Bax, Arnold

Arnold Edward Trevor Bax – November Woods. Tone Poem

(b. Streatham, 8 November 1883 – d. Cork, 3 October 1953)

Bax wrote several tone poems inspired by woodlands, but November Woods, from 1917, is perhaps the finest. He said that it arose from “certain rather troublous [sic] experiences I was going through myself at the time”. By this, he almost certainly meant his stormy relationship with the pianist Harriet Cohen, though he added that the work “may be taken as an impression of the dank and stormy music of nature in the late autumn”.

November Woods is scored for large orchestra, with triple wind, two harps and celesta, but Bax uses it with great delicacy and subtlety throughout. As in Mahler, the orchestra rarely plays all together. Further, Bax had been friendly with George Butterworth (who died in 1916) and admired his Rhapsody: “A Shropshire Lad”, which is scored with similar subtlety and uses as large an orchestra. The work is in sonata form though the exposition is extended beyond the usual, the opening theme giving a strong hint of the chromaticism to come – in fact, the exposition contains so many extended musings on the themes that the development section is largely superfluous, and is consequently kept rather short, although it allows the recapitulation to swell to a great climax before subsiding to the opening material.

November Woods was first performed on 18 November 1920 by the Hallé Orchestra, conducted by Hamilton Harty.

Phillip Brookes, 2025

Performance material is available from Warner Chappell Music (https://warnerchappell.com).

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