Bax: Symphony No. 4, Nympholept & Overture to a Picaresque Comedy - Royal Scottish National Orchestra, D. Lloyd-Jones

The perspective afforded by the passage of time allows us to reassess the work of artists formerly relegated to obscurity and neglect, and Bax is assuredly one composer worthy of our attention. The music of an inveterate Romantic, his output was well out of step with the prevailing musical climate at the time of his death, but now it can be appreciated for the unique voice it reveals. This recording features the Overture to a Picaresque Comedy, perhaps an English equivalent to Straussʼ Till Eulenspiegel, Nympholept – a pagan evocation of one enraptured by spirits of the wood, and the Fourth Symphony, for which the composer claimed the sea as his inspiration.