Newbee, you must be psychic. Ordered the exact Bax volume you mention a week and a half ago and it will arrive tomorrow.
Am having some fun in my mind comparing Stanford and Stenhammar. They are rough contemporaries, developed in similar fashions as musicians and composers, and wrote in the same genres (of the late romantic period).
So it is interesting that they are, to me, complete opposites. Stenhammar is the creative/innovative type who spent his life fine-tuning his compositional skill. So his music is fresh and exciting, and, occasionally, a bit rough.
By contrast, Stanford is the traditionalist whose writing skill always seems fully developed but the content may or may not strike you as exciting. It always sound "perfect" however.
So when you shift back and forth between the Stenhammar 1st piano concerto and Stanford’s 2nd, there are more differences than similarities.
BTW, think it was Stenhammar to whom Sibelius apparently dedicated the 6th symphony.
Am having some fun in my mind comparing Stanford and Stenhammar. They are rough contemporaries, developed in similar fashions as musicians and composers, and wrote in the same genres (of the late romantic period).
So it is interesting that they are, to me, complete opposites. Stenhammar is the creative/innovative type who spent his life fine-tuning his compositional skill. So his music is fresh and exciting, and, occasionally, a bit rough.
By contrast, Stanford is the traditionalist whose writing skill always seems fully developed but the content may or may not strike you as exciting. It always sound "perfect" however.
So when you shift back and forth between the Stenhammar 1st piano concerto and Stanford’s 2nd, there are more differences than similarities.
BTW, think it was Stenhammar to whom Sibelius apparently dedicated the 6th symphony.