YORK BOWEN The complete solo 78-rpm recordings YORK BOWEN The complete solo 78-rpm recordings

COMPACT DISC 1 (62.23)

BEETHOVEN Piano No 4 in G major Op 58 (29.17) ...... (Vocalion A-0237/40, matrices 03984/9) 1 Allegro moderato (cadenza by York Bowen) (15.33) recorded in 1925 2 Andante con moto (4.17) released in September 1925 3 Rondo (cadenza by York Bowen) (9.27) AEOLIAN ORCHESTRA conducted by STANLEY CHAPPLE

BACH Partita No 2 in C minor BWV826 ...... (AFMC 2045, matrix 03392) 4 VI Capriccio (1.51) recorded in 1923?; released in October 1923

BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata No 13 in E flat major Op 27 No 1 ...... (AFMC 2046, matrix 03391) 5 I Andante – Allegro – Andante (3.18) recorded in 1923?; released in October 1923

BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata No 24 in F sharp major Op 78 (6.31) ... (Vocalion K-05281, matrices M-0186/7) 6 Adagio cantabile – Allegro, ma non troppo (3.20) recorded in 1927 7 Allegro vivace (3.10)

SCHUMANN Faschingsschwank aus Wien Op 26 ...... (Vocalion K-05269, matrices M-0103/4) 8 I Allegro (7.20) recorded in 1926; released in December 1926

LISZT Années de pèlerinage, première année – Suisse S160 ...... (Vocalion X-9511, matrix 03393) 9 VII Eglogue (3.15) recorded in 1925

10 MOSCHELES Etude Op 70 No 5 (1.40) ...... (Vocalion X-9511, matrix 03390) 11 COCHRANE Le Ruisseau (1.30) recorded in 1925

12 BRAHMS Capriccio in B minor Op 76 No 2 (3.01) ...... (Vocalion X-9598, matrix 03936) recorded in 1925; released in August 1925

13 MENDELSSOHN Scherzo in E minor Op 16 No 2 (2.30) — ...... (Marathon HD-466, matrix 842 I.P.) 14 SCHÜTT Etude Mignonne in D major Op 16 No 1 (2.03) released in January 1915 2 COMPACT DISC 2 (58.58)

1 CHOPIN Ballade No 3 in A flat major Op 47 (6.14) ..... (Vocalion X-9666, matrices 04138/9); recorded in 1925

2 CHOPIN Scherzo No 2 in B flat minor Op 31 (7.37) .. (Vocalion K-05237, matrices 04137, 04176); recorded in 1926

3 CHOPIN Waltz in A flat major Op 34 No 1 (4.00) ...... (Vocalion K-05261, matrix M 054) recorded in 1926; released in November 1926

4 CHOPIN Polonaise in C sharp minor Op 26 No 1 (3.50) ...... (Vocalion K-05261, matrix M 055) recorded in 1926; released in November 1926

5 CHOPIN Etude in E minor Op 25 No 5 (3.20) ...... (Vocalion K-05275, matrix M 0145); recorded in 1927

CHOPIN Twenty-Four Preludes Op 28 ...... (Vocalion K-05275, matrix M 0146) 6 No 23 in F major: Moderato (0.59) recorded in 1927 7 No 20 in C minor: Largo (1.50) 8 No 3 in G major: Vivace (0.55)

RACHMANINOV Preludes Op 23 ...... (Vocalion K-05214, matrix 03938) 9 No 5 in G minor (3.41) recorded in 1926; released in February 1926

RACHMANINOV Morceaux de fantaisie Op 3 ...... (Vocalion X-9562, matrix 03765) 10 IV Polichinelle (3.24) recorded in 1925

DEBUSSY Estampes ...... (Vocalion K-05146, matrix 03766) 11 III Jardins sous la pluie (3.13) recorded in 1925

12 DEBUSSY Arabesque No 2 in G major (3.11) ...... (Vocalion K-05214, matrix 04136) recorded in 1926; released in February 1926

GARDINER Five Pieces ...... (Vocalion K-05259, matrix M 0184) 13 III Bridge (1.41) recorded in 1926 14 V Gavotte (1.40)

BOWEN Suite No 2 Op 30 ...... (Vocalion X-9562, matrix 03764) 15 FINALE A Romp (2.22) recorded in 1925

16 BOWEN The Way to Polden An Ambling Tune, Op 76 (3.13) ...... (Vocalion X-9598, matrix 03937) recorded in 1925; released in August 1925

17 BOWEN Arabesque Op 20 No 1 (3.42) ...... (Vocalion K-05146, matrix 03767xx); recorded in 1925

BOWEN Fragments from Hans Andersen Op 58 with spoken introduction ....(Vocalion K-05269, matrix M 0185) 18 Thumbelina (1.51) recorded in 1926 19 The Windmill (2.05) 3 DWIN YORK BOWEN was born in Crouch 1904 he performed the Scottish Hill, London in 1884. His father owned by Alexander Mackenzie and some Preludes by Ethe whisky distillers Bowen & McKechnie, Paul Corder as well as a movement from the and York was the youngest of his three sons. Piano Sonata by . The following Bowen’s mother gave him his first piano year he played Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto lessons and not long afterward enrolled him No 1 at a Prom concert and at Bechstein Hall at the North Metropolitan College of Music. At (later to become Wigmore Hall) he programmed eight years of age Bowen performed a piano ‘three modern sonatas’ – by J B McEwen, Dale concerto by Dussek and continued his tuition and Glazunov, the latter’s Piano Sonata No 1 in piano with Alfred Izard at the Blackheath in B flat minor published four years before. Conservatoire. At fourteen Bowen won the He also played regular repertoire from the Erard Scholarship to the Royal Academy of pianist’s canon and, at an Aeolian Hall recital, Music where for the next seven years he included Chopin’s Piano Sonata in B minor. He studied piano with and was described as playing, ‘as he always does, composition with . He won with sureness and neatness and the feeling many prizes for composition and piano per for - of ease that only comes with experience’. How- mance and while still at the Academy and aged ever, when he performed Tchaikovsky’s First only nineteen performed the premiere of his Concerto again at the Queen’s Hall in October First Piano Concerto in December 1903 under 1908 one reviewer wrote, ‘Both he and the Alexander Mackenzie. The following summer orchestra gave the work with the utmost he performed this work at at the freshness and with untiring vigour. A certain invitation of . A few years later the number of wrong notes may be forgiven to a eminent conductor conducted solo player when the thermometer stands at 80 performances of Bowen’s First and Third degrees; but still it must be said that some of Piano in London and Manchester the octave passages were very rough, and Mr with Bowen as soloist. Bowen’s youthful York Bowen failed to produce great beauty of success continued and in 1909 at the age of tone in the quieter passages.’ Bowen also twenty-five he was appointed a professor at the seems to have favoured programmes made up . His promising career of short pieces, rather than substantial ones. as a composer and pianist was interrupted by In 1911 he gave a recital that began with the First World War where he played the horn preludes and etudes by Bach, Chopin, Bowen, in the regimental band of the Scots Guards. Lyapunov and Rosenbloom followed by sets of Before the First World War Bowen was variations by Paderewski and Brahms and regarded as one of Britain’s finest composers concluded with Ballades by Chopin, Brahms and pianists. He often played his own works at and Grieg. The following year he included his concerts, but also championed works by his Schumann’s Piano Sonata No 2 in G minor in friends and contemporaries and more often a recital at Aeolian Hall and it seems that than not collaborated with instrumentalists. In Bowen had an affinity with this composer. 4 His recording of the first movement of the Faschingsschwank aus Wien Op 26 can be heard here. In a reference to Florestan and Eusebius, one reviewer wrote, ‘the distinctive charm of Mr York Bowen’s art is that these two moods are not held apart and alternated, but delicately and intimately fused’. Other com- posers represented on the programme included Scarlatti, Ernest Schelling, Balfour Gardiner and Moszkowski. The critic went on to say that ‘the pianist’s own compositions were the most interesting part of the programme’. By the mid 1920s, the world was a very different place after the turmoil of the First World War. Music had taken a new path and slight criticism of Bowen the composer began to appear in print. ‘Mr York Bowen plays the piano like a composer, i.e., he respects the capacity of the instrument and the intentions of the composers he is interpreting – in this case, Franck and Grieg. The result is a pleasing tone and a sense of proportion. He played a number of his own works including a new piece, The Way to Polden (CD2 track 16), correctly described as ‘an ambling tune’, in which abundant chromaticism suggested that the pedestrian belonged to the canine species and found many deviations of his own on a fairly direct road. Other of his works showed his fluency, but the absence of a distinctive or personal style.’ Bowen performed less between the Wars and spent more time teaching although in 1937 he performed Liszt’s Piano Sonata in a recital at Aeolian Hall. One critic wrote that it, ‘was for once treated with musical feeling, not merely as an opportunity for pianistic brilliance’. 5 It would appear that Bowen’s first Associated Board of the Royal Schools of recording was made for a very small British Music. In this way, students could hear an label named Marathon. Owned by National ‘ideal’ interpretation of the work they had to Gramophone, which began trading in August learn for their exam. The pianist on the first 1911, the company changed its name to The recordings was Desirée MacEwen and in National Gramophone Company in 1913 and October 1923 more discs were released by around 478 ten-inch discs and 66 twelve-inch five other pianists including York Bowen. Only discs were produced before it went out of two sides have been traced and they afford a business in 1915. Only one side was issued of good opportunity to hear Bowen in ‘serious’ Bowen, and that appeared in January 1915 reper toire by Bach and Beethoven rather than shortly before the company’s demise. Bowen encore pieces. gives a spirited performance of Mendelssohn’s Originally an American company pro - popular Scherzo in E minor Op 16 No 2 and ducing pianos and other musical instruments, Eduard Schütt’s Etude Mignonne Op 16 No 1. Aeolian Vocalion began producing recordings It was customary a century ago to improvise in the United States in 1918. In the United modulatory passages between works of Kingdom, discs on the Aeolian Vocalion label different keys to prevent an abrupt key change were issued from December 1920 by the which may jar the ears of the audience. Busoni Aeolian Company Ltd. who sold the business to does this on his recording of Chopin’s Prelude the newly formed Vocalion Gramophone in A major and Etude in G flat major and Company Ltd. in January 1925. The British Bowen does it here, using some distinctly studio began to use the electrical system of ‘Bowen’ harmonies, to move from E minor to D recording on 11 August 1926 using the Marconi major. All the Marathon discs were double process, but discs continued to be issued on the sided and Bowen’s side was coupled with Vocalion label only until 1927. Sinding’s Rustle of Spring played as a harp By the time Aeolian Vocalion was formed solo by Signor C. Lorenzi. Marathon used the in Britain, most of the famous pianists of the ‘hill and dale’ technique of recording which day had been signed to rival labels such as produced an inferior sound but meant many Columbia and HMV. At the beginning of 1923 more grooves could be squeezed onto a side of pianists making records for UK Aeolian a disc – the longest twelve-inch side produced Vocalion included the Frenchwoman Jeanne by the company ran for 6 minutes and 25 Marie Darré, and British pianist Herbert Fryer. seconds, while the longest ten-inch side lasted Only one disc of Fryer seems to have been 5 minutes and 28 seconds. released and around 1921 a single disc by The Anglo-French Music Co. Ltd. was a Claudio Arrau – his first recording – was avail- business set up in 1916 by two directors of the able for a short time. The most prestigious Aeolian Company. Certain composers and pianist on the label was Vassily Sapellnikoff academics were involved, the idea being to who had performed Tchaikovsky’s Piano record pieces set for the examinations by the Concerto No 1 with the composer conducting, 6 and, in a coup for Vocalion, gave the work its recording was made by the acoustic process, premiere recording in 1926. Bowen’s recording as was the disc of Debussy’s Arabesque No 2 career with Vocalion lasted less than eighteen and Rachmaninov’s Prelude in G minor Op 23 months; one of his first recordings was of the No 5, released in February 1926. In November Brahms Capriccio in B minor Op 76 No 2 and 1926 Vocalion announced, ‘Improved Process his own work, The Way to Polden , ‘a typically Electric Recording. Vivid recordings by York genial product of his own fluent and versatile Bowen.’ Of the Chopin Waltz in A flat Op 34 No pen’, as the publicity put it. 1 and the Polonaise in C sharp minor Op 26 No The only piano concerto Bowen recorded 1 Vocalion gushed, ‘Here is actuality! True was not one of his own, but Beethoven’s Piano piano tone, secured for the first time by means Concerto No 4 in G major Op 58. Released in of the Improved Electrical Process. Never September 1925 it was the first recording of before has the technique of that eminent this work, a fact applauded by contemporary pianist, Mr York Bowen, been so faithfully reviewers. Bowen played his own cadenzas, reproduced as in these amazing recordings.’ that to the first movement sounding particu- However, the Marconi process was inferior to larly incongruous. It did not meet with the those used by other recording companies and satisfaction of one reviewer who complained the sound quality is not that much better than that, ‘Mr York Bowen, who, so far, has earned that of the late acoustic recordings. It is in the our sincere admiration, shows disastrously longer recorded solo works that Bowen is how he can juggle with Beethoven’s tunes. The shown to best advantage. The recordings of result is mildly Chopinesque but quite out of Schumann’s Carnaval in Vienna Op 26 and the picture; though in the linking on to the final the Ballade and Polonaise of Chopin all display section Mr Bowen reminds us he is a good his natural exuberance and vitality and a sure creative artist.’ In conclusion the reviewer technique. The Ballade in A flat Op 47 is wrote, ‘The piano part is exceedingly well probably the best of his Chopin recordings, played by Mr York Bowen. He evidently loves but Bowen seems even more at home in the the music and his clean technique reveals it in ‘modern’ music by Debussy, where he revels in the best light possible. Apart from that one characterisation, and Rachmaninov, where the cadenza his interpretation seems imaginative central section of the Prelude in G minor Op 23 and poetical and always that of a well-equipped No 5 is beautifully shaped. The performance musician.’ Compton Mackenzie, the editor of of his own compositions is exemplary. Even The Gramophone wrote, ‘Mr York Bowen though his compositional style did not change scores a definite success, and Mr Chapple, the greatly over the years he continued to compose conductor, is much to be congratulated, except and teach and made one further recording at for his handling of the woodwind – particularly the end of his life, an LP for the Lyrita label of the oboes. He and the Vocalion recorders must his own works. Bowen died in 1961. devote some attention to these instruments.’ © 2008 Jonathan Summers The recorded sound is good, even though this 7 APR 6007

Transfer & compilation: Ward Marston

With special thanks to Donald Manildi and IPAM who supplied most of the original material. Also to Jonathan Summers of the British Library National Sound Archive, and finally to Malcolm Binns and Dennis Hall respectively for the supply and transfer of Marathon HD466.

Executive Producer: Michael Spring

Front cover photograph courtesy of Malcolm Binns YORK BOWEN The complete solo 78-rpm recordings APR 6007

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YORK BOWEN The complete solo 78-rpm recordings APR 6007