York Bowen Piano & Violin Concertos

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The resurgence of the music of British composer York Bowen began in the mid-'90s with a single Hyperion disc featuring a selection of Bowen's short piano pieces plated by Stephen Hough. Several dozen genre solo piano pieces and chamber works later, here we have arrived at concerti; namely, York Bowen: Violin Concerto -- Piano Concerto No. 1. This is in Dutton's Epoch series, dedicated to bringing unrecorded twentieth century British music to the table. By now Bowen has been back for seconds so many times one wonders whether his audience will lose its appetite for this particular bill of fare, but York Bowen: Violin Concerto -- Piano Concerto No. 1 does demonstrate what Bowen could do in extended forms.
The Piano Concerto No. 1, dating from 1903 and played here excellently by pianist Michael Dussek, is the true centerpiece. The piece has the bloom of youth -- Bowen was only 19 when he wrote it -- and it is unapologetically post-Romantic in style and brimming with show-offish virtuoso passages. Nevertheless, it is not conventional, at least not formally -- the first movement ends gently, and the second movement is short and tastefully understated, with Bowen saving the wallop for the last half of the third. It is a nice concerto, and would probably fare well in the concert hall, whereas by comparison Bowen's Violin Concerto is gargantuan and would be tougher to put over live. By the time this concerto was written in 1913, Bowen was a fully adult composer moving into his mature style. Nonetheless, Bowen backs off that mature style considerably in this concerto and instead presents a derivative and dutiful work modeled after the Mendelssohn Concerto in E minor in form and the Elgar Violin Concerto in style. It is not bad, and from a technical standpoint, it is very sound both in structure and in the virtuosic stuff that is assigned to the soloist. However, Bowen's Violin Concerto is also very ponderous and rigid; the first movement alone takes a full 15 minutes, and the concerto as a whole rings in at well over a half an hour. For a concerto of that length, you need compelling ideas, and Bowen plays it rather safe in this regard. This should not reflect negatively on soloist Lorraine McAslan; she's terrific; well better herself than the piece she's playing here. Dutton's recording, made at The Colosseum in Town Hall in Watford with the BBC Concert Orchestra under Vernon Handley, is very nicely made.

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