Bax - Tintagel


Tintagel is a tone poem completed in 1919 by British composer Arnold Bax (1883 - 1953). It is clearly his most famous tone poem, and also in my opinion one of the best. Bax stated that the piece "is intended to evoke...the castle-crowned cliff of Tintagel, and more particularly the wide distances of the Atlantic as seen from the cliffs of Cornwall on a sunny but not windless summer day." The average playing time is 14 minutes (AllMusic). My version is by the Ulster Orchestra under Bryden Thomson on a Chandos CD.