Bax: Symphony No. 5; The Tale the Pine-Trees Knew

Yet another British music triumph for Naxos, David Lloyd-Jones, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Bearing a dedication to Sibelius, the fifth symphony of 1932 is one of Bax's most personal, closely reasoned utterances, its bardic splendor, slumbering tragedy, and epic thrust all most convincingly conveyed here. Not only is Lloyd-Jones scrupulously faithful to both the letter and spirit of the score, but he also has the happy knack of alighting on precisely the right tempo, and he never allows Bax's argument to sag in the way that occasionally afflicts Bryden Thomson's rival interpretation with the London Philharmonic for Chandos. What's more, he encourages some sensitive and sprightly playing from the RSNO (which certainly seems to enjoy making this mighty work's acquaintance). Completed the year before the symphony, the wintry tone poem The Tale the Pine-Trees Knew makes an apt coupling. Lloyd-Jones's performance possesses a clean-limbed vigor that contrasts strikingly with Thomson's more leisurely, wonderfully atmospheric view on Chandos. Astonishingly, Naxos has been sitting on these fine recordings for more than four years; let's just hope we don't have to wait as long again for future installments in Lloyd-Jones's absorbing Bax series. --Andrew Achenbach