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Arnold Bax

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Composer

The Resume

    (November 8, 1883-October 3, 1953)
    Born in London, United Kingdom
    Works include seven symphonies (1921-39), four piano sonatas (1910-32), the ballet 'The Truth About the Russian Dance' (1920), and the tone poems 'The Garden of Fand' (1916), 'November Woods' (1917), and 'Tintagel' (1919)
    Composed the score for David Lean's 'Oliver Twist' (1948)
    Appointed Master of the Kings Music (1942-53)
    Knighted (1937)

Why he might be annoying:

    During World War I, he left his wife and children for pianist Harriet Cohen.
    A decade later, he began another long-term affair with Mary Gleaves, a woman twenty years younger than him. (And about a decade younger than Cohen.)
    He composed little in his last years, saying, 'I have said all I have to say and it is of no use to repeat myself.'
    His music fell out of fashion after his death, with the tone poem 'Tintagel' the only one of his compositions to be played with any frequency for decades.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He became interested in Celtic culture after hearing the poems of W.B. Yeats.
    He wrote a march for Queen Elizabeth II's coronation.
    Composer Eric Coates wrote, 'Whichever instrument he wrote for, it was as if he played that instrument himself, so well did he seem to write for it.'
    He called himself 'a brazen romantic -- by which I mean my music is the expression of emotional states. I have no interest whatever in sound for its own sake, or in modernist isms or factions.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying