York Bowen: Chamber Works

At the time of his death at the age of 77 in 1961, not a single work by York Bowen was listed in Gramophone magazine's classical LP catalogue. The revival of the romantically inclined music of a composer admired by men as different as Saint-Saëns and Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji is now well underway. Bowen was conservative enough for there to be overt echoes of Brahms in his 1943 Clarinet Sonata, yet adventurous enough that in the 1930s he wrote a quintet for the unusual combination of bass clarinet and string quartet. Even more arresting on this new disc is the 1946 Piano Trio, which, in this performance, has a full-blooded sweep that carries all before it in an extremely vivid recording. url.ie/f1f2