An orchestral tone poem by the English composer Arnold Bax, composed in 1913 and orchestrated in 1916, published by Murdoch, Murdoch and Co. in 1922 and premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Frederick Stock on 29 October 1920. Bax's own prefatory note describes "the Garden of Fand" as the sea itself, over which a small boat drifts west from the shores of Ireland until a great wave casts it onto the shore of Fand's enchanted island, where the sea-goddess and her people dance and feast in an Otherworld outside ordinary time. The piece draws on the Irish saga "The Sick-Bed of Cuchulainn," in which the hero Cuchulainn is drawn away from the world of battle by Fand, wife of Manannan, lord of the ocean.
Facts
Production
Release Year Primary Artist / Composer Subject Matter
Religious Subject MatterFand, the sea-goddess of Irish/Celtic mythology and her enchanted Otherworld island: named unhedged as the work's own subject in the composer's own prefatory programme note. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Chicago directly: "in 1922 and premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Frederick Stock on 29 October 1920."
Belongs to Tradition
The composer's own prefatory programme note narrates the Irish saga of the sea-goddess Fand and names her, unhedged, as the enchanted subject of the piece; Fand is not yet modelled as a separate entity, so the claim is written to the tradition.
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