Symphonic Variations (GP210) is the closest Bax came to writing a piano concerto. But although this work prominently features a solo piano, it does not follow the concerto form that Bax utilised in the Violin or Cello concertos, preferring in place a Theme and Seven Variations (the 6th being an Intermezzo and unnamed as a variation as such). The 'Theme' actually posits two thematic cores; one is taken from a song he had composed the previous year called Parting. The structure of the work is archlike and of two equal halves separated by a slight pause. The variations are wildly different to one another with only tenuous links between them at times, but this enables the piano to explore the full musical opportunity while preventing the 50-minute work from sounding overly-long. 

Bax wrote the work for a young Harriet Cohen; her hand span of barely an octave probably made this work extremely difficult for her. The autograph manuscript is littered with tempo alterations in the hand of Sir Henry Wood (the premiering conductor) slowing down any particularly chordal sections. However, the premiere was a roaring success and helped launch Harriet Cohen's career as one of the eminent piano virtuosos of England; it also cemented Bax's reputation as a highly gifted and capable composer, and many more masterpieces would flow from his pen over the next decades. Cohen and Wood would later insist on cutting the First Variation and much of the Fifth Variation. This, and Cohen's insistence that it was ‘her’ piece, meant that no other pianist played the work until Joyce Hatto did after Cohen's death. After that there have been few performances but thankfully the piece has been recorded several times.

During the Second World War, the autograph manuscript was caught in a conflagration at Cohen's house in London, and much of the end of the piece was destroyed. Thankfully an alternative manuscript was found and a patch job was made. However, the poor state of the music caused great consternation at the 2008 recording session with Ashley Wass (pno.), James Judd (c.), and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra as the score still had burn marks and much of the rearmost pages were installed in plastic booklets to prevent them crumbling further. Quite why Chappell (later Warner Chappell, and later distributed by Faber) though this was acceptable, I don't know, but it was one of the driving factors behind this new edition.