Arnold Bax (1883-1953)
String Quartet No. 3 • Lyrical Interlude • Adagio ma non troppo

Quite how the Bax family came to be as well-off as they were is difficult to discover, for Bax’s father although a qualified barrister did not practise. Generally their good fortune has been ascribed to ownership of a plot of land in central London and an interest in the patent for Macintosh raincoats. In 1893 Alfred Ridley Bax purchased an imposing mansion, Ivybank, in Hampstead, for the then enormous sum of £10,075. It was 1896 before the family moved in, when it became the focus of the development of Arnold Bax and his brother Clifford, who was to become a celebrated writer and playwright, and Bax lived there until his marriage in 1911.

Bax’s early signs of musical talent were encouraged by his sympathetic and over-protective mother. She dominated life at Ivybank, which was to all intents and purposes a country house existence, Hampstead th