One of Britain's most influential composers and a favourite of the royal court, Sir Arnold Bax had another life as a would-be Irish nationalist poet, writes Petroc Trelawny
Sir Arnold Bax wanted to die in Glencolumcille, Co Donegal. "I fancy that my last vision in this life will be the still brooding, dove-grey mystery of the Atlantic at twilight," he said. He was seduced by the remote settlement, the savagery of the sea in winter, the rugged cliffs that stretch away from the houses, the live music he heard in Paddy John McNelis's pub.
Trad players were gathering outside another pub when I visited the Co Donegal village last month, recording a BBC radio documentary. Bax's beloved beach was filled with sunburnt families, many of them day-trippers from Derry and Belfast whose journeys had been much simpler than his tortuous route via the Donegal Light Railway. The heat was breaking records, the sea absolutely flat, but it was not hard to imagine the potential fury of the waves, crashing hundreds of feet up the face of Glen Head. The natural beauty, and the sympathetic welcome Bax received from the villagers ensured that he returned year after year, later writing: "I came to know the people as I never knew any other community."
He died 50 years ago this autumn, not in the north, but in the south, suffering a fatal heart attack at a friend's house in Cork. At his burial in St Finbarr's Cemetery, the mourners included academics from across the country, even the city engineer, representing the Corporation.
Bax was an important man, and there was almost an element of pride that he died in the city. Headlines in yellowing newspaper articles proclaimed the death of the "Master of the Queen's Music". Subsequent reports dwell on his love of Ireland, his honorary degree presented by the NUI in 1947, his work as judge of Cork's Father Mathew Feis.
In the first half of the 20th century Bax was one of the most influential composers in Britain. His symphonies and tone poems, including Tintagel and The Garden of Fand, were staple concert hall fare. He was an establishment figure, knighted for his services and appointed Master of Music to King George VI, briefly holding the same position at the court of Queen Elizabeth II. The obituary writers dwelt on his musical legacy. Few explored the other side of Bax - his life as an Irish poet, writing under the pseudonym Dermot O'Byrne.
It was poetry that brought Bax to Ireland in the first place. He came from an upper-middle-class London family and was already on the way to making his mark as a composer when, in 1902, he stumbled across a copy of W.B. Yeats's The Wanderings of Oisin. The effect was electric.
"In a moment the Celt within me stood revealed," he wrote in his autobiography. "I knew that I too must follow Oisin and Niamh." His prose became even more flowery once he had made his first journey across the Irish sea. "I do not think I saw the men and women passing me on the roads as real figures of flesh and blood . . . even Dublin itself seemed peopled by gods and heroic shapes from the dim past."
Arriving as a 19-year-old, Bax immediately felt Ireland to be his spiritual home, and he returned again and again for the rest of his life.
Each time he arrived at Rosslare or Dún Laoghaire - Kingstown as it still was when he first landed - he "sloughed off the Englishman as a snake its skin in the spring". He learnt Irish, and absorbed himself in Celtic myths and legends, soon beginning to write poetry and short stories, using his newly adopted pen name. Faded volumes of his work, published in Dublin in the 1910s, are filled with rich and romantic writing, dealing with handsome young warriors and red-headed maidens.
While his early work was very much of its time, later his imagination was fired by Ireland's fight for independence, the events of 1916 provoking him to write poetry of much greater significance.
Bax remained a visitor until 1911, when he finally settled for several years, renting a grand Dublin villa on Bushy Park Road in Rathgar.
AE, George Russell, the poet, academic and revolutionary agrarian economist, lived just a few streets away, and Bax was soon welcomed into his literary circle.
He became a regular at AE's Sunday night soirées, delighted that the other people there were only interested in him as a writer. Few knew he was also a composer. Sitting in front of the fire, he was introduced to Padraic Colum and Thomas MacDonagh, and on one occasion Padraig Pearse.
The two men talked about Connemara and poetry, and as Pearse left he whispered to a friend: "I think Bax may be one of us. I should like to see him again."
By the time they met, Bax had known Ireland for more than a decade, and had become deeply engaged with the romanticism of the search for political freedom. Pearse's comment was the affirmation Bax had been waiting for; he felt he had been accepted by a man he regarded as a visionary.
Like his other hero, Yeats, Bax was not in Ireland during Easter 1916; he was staying in the English Lake District. But the Rising and its aftermath dramatically improved Bax's skill as a poet. His response was a short collection called A Dublin Ballad. The title poem, later described by Yeats as a "masterpiece", opens:
O write it up above your hearth/
And troll it out to sun and moon,/
To all true Irishmen on earth/
Arrest and death come late or soon.
It pulls no punches, going on to describe the "unarmed Irish gentlemen" who provide targets for "Tommies up before the lark/At rifle practice in the yard".
'The East Clare Election' evokes the parliamentarians of "the dark House of Lies on Thames" oppressing Irish culture and language:
You filched from us our ancient speech,/
Nurse of our laughter and our tears,/
And bade us learn the yap and screech/
Of journalists and pamphleteers.
Another poem pays a long, loving tribute to Pearse, evoking his last moments at Kilmainham Gaol, and recalling his dreamy demeanour by Dublin fireplaces in calmer days. The work's subtitle, describing Pearse as "ruler of Ireland for one week", ensured that the collection attracted the attentions of the British military censor. The volume was immediately banned. Bax, it was said, was potentially guilty of sedition.
But the printing machines of the Candle Press in Dublin had already managed to produce 300 copies, which immediately became highly sought-after.
The anniversary of Bax's death has prompted something of a revival of his music. The Queen heard his tone poem, 'November Woods', when she made a rare visit to the Proms in London last month. I couldn't help wondering if she had any idea that the man whose music she was listening to was once accused of writing verse that posed a threat to her grandfather's rule.
Arnold Bax's reputation deservedly comes from his symphonies, orchestral poems and chamber music, but the poetry he wrote as Dermot O'Byrne does not deserve its present obscurity.
The Real O'Byrne, presented by Petroc Trelawny and produced in Belfast by Marie Claire Doris, is broadcast on BBC Radio Three tomorrow at 5.45 p.m.
The poetry can be found in Ideala: Love Letters and Poems of Arnold Bax, edited by Colin Scott-Sutherland and published by Fand Music Press (UK, 2001).
The Ulster Orchestra Bax Anniversary Concert is on October 3rd in the Ulster Hall, Belfast. The NSOI will play Bax's tone poem, Tintagel, at the NCH, Dublin on October 17th.