Although the Fourth cannot be numbered among the best of the Bax symphonies (it is arguably the least concentrated and most hedonistic of the seven), Bryden Thomson's LP with the Ulster Orchestra must have already won it many friends and this CD will win it even more. It is quite simply one of the very best CDs I have heard so far, and has an altogether striking presence and vivid detail that does full justice to Bax's sumptuous orchestral textures and opulent sonorities.
Bryden Thomson and the Ulster Orchestra have earned much praise for their earlier Chandos recording of Bax tone poems—November Woods, The Garden of Fand, Summer Music and The Happy Forest—which in its CD form on CHAN8307 (1/84) collected golden opinions both in these columns and elsewhere. Discussing that Compact Disc, MEO wrote of the ''finely calculated and highly individual character of Bax's orchestration'' being ''more evident than I have ever heard it outside the concert hall''—though I must say opportunities of encountering it there are hardly legion! This CD of the Fourth Symphony and Tintagel deserves an enthusiastic welcome and is a demonstration disc, even by the high standards Chandos have established in this field.
