For stylistic reasons Bax is usually grouped with the "English pastoralist" composers. But his ardent, surging romanticism makes him really quite another matter when it comes to his more emotional pieces. Bax was drawn to the wild northwestern coasts of Britain and Ireland, where the Atlantic Ocean, in his words "an enormous grey allurement, tender and terrible, " meets ragged rocks in a clash now drowsy, sometimes crashingly violent. This symphony was completed in 1930, following a stay at Morar on Scotland's west coast. Significantly, this location was associated with Mary Gleaves, Bax's girlfriend from 1928 until his death; the initial stages of a love affair often inspired Bax's most powerful writing. The symphony is one of Bax's happiest and yet most passionate works, and the sound of the sea is never long absent. More than forty minutes long, the work is in three large movements. The symphony opens in an Allegro moderato tempo with arrestingly powerful, surging music on full orchestra, complete with deep tones from an organ. Bax groups themes together here; the first group's themes all seem to reflect the sea. The second group of themes comprises two slower tunes, wherein Bax reveals his penchant for delicate scoring effects. The moods of these themes shift throughout: for instance, the lively first-group theme with a Scottish snap to its rhythm later becames a long, simple tune. The second movement, Lento moderato, again evokes the sea in dreamy ebb and flow. Bax includes a lengthy quotation of his piano piece, "A Romance." The final movement, Allegro; Tempo di marcia trionfale is, indeed, a brazen, joyous march, almost barbaric at times, yet at other times subsiding with great orchestral mastery to delicate solos. Bax's music requires superior performing forces, particularly a conductor who can keenly balance the many subtle dynamic effects Bax employs. In the right hands, this is a symphony of rich, overwhelming splendor.

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