Arnold Bax ‒ In a Vodka Shop

Arnold Bax (1883 - 1953), In a Vodka Shop (1915) Performed by Ashley Wass In a Vodka Shop was one of three pieces Bax wrote in a two-week period early in 1915 for Harriet Cohen, a young pianist whom he had met not long before and with whom he had a long romantic and artistic relationship. It was not Cohen, however, but Myra Hess to whom Bax dedicated In a Vodka Shop and who gave the work its first performance, on April 29, 1915, at the Grafton Galleries. A subsequent performance in May at Bechstein Hall not only brought Hess much acclaim but won a glowing review from composer Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock), who called In a Vodka Shop “uproarious“ and “stimulating.“ Four years later Bax revisited the piece, arranging it (along with Gopak and May Night in the Ukraine) for orchestra to serve as an interlude during the 1919 season of Sergei Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet. The orchestral version was given its premiere under Ernest Ansermet’s direction on July 25, 1919, at th