Arnold+Bax&LinkID=mp00298 National Portrait Gallery] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081021132735/http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/person.asp?search=ss&sText=Arnold+Bax&LinkID=mp00298 |date=21 October 2008 }} (18 portraits, 8 on display)
* {{ChoralWiki}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Arnold Bax}}
* {{NRA | id=P1822}}

{{S-start}}
{{s-court}}
{{Succession box|title=[[Master of the Queen's Music|Master of the King's Music]]|before=[[Walford Davies|Sir Walford Davies]]|after=[[Arthur Bliss|Sir Arthur Bliss]]|years=1942–1952}}
{{S-end}}

{{Arnold Bax}}
{{Portal bar|Classical music|Biography|Music}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bax, Arnold}}
[[Category:1883 births]]
[[Category:1953 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century English classical composers]]
[[Category:20th-century English male musicians]]
[[Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music]]
[[Category:Ballet composers]]
[[Category:Composers awarded knighthoods]]
[[Category:Composers for piano]]
[[Category:English male classical composers]]
[[Category:Knights Bachelor]]
[[Category:Knights Commander of the Royal Victorian Order]]
[[Category:Masters of the Queen's Music]]
[[Category:Musicians from Dublin (city)]]
[[Category:People associated with University College Cork]]
[[Category:People associated with University College Dublin]]
[[Category:People from Streatham]]
[[Category:Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medallists]]