Sir Arnold Bax (1883-1953)
The Blessed Damozel
Jeremy Huw Williams (baritone)
Paula Fan (piano)
Theodore Buchholz (cello)
rec. 2022, Jeffrey Haskell Recording Studio, University of Arizona, USA
EM Records EMRCD086 [85]

The second release from EM records in my review pile this month is “The Blessed Damozel – Songs of Arnold Bax”. I approached this disc with a degree of interest tempered by caution. Interest because the music of Arnold Bax has been a life-long passion but caution because the earlier disc on the label; “From the Hills of Dreams: The forgotten songs of Arnold Bax” which I reviewed in 2022 left me less than wholly convinced.  I would suggest readers refer to that earlier review both for the context of Bax as a song writer and my concerns – musical and technical – because very similar issues re-emerge here.

As a Bax enthusiast, any completely new disc of his music is going to be eagerly anticipated. This is an exceptionally generous recital with sixteen songs (one a world premiere), the melodrama The Blessed Damozel (also a premiere) and the Folk-Tale for cello and piano totalling 84:55 on a single disc. The latter is absolutely charming but hardly unknown and its inclusion in a song recital does not seem to have any musicological reason. Normally, I would address the technical recording aspect of a disc after the music but here the actual sound really impacts on the music-making to such a degree that it demands immediate reference. I was not that enamoured by the previous recording – made in a different location – which was too close and oppressive. A quick look online suggests that the Jeffrey Haskell Recording Studio is a quite small space which I imagine is acoustically very neutral. This is ideal for many types of recording as it allows engineers and producers to manipulate the sound post-recording with minimal acoustic impact from the space itself.  Here, there seems to be a large amount of synthetic-sounding reverberation liberally applied and there is a curious lack of sonic cohesion between keyboard and voice. The result is rather unappealing – to such a degree I wonder if there is a fault in the post production/mastering. Direct comparison with the earlier volume reveals a strange ‘haze’ around both piano and voice that I struggle to hear as a ‘choice’. Of course, other listeners may obtain different, better results on their own systems; I can only report the sound as I experienced it though my own equipment.

As before, pianist Paula Fan is an accomplished and attentive player although again the engineering somehow diminishes the impact of Bax’s resourceful and often colourful accompaniments. There is a sense that the high level of the transfer impacts the dynamic range and generally I find the piano playing to be clean and articulate but perhaps a fraction cautious. Sadly, Fan died in 2023 aged 71.  The intervening three years since volume 1 has not made me warm to baritone Jeremy Huw Williams’ voice any more than before but again I would strongly advise listeners to dip into online sources to make their own judgements.

The other consideration is the actual repertoire itself. As the title suggested, volume 1 included mainly unfamiliar or rare songs. This new disc offers versions of Bax songs that mainly have been recorded before – sometimes multiply. Without exception those earlier/alternative versions are preferable – if only for the recorded sound itself. The main exception is both a rarity and an oddity.  The Blessed Damozel, that gives this disc its title, is a very extended [25:14!!] recitation to a piano accompaniment – literally a melodrama – for which there was something of a pre World War 1 craze championed by Bax’s composition teacher Frederick Corder. This is an early work – 1906 – written before any scores that could be considered mature Bax had appeared. As ever Graham Parlett in his definitive catalogue throws light on the context of its creation.  In his youth Bax did lurch from infatuation to infatuation so this work was dedicated to one girl-friend but intended to impress another.  To Mary Field Bax wrote; “[dramatic recitation] is the most intimate of interpretative Arts” and “nearest allied to that of ‘story-telling’ of old times”.  Hard not to hear this work as Bax’s infatuation with both a woman and a Romantic Ideal made musical flesh. Which of course does not make it a good work. Tellingly, perhaps when shorn of infatuation, Bax would write of; “that hideous abortion, the English poetic drama”. Strikingly Parlett suggests a performing time of “c. 12:00” – half of what this version takes.  Quite the reason for the discrepancy is not clear. One last little mystery; the first edition of Lewis Foreman’s magnificent biography lists the work as “lost” but by the revised edition it has become “private collection” which Parlett further clarifies as being owned by Lewis Foreman.  Given that Foreman also provides a typically lucid and useful liner note for this release and you imagine his involvement in this project in part resulted in the inclusion of this genuine rarity.  Sadly, one I doubt I will ever want to return to – certainly not in this version.

As usual with EM Records, the booklet presentation is very good so where copyright allows full texts are included. Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s poem is well-known and alongside his painting of the same name probably embodies the Pre-Raphaelite movement. The issue is that in recitation it needs a real sense of drama and shape. Without that it becomes a rather lugubrious meander – which is what happens here. Williams adopts the sing-song cadence of a tedious sermon with almost no urgency against which Paula Fan’s meticulous playing provides a sonic wallpaper. Even a cursory reading of the text implies passages which would benefit significantly from a more theatrical approach. Obviously, with no access to the musical score it is hard to know how many of these ‘pacing’ choices are dictated by the music rather than the words. In isolation, the piano writing has numerous Baxian fingerprints from the glowering opening to the complex filigree writing that means it is of genuine interest but hamstrung here by the chosen performing style. Surely the ardent youthful Bax envisaged something altogether more virile and dynamic?

As with volume one, the decision has been made to present the works in chronological order which I think is both sensible and valuable. The issue here is that by starting with this over-extended work the recital begins in an etiolated manner from which it never really recovers. There are two main Bax song recital discs that cover the repertoire offered here. On Contiuum, 21 songs – including 8 on this new disc – were divided between a soprano, tenor and baritone.  On Dutton there are 19 songs (including the complete A Celtic Song Cycle) ­sung by a tenor and a mezzo. Again 8 appear on the new disc with A Milking Sian, Far in a Western Brookland, To Eire and The White Peace on all three collections. Those four recurring songs are a good sample of the styles and performances offered across the discs. On Dutton the tenor is the great Ian Partridge who was 65 when he recorded this set. Even though he was not in his freshest voice, Partridge’s lyric tenor and innate sense of line and phrasing is superb in these songs. Patricia Wright’s soprano version on Contiuum has an equally floatingly rapt quality that makes this one of Bax’s most compact and impressive songs. Regardless of performing style the tessitura of tenor or soprano seems to suit this visionary song better than a more-earth-bound baritone but again the waffly sound afforded Williams blurs both pitches and lyrics in a disfiguring way. This impacts the companion song A Milking Sian written three days earlier with both dedicated to the same Dorothy Pyman who spurred Bax to set The Blessed Damozel. Williams chooses a significantly more flowing tempo than either Jean Rigby (on Dutton) or Wright which musically works perfectly well but with the recorded acoustic blurring the words. Overall, I find I prefer the broader tempo as it brings a more visionary quality to the setting.  Bax only set A. E. Housman a couple of times – no real surprise there given the ‘heartiness’ of the Shropshire Lad poems.  Far in a Western Brookland was set originally for baritone and this is one of Williams’ more successful performances but marred by the bathroom acoustic enveloping the voice. To Eire is another of Bax’s most performed/recorded songs (popular is too strong a word) with – unusually for Bax – a melodic line that hints at something more sentimental with a hint of folksong rare in this composer – even echoes of Butterworth’s Housman settings. The liner suggests copyright for the words was withheld so the acoustic damages the listener’s comprehension.  Perhaps Continuum never asked (!) as J H Cousins’ text is reproduced in their booklet.

Certainly the overall programme of this new disc is well-planned. Perhaps Foreman or Parlett (who contributes a forward to the liner despite having tragically died in 2021) were advisers in this matter. Key poets, subjects and indeed people – dedicatees and the like – are covered.  For example the 1914 song Roundel ­– a Chaucer setting – is the first work Bax dedicated “To Tania” – his name for his life-long muse Harriet Cohen. Again Williams’ approach is notably different from Ian Partridge taking 4:04 to the latter’s 3:15. I quite like Williams’ more reflective approach but the combination of bathroom acoustic and wide vibrato all but destroy the musical impact of this. The song also appeared on a chrome cassette collection of Bax songs that has never (as far as I know) appeared on CD. For me this is the most effective version of all with baritone Peter Savidge (sensitively and skilfully accompanied by David Owen Norris) chooses a tempo that sits exactly between the other two performances.  The result is something that is both tender yet warmly expressive.  Savidge’s phrasing is also wonderfully subtle.  As an aside – this whole fairly brief recital of just ten songs lasting 40 minutes does deserve to be heard again with fine performances – tenor Christopher Gillett’s version of Glamour ­a particular tour de force. 

As mentioned before the inclusion of the cello Folk-Tale is welcome if confusing in the context. Cellist Theodore Buchholz is technically accomplished but once again the actual performance is all but completely compromised by the recording. There is no suggestion anywhere that this might be a ‘song transcription’ and even the sub-title of “conte populaire” was added (according to Parlett) to the manuscript in another’s hand, not by Bax. There are plenty of fine alternative, even recent, versions that make this of peripheral value. Much more interesting is the second premiere recording offered here of the 1926 setting of Thomas Hardy’s On the Bridge. Foreman describes this in the liner as a “light-hearted recital encore”.  The first performer was mezzo-soprano Anne Thursfield and clearly the text is written from a female perspective. Again Foreman rightly points to Bax’s “spritely straight-forward setting” which is wholly apt for Hardy’s folksong-like narrative. More intriguing as both text and setting is Watching the Needleboats at San Sabba which is one of Bax’s most concentrated yet elusive songs. Written in 1932, it proved to be one of his last songs despite the fact he would live for another twenty years. The words are by James Joyce and Bax achieves a clarity and precision here that is somehow more reminiscent of French song writers of the period rather than the expected Baxian “Brazen Romantic”. This setting was part of “The Joyce Book” where 13 composers set the 13 poems from Joyce’s “Pomes Penyeach”. These poems are describes online as having “a greater intensity, directness, and economy of language [that is] at once more concrete in their imagery and impressionistic in their feeling.”  That description could equally apply to Bax’s setting. There appears to be a Musical Heritage Society LP version of the song released in 1987 by bass Myron Myers and Erik Levi (better known as a writer on music rather than a performer) that I have not heard.

In isolation both of these two songs are a welcome addition to the Bax current discography although that welcome must be tempered by the general concerns expressed above.  Jeremy Huw Williams is also listed as the producer of this disc which, while it underlines his commitment to this project, I think is rarely a preferable option in the recording studio.  A producer can offer a perspective – technical and musical – that a performer immersed in the actual music might not perceive. I still struggle to believe that the final sound as produced here is something that producer or engineer (Wiley Ross) believe to best represent their work.  As ever, EM Records’ presentation is first rate. Given that so many Bax songs still wait to be heard and better-known, it is a shame that this new disc can only be given such a guarded welcome.

Nick Barnard

Other review: Paul Corfield Godfrey

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Contents
The Blessed Damozel (1906)
A Milking Sian (1907)
The White Peace (1907)
Shieling Song (1908)
To Eire (1910)
Roundel (1914)
Parting (1916)
Far in a Western Brookland (1918)
Folk-Tale for Cello & Piano (1918)
Jack and Jone (1918)
When I was One-and-Twenty (1918)
The Market Girl (1922)
Rann of Exile (1922)
Rann of Wandering (1922)
I Heard a Soldier (1924)
In the Morning (1926)
On the Bridge (1926)
Watching the Needleboats at San Sabba (1931)