BAX: String Quartets nos. 1 and 2

Maggini Quartet

8.555282

When Bax came to write his first mature string quartet the war was in its last year, though curiously the quartet is a serene work and bears few overt influence of the times in which it was written. It is dated 1918 and was first performed by the Philharmonic Quartet at London’s Aeolian Hall on 7th June 1918. The Quartet is a work that was probably the best-known British chamber work between the wars, twice recorded on 78s, but subsequently largely forgotten. Bax wrote his second string quartet in the winter of 1924-25. It was first performed by the New Philharmonic Quartet at the Grotrian Hall, later the Steinway Hall, in London in a concert of Bax’s chamber music on 15th March 1927. It was published soon after, but, unlike the first quartet, was not widely performed. Written between the sketches and the orchestration of the despairing Second Symphony, the quartet seems to share its mood.

CD

Muzyka klasyczna

Naxos

20-11-2001

747313528226

Cannes Classical Awards: Winner (2012)