Tintagel

• Arnold Bax composed his tone poem Tintagel in 1917-19. This is one of several nature-themed tone poems Bax composed during the First World War.²
• Tintagel Castle is an ancient Cornish ruin traditionally associated with the legend of King Arthur.
• This work premiered on Oct. 20, 1921, by the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra, conducted by Dan Godfrey.³
• Bax’s score carried the dedication, “For Darling Tania with love from Arnold.” “Tania” was Bax’s pet name for concert pianist Harriet Cohen, his former piano student, with whom he was having an affair. The tone poem contains reference to Wagner’s music for Tristan und Isolde, which is set in Arthurian legend–and which is also a tale of forbidden love.⁴

“This work is only in the broadest sense programme music. The composer’s intention is simply to offer a tonal impression of the castle-crowned cliff of (now sadly degenerate) Tintagel, and more especially of the long distances of the Atlantic, as seen from the cliffs of Cornwall on a sunny, but not windless, summer day.”

From Arnold Bax’s program note to Tintagel. His entire program note is quoted here.⁵

1. Ibid.
2. Lewis Foreman, “Bax, Sir Arnold,” Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press, 2001), accessed January 13, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000002380.
3.  Graham Parlett, liner notes to Bax: Symphony No. 7 / Tintagel, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, David Lloyd-Jones, Naxos 8.557145, CD, 2003.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.