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Fand’s latest issue is another important and exciting one: the first edition of Sir Arnold Bax’s Nympholept, a poem for piano.
The title Nympholept refers to a person who suffers from nympholepsy, a state of rapture inspired by nymphs; the music is based on a poem of the same name by Swinburne about panic induced by noonday silence in the woods.
Bax himself also wrote a poem of the same title a few months before composing the piano piece, and he later orchestrated the music. Neither the original piano piece nor the orchestral version was performed in his lifetime, however.
As may be expected from its title and subject matter, the piece is a typically rhapsodic Baxian offering, and is a work of some considerable substance, lasting for over 10 minutes and making considerable technical demands of the pianist.
Though the following two CDs of cello works by Kodály and Carter/Messiaen/Martinů/Cutler are not Fand publications, we are delighted to stock and promote them to a wider audience. They join cellist Lionel Handy’s most recent CD, BAX: Works for Cello and Piano, which was originally launched through Fand. These three CDs represent Lionel Handy’s complete recordings to date.
Watch this space for a new CD from Lionel Handy and Nigel Clayton, featuring Martinů’s Cello Sonata no 2, John Barton Armstrong’s Cello Sonata and Peter Thompson’s Cello Sonatina…
Previous announcements may be found in the Fand News Archive.