Arnold Bax

Arnold Bax was a Londoner with a private income, which meant he never had to hold a teaching post or church job and could write exactly what he pleased. What pleased him, after he discovered the poetry of Yeats as a young man, was Ireland: he spent long stretches there, learned the language, and even published stories and verse under the Irish pen name Dermot O'Byrne.

His music is lush and stormy, full of sea and landscape. He wrote seven symphonies and a series of orchestral tone poems, pieces that paint a scene or mood rather than follow a strict form. Late in life he was appointed Master of the King's Music, the British court's official composer. He died in Ireland in 1953.

Start with Tintagel, his picture of the castle ruins and Atlantic swell on the Cornish coast. If that lands, the Symphony no. 3 is a good next step.