BAX: Works for Cello and Piano
Lionel Handy, cello & Nigel Clayton, piano
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Review excerpts
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Bax isn’t necessarily an easy composer to understand as a listener or performer, but this recording really brings to life the music and demonstrates that it’s repertoire that should be more widely known. Handy and Clayton together create a clear path to some really touching and affecting moments in the music. |
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| —Amazon review (April 2013)
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Vintage Bax. Folk-Tale is a fine creation, while Rhapsodic Ballad for solo cello is an untypical rarity and pungently inventive. Exceptional performances. ★★★★★ |
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| —Malcolm Hayes, BBC Music Magazine (July 2013 p97)
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These excellently-recorded clean-cut performances… |
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| —Chris Bye, British Music News (issue 139 p109)
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Highly polished playing and a deep understanding of the composer’s complex scoring techniques relentlessly drives the Bax message home. |
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| —Chris Bye, British Music News (issue 139 p109)
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It’s clearly meat and drink to this highly professional duo… |
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| —Chris Bye, British Music News (issue 139 p109)
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The performances are excellent. Cellist Lionel Handy plays with full, rich tone and precise rhythmic control. He avoids excessive vibrato and the kind of nasal sound that can sometimes afflict cellists in high-lying passages. Nigel Clayton negotiates the demanding piano parts with precision and spontaneity. Sound quality is excellent as well, exemplary in spaciousness, clarity, focus, and smoothness. The piano tone is firm and well defined, and the acoustic has just the right amount of reverberation. |
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| —Daniel Morrison, Fanfare (37:3, Jan/Feb 2014)
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I strongly endorse the present release, for the excellence of its performances and sound quality and the value of this unfamiliar music. |
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| —Daniel Morrison, Fanfare (37:3, Jan/Feb 2014)
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…commanding playing and sympathetic performances lavished on these pieces by Lionel Handy and Nigel Clayton. |
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| —Jerry Dubins, Fanfare (37:3, Jan/Feb 2014)
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Handy deserves special commendation for the nerves of steel he displays in undertaking the solo cello Rhapsodic
Ballad. But the piano parts in the duo pieces also demand the highest level of technical skill, which Clayton amply possesses and demonstrates. |
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| —Jerry Dubins, Fanfare (37:3, Jan/Feb 2014)
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This excellent recording … the sound [of an alternative CD] cannot compete with the current Handy and Clayton disc. |
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| —Maria Nockin, Fanfare (37:3, Jan/Feb 2014)
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Handy and Clayton play this readily accessible three-movement work with floods of radiant tone and foot-tapping rhythms. |
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| —Maria Nockin, Fanfare (37:3, Jan/Feb 2014)
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Handy plays the Ballad with a wide range of dynamics and tonal color that suffuses his music with emotion. He energizes his artistry with conviction… |
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| —Maria Nockin, Fanfare (37:3, Jan/Feb 2014)
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[Lionel Handy] shows himself to be a superb solo performer … these are colorful and imaginative performances, technically assured [and] expert in their sense of ensemble… |
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| —Peter J. Rabinowitz, Fanfare (37:3, Jan/Feb 2014)
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This is unquestionably the most exciting new Bax disc to be released in quite some time. |
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| —Richard R. Adams, The Sir Arnold Bax Website
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…superlative performances of several lesser known Bax works by an artist who has obviously thought long and hard about how best to perform this music. |
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| —Richard R. Adams, The Sir Arnold Bax Website
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Anyone with an interest in 20th Century cello music should investigate this disc and in the process discover some of Bax’s most fascinating works – all performed and recorded here to perfection. |
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| —Richard R. Adams, The Sir Arnold Bax Website
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…compiles Bax’s most appealing works in the form in performances that are easily the equal and in many cases superior to the versions that have come before. |
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| —Richard R. Adams, The Sir Arnold Bax Website
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[The Folk-Tale presents] a melancholy but turbulent journey that Lionel Handy points up eloquently. He drifts magically into nothingness at the end. |
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| —Edward Bhesania, The Strad (September 2013)
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[The Rhapsodic Ballad creates] a gnarly interior dialogue, which Handy grapples with head-on, clearly laying out its dramatic profile. |
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| —Edward Bhesania, The Strad (September 2013)
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