Bax String Quartets by Maggini Quartet

Bax String Quartets: Light and Shadow

Arnold Bax’s chamber music remains one of the more curious byways of British repertoire—works of genuine substance that never quite caught fire with audiences, perhaps because they demand something more than casual listening. This Naxos disc, pairing the First and Second String Quartets with the estimable Maggini Quartet, makes a compelling case that we’ve been missing something.

The First Quartet (1918) arrives as a shock. Here we are, mired in the final blood-soaked months of the Great War, and Bax produces this sun-drenched, life-affirming work that seems to exist in a different universe entirely. Was he in denial? Seeking refuge? The music doesn’t answer—it simply dances and sings with an almost reckless generosity of spirit. The opening movement has that peculiar Baxian shimmer, harmonies that catch the light at unexpected angles, melodies that seem to tumble forth fully formed. There’s Dvořák here, certainly, but filtered through a specifically Celtic sensibility, all those modal inflections and restless chromatic shifts.

The Magginis understand this music from the inside. Listen to how they shape the long-breathed phrases in the slow movement, the way first violinist Laurence Jackson floats those high lines without a trace of effort while the inner voices create their own shadowy counterpoint. The recorded sound from Potton Hall captures every strand of the texture—you can hear the rosin on the bows, the slight catch as David Angel’s second violin enters at the start of the finale.

And that finale. What a piece of work. The main theme, introduced around 3:10, possesses one of those melodies that lodge in your brain and refuse to leave—dangerous territory for a string quartet, perhaps, but Bax gets away with it through sheer conviction. The Magginis take the tempo at quite a clip, and there’s a moment where you wonder if they’ll make the corner cleanly, but they do, and the music spins onward with infectious momentum.

The Second Quartet (1925) inhabits an entirely different sound world. This is knotty, complex music, contemporary with the Second Symphony and sharing that work’s vertical density, its tendency to pile up harmonic information until the ear struggles to process it all. Where the First Quartet wore its heart on its sleeve, the Second keeps its emotional cards close. The melodic material—and there is melodic material, despite first impressions—emerges grudgingly, embedded in chromatic thickets that require patient untangling.

I’m not entirely convinced by this piece, even after multiple hearings. The first movement’s restless modulations sometimes feel like motion for its own sake, and the slow movement, for all its intensity, lacks the kind of memorable thematic profile that might anchor the listener’s attention. The Magginis play with absolute commitment, but even they can’t quite make me love this music. Respect it, yes. Admire its craft, certainly. But love?

Still, there are moments. The scherzo has a spectral quality—those eerie harmonics and sul ponticello passages create genuine unease. And the finale, though it never quite coheres as a satisfying conclusion, contains pages of genuine power. The work makes me think of Eugene Goossens, another composer who sometimes let technical complexity override expressive necessity.

Lewis Foreman’s liner notes provide the usual scholarly grounding—facts, context, informed opinion. He doesn’t oversell the Second Quartet, which I appreciate.

The competition from Chandos offers different couplings: the First Quartet with the Piano Quartet and Harp Quintet, the Second with the Piano Quintet. Those are valuable discs, but the Naxos sound is cleaner, more present, and the Magginis bring an extra degree of finesse to the First Quartet’s quicksilver passagework.

This disc earns its place for the First Quartet alone—a work that deserves to be far better known than it is. The Second Quartet? Well, it’s there for those who want the complete picture. But that First Quartet… that’s the real discovery, a work of genuine joy and invention that somehow manages to transcend its historical moment entirely.

Strongly recommended for the First Quartet. The Second comes along for the ride.