Irish Landscape (1913)

• This movement is from from 4 Orchestral Pieces, 1912-1913(aka 4 Orchestral Sketches, 4 Irish Pieces).¹
• It premiered in 1913 at the Proms, conducted by Bax.²
• Bax gave this movement the title “Irish Landscape” when he revised the suite as 3 Orchestral Pieces in 1928.³
• Listen for: an (original) theme Bax called “a long melody of folksong nature,” the opening of which first appeared as a romantic message in a letter Bax wrote to a girl friend c.1904.⁴

“I do not think I saw the men and women passing me on the roads as real figures of flesh and blood; I looked through them back to their archetypes, and even Dublin itself seemed peopled by gods and heroic shapes from the dim past.”

Sir Arnold Bax, on visiting Ireland⁵

1. Lewis Foreman, “Bax, Sir Arnold,” Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press, 2001), accessed July 18, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000002380.
2. Lewis Foreman, liner notes to Arnold Bax: Symphony no. 3, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Bryden Thomson, Chandos 8454, CD, 1986.
3. Lewis Foreman, liner notes to Bax: Symphony no. 6, Irish Landscape, Overture to Adventure, Rogue’s Comedy Overture, Overture: Work in Progress, New Philharmonia Orchestra, Norman Del Mar, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Vernon Handley, Lyrita SRCD.296, CD, 2007.
4. Ibid.
5. Lewis Foreman, “Sir Arnold Bax Music Festival 2019,” Australia Discovery Orchestra, accessed July 22, 2019, https://australiandiscoveryorchestra.com/sir-arnold-bax-music-festival/.