Tintagel (Bax)

He aimed, he said, to offer an impression of the cliffs and castle of Tintagel and the sea "on a sunny but not windless summer day", and to reflect some of the literary and traditional associations of the scene.

The Musical Times reported: On October 20 interest was chiefly centred in …the actual first performance of a new composition by Arnold Bax, entitled Tintagel.

"A wailing chromatic figure is heard and gradually dominates the music", at which point Bax quotes a theme from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde (a work set in and off the coast of Cornwall).

There follows what Bax called "a great climax suddenly subsiding", which is followed by a passage intended to convey the impression of "immense waves slowly gathering force until they smash themselves upon the impregnable rocks".

The theme of the sea is repeated, and the work ends with the return of the opening image of "the castle still proudly fronting the sun and wind of centuries".