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.

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?

Bowen, Y.: Viola Concerto, Op. 25 / Viola Sonata No. 2

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.

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.

BOWEN Clarinet Sonata 1. Rhapsody Trio . Piano Trio in d. Phantasy Quintet. 2 Piano Trio in e • Robert Plane ( 1 cl, 2 bs cl); Gould Pn Tr; 1 Benjamin Frith (pn); 2 Mia Cooper (vn); 2 David Adams (va) • CHANDOS 10805 (78:29)

The superbly crafted and imaginative music of York Bowen is given lively and imaginative performances here by the Gould Piano Trio (whose individual members are also heard separately in the various other pieces on this disc) with clarinetist Robert Plane. I was previously familiar with the Rhapsody Trio and Phantasy Quintet, but not with the clarinet sonata or the other two piano trios given here (one with an opus number of 118, the other an early, unfinished sketch from 1900 when the composer was only 16 years old). For those who have heard Bowen’s music—and like it (not necessarily the same people)—the excellence of his scores will need little introduction. For those who have not yet heard him, his music, though resolutely tonal and in a pre-Stravinsky and pre-serial style, is highly imaginative and extremely well developed. Bowen seemed incapable of writing anything banal, a quality that attracted even the normally churlish Kaikhosru Sorabji, who hailed his writing for piano as being among the very finest of his time (this was in the 1930s and 40s, by which point most of the world had stopped paying attention to Bowen). His music is “out there” in terms of sheer invention and imagination; he could create superb moods, and was often much better than such contemporaries as Vaughan Williams in sustaining them. I think that, perhaps, one reason why Bowen was marginalized (aside from his penchant for tonality) was the fact that he only wrote for piano, either alone or in chamber music situations and three concertos.

Despite Chandos’s penchant for overly roomy sonics, this is a splendid disc, and in fact the piano is (thankfully, since it is the dominant voice in all of these works) well miked. This gives these performances bite and drive when called for, yet the spaciousness is there when atmosphere is required. And, frankly, I cannot say enough about the Gould Trio or their performances of this music. They are exultant, soaring, absolutely committed to bringing out the best in these scores and usually succeeding. I especially liked the “bite” of Lucy Gould’s violin in the Rhapsody Trio ; she manages to plunge the very soul of the music, and yet her tone never becomes shrill but, rather, sinks into a plangent mid-range beauty much like the playing of Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg. Just listen, for instance, to the way this trio ebbs and flows in their presentation of the music; it practically takes wing and flies. Truthfully, it’s even better than the groundbreaking recording (on the Dutton label) by violinist Krysia Osostowicz, cellist Jane Salmon, and pianist Michael Dussek, and no, that is not intended as a slur on the latter trio’s abilities. The Gould Trio quite simply blows them away, but only because there is now a tradition for playing York Bowen while, in Osostowicz’s time, it was fairly new material to younger musicians.

As it turns out, the early, unfinished piano trio from 1900 (of which this is the premiere recording) is a very fine piece. You’d have a difficult time guessing that it was written by a 16-year-old composition/piano student, so strong is its form and imaginative in scope, and once again the Gould Trio plays it with verve and style. As excellent as the performance of the Rhapsody Trio was, this version of the Phantasy Quintet is nearly as good, with bass clarinetist Plane digging deep into the sound of his instrument to contrast with and complement the four strings (Lucy Gould and Alice Neary from the trio along with guest violinist Mia Cooper and violist David Adams), creating tremendous atmosphere. In the second half of the piece, when the music becomes more energetic, this group is more than adequate for the challenge. They are, again, transcendent in their playing. The late (1946) piano trio is one of his greatest works, a subtly interwoven and tightly organic piece that repays close attention, and here the Gould Trio manages to combine lyrical subtlety with their usual exuberant energy.

If you have ever wondered about Bowen’s music but never previously taken the plunge, or if you have heard Bowen’s music previously and wondered what all the fuss was about, this is the disc that will “sell” you on it. Ten stars, easily.

FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Classical Music

An accomplished horn and viola player, York Bowen is said to have preferred the tone of the viola to the violin. Inspired by the virtuosity and vibrato style of the distinguished violist, Lionel Tertis, Bowen wrote several works for him and became his accompanist. Bowen’s subtle shifts of key and heartfelt melodies are well in evidence here, including the powerful and poised Rhapsody, Op.149, considered to be one of his most important works. Gustav Holst’s daughter Imogen is represented here by the open-air freshness of her Four Easy Pieces and the terse, laconic narrative of her Duo for Viola and Piano. Britten’s spiky Waltz is full of 1930s wit.

REVIEW:

Yue Yu and Anthony Hewitt give splendid performances that hold their own even alongside those terrific displays by Lawrence Power and Simon Crawford-Phillips (Hyperion, 9/08). An excellent album, this, definitely worth investigating.

-- Gramophone

Here’s an interesting and variegated disc of 20th-century British viola repertoire. Yue Yu’s York Bowen runs up against Lawrence Power’s formidable Hyperion survey, but not everywhere: the Three Duos for Violin and Viola were discovered after that set was recorded, and so receive their first public outing here. (They are immediately attractive music, all three). And Yue is well equipped in her own right; her account of the opening Melody for the C-String is Power’s equal in sound and suavity.

Benjamin Britten gets only a tiny look-in: the fifth-movement Waltz from his early violin Suite, op. 6, in his own viola transcription. (Why not give us the whole thing?) It’s sassy and impertinent and a mite absurd, but—like much of his early music—overflowing with sheer exuberant invention. Later, that streak would be confined and systematized (too much, some think), but here it just breaks out anyhow.

Imogen Holst's Four Easy Pieces are minuscule character studies—the whole set takes a bare six minutes—that combine simple motivic material with a quirky strain of humor. The scarcely longer Duo for Viola and Piano is teasingly playful, even in the slow middle movement.

The record sound is excellent; useful and comprehensive notes are provided.

-- Fanfare

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.