BBCSO/Oramo review – surging Bax and intense Elgar

Barbican, London
Sakari Oramo kept Bax’s colours crystalline and delivered a fine Elgar First while Brett Dean showed the lyrical power of his Viola ConcertoDiehard admirers of Arnold Bax’s music maintain that he is one of the neglected greats of 20th-century British music, a composer whose time will come again. More sceptical admirers find that some of his works, the symphonies particularly, never quite deliver on what they promise, and that the best of Bax is to be found in some of