How fitting for Bournemouth Chamber Music to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Sir Arnold Bax’s death by presenting two of his compositions: few people are aware of the strong associations which he had with the Bournemouth Orchestra and its conductors.

Sir Dan Godfrey was his greatest friend, and in 1906 Bax visited Bournemouth for a unique performance of An Irish Overture: the score was then lost!

He returned in 1921 to hear Sir Dan conduct Tintagel, which has remained in the Orchestra’s repertoire ever since.

Richard Austin, the dedicatee of Bax’s "Overture to Adventure", conducted its first performance in 1937. Ever shy, Arnold Bax accepted the applause from the rear balcony!

Christopher Whelen
Much later, when the young Christopher Whelen was Assistant Conductor of the BMO, he and Rudolph Schwarz revived several of Bax’s symphonic works. Lewis Foreman, the leading authority on Arnold Bax, has written never in his career had one orchestra devoted so much energy to him over so short a period”. Since there was no performing tradition on which to base his interpretations, Whelen contacted Bax. The two became firm pen friends.

Late in his life, Bax agreed to come down to stay with Whelen and attend a performance of his 6th Symphony. Whelen, who was only a student, decided that the only way to receive the Master of the King’s Musik, and a member of a very wealthy Surrey family, was to exhaust his funds by hiring the only Rolls-Royce and liveried driver in Bournemouth. At the end of a tortuous five-hour rail journey, Sir Arnold Bax arrived in his country tweeds and pork-pie hat, carrying an old suitcase tied together with string. Not imagining for a moment that the Rolls-Royce was for him, he enquired whether there was a bus to Parkstone.

Best Performance
Bax rated Whelen’s performance the best that he had heard of his 6th Symphony. Bax was helpful during the rehearsal, but we are left wondering to what extent his firmest advice to Whelen might have contributed to the success of the occasion: “Always wear a waistcoat. It will disguise your hip-flask of whisky – vital to get you through!”

He pressed Whelen to repeat it, but funding for his Assistant Conductor post had run out, and Whelen was forced to secure a job as conductor of a London Theatre Orchestra.

So Bournemouth gave the first and some of the last orchestral performances of Bax’s lifetime.