Forums > York Bowen

Alder

Jul 16 2007, 03:44 PM

At the weekend I spent some time talking to the elderly friend of an elderly friend of the family. His father was a professional pianist, and he was telling me about his dad and which orchestra he had played with as a young man, and then he told me that he had a clipping from the Radio Times about a recording his dad had done for the BBC. It had been an hour-long concert, half orchestral and half solo piano. When I asked if he remembered what his dad had played he said, "Do you know a composer called York Bowen?", to which I answered, "No..."

He didn't know much about him either, so I said, "I know this really interesting website, where I can probably get more information..."

So! Does anyone here know anything about York Bowen? I'd like to have something to say the next time I see this chap!

sarah-flute

Jul 16 2007, 04:03 PM

The only piece of his that I know is the Flute Sonata, opus 120.

This is what it has to say about the man himself, besides the fact that he was born in 1884 and died in 1961:

QUOTE

Edwin York Bowen was born in Crouch Hill, London, and made his musical debut when he was 8 in a Dussek piano concerto. At the age of 14 he won the Erard Scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied the piano with Taboias Matthay, and composition with Frederick Corder.

As a student he won many important prizes for both piano playing and composition, and when he left the Academy he had also won the Medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. By the time he was 20 his works (including three piano concertos) had been successfully performed and admired by such conductors as Hans Richter and Sir Henry Wood

During the First World War he served in H.M.Scots Guards, eventually transferring to the Regimental Band as a horn and viola player. Subsequently he returned to the Royal Academy as a Professor of Pianoforte. "Who's Who in Music" (1937) lists his recreations as motor touring and billiards.

In the course of a long composing career he wrote some fine works for some of the outstanding players who were his friends, including Lionel Tertis, Arnold Dolmetsch, Terence Macdonagh, Walter Lear, and Aubrey and Dennis Brain

The Flute Sonata was written for Gareth Morris.

He has a home page: http://www.yorkbowen.co.uk/
and a short entry on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York_Bowen
and there's a lot of stuff on Google: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q...earch&meta=

A.U.K

Jul 16 2007, 04:09 PM

Hello ,

Yes , York Bowen, not overly familiar with him or his music, but I am fairly certain that he wrote either a concerto for Clarinet or Sonata for Clarinet of some repute, it is well loved I believe not that I have heard it but all my Clarinet friends go goey over the "York Bowen"

Do a google search and see what you can dig up...

good luck

Kindest regards

Andrew

The Links that Sarah flute posted above provide excellent information...well done sarah!

Chopinzee

Jul 16 2007, 05:14 PM

hey this is a coincidence, because i bought a CD of his only a couple of days back, Stephen Hough playing Bowens preludes and some other pieces. And I'd never known much about him until recently either. The reason I was interested in him was like Medtner and Rachmaninov(whom he has been compared with), he was a late romantic in a time when the modernist movement was in vogue, and much of the music establishment regarded die hard romantics as out of their time. Having said all this, my initial impression of the CD was that he creates nice textures and sonorities but that the music itself did'nt appeal to me because of its lack of melodic direction. Most of the compositions on the disc were short pieces but compared to say, Medtners Forgotten Melodies which are instantly appealing, but still grow on you more and more nevertheless, or Rachmaninovs preludes, I found that Bowens music did'nt have any of those ''hooks'' that draw me in.

Rainbow

Jul 16 2007, 08:41 PM

He wrote a Viola Sonata in C minor and one in F major, as well as a Phantasy for Viola and Piano.

BMS2

Aug 7 2007, 05:56 PM

I performed his C minor viola sonata in 1965. The nearest description of his style would be chromatic/Wagnerian. More recently a columnist described it as impressionist, but it didn't strike me that way.

This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.