York Bowen: Quintet in C minor for Horn and String Quartet , Rhapsody Trio . Trio in Three Movements

York BOWEN

Quintet in C minor for Horn & String Quartet op.85 (1927)

Rhapsody Trio (1926)

Trio in Three Movements op.118 (1945)

ENDYMION ENSEMBLE:

Krysia Osostowicz (violin)

Fiona McCapra (violin)

Jane Salmon (cello)

Catherine Manson (viola)

Stephen Stirling (horn)

Michael Dussek (piano)

Recorded at All Saints Church, East Finchley, London

24-26 April 2001

In terms of variety of repertoire this may prove to be the golden age for recorded music. Recordings such as these Bowen chamber works would have been unthinkable even ten years ago. Thankfully enterprising record company Dutton in their Epoch series are using their niche marketing skills to record the unfamiliar music of talented British composers who have fallen out of favour.

I frequently hear the word rehabilitated used for the composer York Bowen with regard to the recent trend towards recording his works; works that are often out of print and usually receiving recordings for the first time. I prefer to view recordings of Bowen’s music as being ‘restored’ to the repertoire. His scores that spanned two world wars are more than mere curios wheeled out occasionally for historical interest. In fact the Horn quintet is a masterwork and friends and I am amazed that it is not a major part of the chamber music repertoire.

Once fêted by the music establishment, Bowen’s tonal and conservative music with an elegant lyricism became unfashionable after the Great War for much the same reason as that of Elgar and Bantock. Music had rapidly moved on and the English late-romantics of that generation had become marginalised having to compete with the growing enthusiasm for progressive composers such as Schoenberg, Berg, Stravinsky et al. Bowen had quickly become a victim of the new fashion as he was still composing music in the manner of an earlier generation and consequently his music swiftly moved into virtual obscurity. After eighty or so years we should now be able to reassess Bowen’s music for its innate quality rather than for the dynamic of the era in which it was written.

Much of Bowen’s substantial output is yet to be recorded and it is satisfying to have an increasing number of his works available on disc. Dutton Digital’s Epoch label are to be firmly congratulated for leading the pack with their chamber music releases. My interest in Bowen was sparked by a revelatory recording, in 1996, of his piano works by Stephen Hough on Hyperion CDA66838. Now just like buses, highly rated recordings of Bowen’s chamber music, have come along all at once with the British Music Society releasing the String quartets Nos. 2 and 3 and Phantasy quintet by the Archaeus Quartet on BMS 426CD and again on Dutton Epoch with the sonatas for violin and cello and suite for violin and piano by the Endymion Ensemble on CDLX7120.

For those not familiar with Bowen’s music who are curious to know what is in store for them you can expect an eclectic range of influences such as Franck, Liszt, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, Delius and Strauss. This music is unashamedly romantic in personality and ambience, brooding and emotional with a frequent haunting and sensual beauty. It may be my imagination that at times, I sensed a lyrical and emotional connection to Bowen’s music with Walton’s contemporaneous violin sonata and violin concerto; scores that would undoubtedly be considered as more sophisticated and fashionable.

This is another post by Zee!! All thanks to him!!!