Living up to it's reputation of presenting music that is out of the ordinary and off the beaten track, SOMM Recordings is releasing Wood on the Tracks with Cellophonics, four of the UK's finest cellists who have been expanding the repertoire with a growing list of exciting new works and rediscovered lost masterpieces. The quartet-Christopher Allan, Adrian Bradbury, Ian Burdge, and Ben Rogerson-having gathered a whole concert's worth of commissions and discoveries, was invited by SOMM to record this debut album. Wood on the Tracks includes first recordings of works commissioned from Simon Baggs, Guy Barker, Roderick Elms, Julia Simpson, and Rowland Sutherland-recorded in the presence of the composers-and forgotten gems by William Alwyn, York Bowen, and Marie Dare. The works by Alwyn and Bowen are also first recordings. Amongst the forgotten gems is the first work on the programme, Suite for Four Cellos, by composer-pianist York Bowen (1884-1961). The parts and full score of the suite were discovered in manuscript by Ben Rogerson in the music library of his late grandfather Haydn Rogerson, one-time principal cello of the Halle Orchestra. Another rediscovery is a set of Two Irish Tunes for Cello Quartet by flautist, teacher, and composer William Alwyn (1905-1985). These had their first performance in 1933 in the Lecture Hall at the Royal Academy of Music, where Alwyn was a professor of composition. The third rediscovery comes from the most significant Scottish-born cellist-composer of her day, Marie Dare (1902-1976). Her distinctive set of works for cello includes Six Pieces for Cello Quartet. From these, Cellophonics performs IV. Aria. The first commissioned work on this programme is a Divertimento for Cello Quartet by Roderick Elms, who writes: 'I wanted to explore the wonderfully lush textures available for four cellos, and this approach is evident in the lyrical central section.' This is offset by rhythmic, somewhat jazz-influenced outer sections. A commission from wide-ranging composer Julia Simpson is Mariposa, which traces the incredible four-generation journey of migration made each year by the monarch butterfly, from Canada to the mountains of western Mexico and back. The multi-gifted Rowland Sutherland is a poet as well as a musician, and his poem HOPE-composed in Japanese haibun style-lends it's name and theme to the work he wrote for Cellophonics. The title work, Wood on the Tracks, is by trumpeter and composer Guy Barker, who says it was only after he completed the work that he realized he had written a piece about trains. The program ends with Soliloquy by conductor, composer, and violinist Simon Baggs. He writes, 'Although written for four cellos, the work stands as the utterance of one voice.'

Dr. Jerzy Kosmala, internationally acclaimed as a concert violist and pedagogue, has concertized throughout Europe, the former Soviet Union, Canada, North and South America, Asia, and South Africa, and has recordings on several record labels. He is a frequent guest artist and performer at the world's foremost Festivals, International Viola Congresses, Universities and Academies, and is a permanent jury member of virtually all of the most prestigious international competitions, including the Lionel Tertis, Geneva, Munich, Markneukirchen, Trapani, Primrose Viola Competition, Brahms Viola Competition, and the Concert Artist Guild International Competition in New York City.

York Bowen has a distinguished reputation as a composer and was considered to be one of Britain's finest pianists. In his day he was known as 'The English Rachmaninoff', and Saint-Saëns described him as 'the most remarkable of the young British composers'. The works of York Bowen tend to display a blend of romanticism and strong individuality, and although his influences include the likes of Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Grieg, and Tchaikovsky, his music is also strongly defined by textures and harmonies that are uniquely 'Bowen'. This recording presents the only two surviving symphonies by Bowen: Symphony No. 1 and Symphony No. 2, which are performed here by the BBC Philharmonic under the exclusive Chandos artist Sir Andrew Davis. Symphony No. 1 was written in 1902 when Bowen was an eighteen-year-old composition student at the Royal Academy of Music. The work is laid out in only three movements (unusual for the time), and requires a relatively modest orchestra. It is a deeply impressive achievement - the beauty and lyricism of the second movement and its myriad of orchestral colourations, together with a unique and often surprising sense of well-being in the finale, demonstrate that here is a genuinely symphonic composer who was not content just to copy established models and appease his professors. At least one movement of this symphony was performed during Bowen's time at the academy, but this recording may well be the first time that the work has been performed in its entirety. When Bowen composed his Symphony No. 2 just seven years after completing his first, much had happened in the world of modern music, not least in instrumental terms with the acceptance of large orchestras as standard. As a result this work is much larger in scale than his first symphony, and performed with significantly larger instrumental forces too. The finale in particular is spectacular in the way it develops from the tiniest semi-tonal seed into a fiery and almost unstoppable flood of 'Bowen-esque' inventiveness. This symphony is the work of an assured composer who was completely certain in his music's sense of direction and in the positive and life-affirming nature of his compositions.

Classical Music

The four-disc re-release of York Bowen’s Works for Piano is performed by the Dutch pianist Joop Celis. Gramophone Magazine described Volume II as “triumphant… not a single piece on this excellently recorded disc could be in more sensitive hands.”

York Bowen was described by Saint-Saëns as ‘the most remarkable of the young British composers’. His 24 Preludes form a sequence of concise, richly expressive and directly communicative studies. The Berceuse, Op. 83 ranks amongst Bowen’s most intimate scores, while the sophisticated Suite Mignonne demands the most delicate of touches from the pianist.

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REVIEW:

The exquisite Berceuse and the Barcarolle from the Op 30 Suite could hardly be given more insinuatingly, and when you hear Ortiz in the ‘Moto perpetuo’ from the Suite mignonne you will marvel at such musical empathy, backed by an immaculate dexterity. A more endearing case for Bowen would be hard to imagine.

– Gramophone

Described by Saint-Saëns as "the most remarkable of the young British composers," York Bowen was widely known as a pianist and as a composer, his fame reaching its zenith in the years immediately preceding the First World War. The writer and composer Thomas Dunhill described Bowen’s chamber music as "an essentially healthy and breezy phase in modern art." This is especially true of the 1922 Carnegie Trust Award-winning Second Quartet, and while both quartets are based on clear-cut classical models the Third is more elusive and intimate in feeling, revealing the composer’s rarely displayed private side. The atmospheric Phantasy-Quintet provides a rare opportunity to hear the beauty of the bass clarinet in a truly eloquent and expressive soloist capacity.

Posterity likes to play with labels that are supposed to characterize lesser-known composers: "The Catholic Bach" (Zelenka), "The Spanish Mozart" (Arriaga) - and "The English Rachmaninoff" with which the English pianist and composer York Bowen (1884-1961) was labeled. Nuron Mukumi presents his 24 Preludes op.102 here on PROSPERO. Indeed, one is immediately fascinated by this music, which is anything but a Rachmaninoff copy, but rather cultivates a style all of it's own. And one wonders: how could this music be so easily forgotten?

William Walton and Edwin York Bowen are among the composers who were hardly able to achieve a lasting international breakthrough. The viola also has a similar role to play. It's qualities were simply ignored by many composers, and the solo and concert repertoire for this instrument is correspondingly small. It is thanks to the English violist Lionel Tertis who was famous at the time that Bowen and Walton wrote the concertos featured on this album. The result is an important addition not only to the viola repertoire, but also for all lovers of classical music. The violist Diyang Mei, first principal violist of the Berliner Philharmoniker, has been steadily advancing his international career since his brilliant success at the coveted ARD International Music Competition in 2018. He has already performed as a soloist with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the SWR Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Munich Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie as well as at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, the Schwetzingen SWR Festival, the Black Forest Music Festival and the Mozart Festival in Wurzburg. His conductor is none other than Brett Dean, who enjoys an international reputation as a violist, composer and conductor.

A unique and imaginative collection newly recorded by a recent star of the Van Cliburn Piano Competition. Anna Geniushene’s fresh; layered; and powerful interpretations won her a worldwide following at the 2022 edition of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition; where she took Silver Medal with a stunning account of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto which the critic for Gramophone compared in its power and nuance to Van Cliburn himself.

Born in Moscow; Anna Geniushene pursued graduate studies in London and now lives in Lithuania with her husband; the pianist Lukas Geniusas. In her own booklet introduction; she explains the inspiration for this quirky collection of instrumental lullabies. The Berceuse is ‘associated with tenderness; care; purest love; and the most sensitive moments in our lives.’ She dedicates the album to her two young sons. Perhaps the most celebrated Berceuse of all; by Chopin; is missing; because it was Anna Geniushene’s particular wish to find and share neglected examples of the genre; even by well-known composers. Debussy composed the Berceuse heroique during the First World War as a tribute to the soldiers on the Western Front. The Berceuse Elegiaque of Busoni is better known in its orchestral guise. The brief Berceuse by Hindemith; unpublished in his lifetime; ‘draws listeners’ attention by its utterly eloquent and typically sarcastic character; which has nothing in common with traditional lullabies.’ The sheer diversity of composers makes for a continually varied sequence. George Crumb evokes a magical night-time stillness with a minimum of notes. Mompou’s Berceuse is likewise remarkable for its distilled serenity; whereas the examples by Granados; John Field and Liszt bring comfort with more Romantically moulded melodies in the tradition of Chopin. Anna Geniushene closes the album with two Russian Berceuses; by Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky; lyrical; simple and utterly beguiling in her hands.

For his second album for Chandos, the flute virtuoso Adam Walker explores the music of British composers with pianist Huw Watkins. Vaughan Williams’s Suite de ballet was commissioned by the French flute virtuoso Louis Fleury (who had given the première of Debussy’s Syrinx). The work uses eighteenth-century French dance forms, a common practice in ‘neo-classical’ composition. Bax’s Four Pieces rescue music from an abandoned ballet originally conceived for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Sir Lennox Berkeley’s Sonatina was originally written for treble recorder; James Galway’s championship of the piece made it a staple of the flute repertoire. Howard Fergusson’s Three Sketches were composed intermittently over a period of twenty years. The theme of the third piece is a Hindu melody, ‘Koyalinya bole ambuvan’ (Cuckoos sing in the mango tree). Sonatas by York Bowen and William Alwyn complete this varied and engaging program.

REVIEW:

Seventy-seven minutes of British music for flute and piano might at first glance seem like 40 minutes too much. But that ’s without taking on board the nimble and dazzling skills of flautist Adam Walker, or the individual strengths of the works presented...a new pleasure is never far away in this most accomplished recital, full of the sounds of spring.

-- BBC Music Magazine

In this wonderfully planned programme the whimsical poetry of York Bowen's Hans Andersen 'fragments'-music for a fully-fledged technique, despite the fairy-tale titles-is pleasingly complemented by the bravura of the studies. Nicolas Namoradze proves more than equal to the demands of both.