Composers and Authors
This extensive collection of poems by Bax and his alter ego Dermot O’Byrne, annotated copiously by Bax’s first biographer [Colin Scott-Sutherland] (Arnold Bax, Dent, 1973) and beautifully produced by Fand Music Press, illuminates those years of ardent youth to which he said ‘farewell’ in his autobiography of 1943. The collection includes a 30-page memoir of Arnold and his brother Clifford by their tutor, Francis Colmer, especially written for Scott-Sutherland, and derives its title not only from an early setting of Bjornson – published as
The Flute
(1923) – but evoking the ideal love of Bax’s many romantic liaisons. Its theme became Bax’s for life: pursuit of unattainable beauty: romantic and realistic.
—
Ronald Stevenson
,
International Piano Quarterly
Click the quotation text to discover what it refers to!
Andrew McBirnie
