Bowen: The Complete Works for Viola & Piano, Lawrence Power, viola

Viola player Lionel Tertis taught at the Royal Academy of Music while York Bowen was studying there. Tertis was an enthusiastic advocate of the viola as a solo instrument in its own right, and in response to his campaign Bowen wrote several works for the instrument, including two sonatas and a concerto. Tertis and Bowen, Bowen accompanying, went on to tour the repertoire internationally. Today, with a few exceptions, the viola is still seen as the Cinderella of the string family, favoured mainly for its ability to fill inner harmonies.

Lawrence Power and Simon Crawford-Phillips appear to be continuing Tertis’s original campaign as they bring us York Bowen’s complete works for viola and piano. The pair had recorded together before (the Brahms Viola Sonatas), and The Telegraph’s praise, “Lawrence Power and Simon Crawford-Phillips are a refined and imaginative duo”, could be applied equally to this new disc. The opening work, Viola Sonata No. 1, shows off Bowen’s skill at writing for viola and piano; the instruments seem to naturally respond to each other, which comes as no surprise once you learn that Bowen played the viola as well as the piano. The writing is breath-takingly virtuosic at times as the first movement moves towards its climax.

As well as Bowen’s Viola Sonata No. 2, this recording contains eight other works for viola and piano plus his Fantasia for Four Violas. These shorter works were completely unknown to the reviewer beforehand (four of them are premiere recordings), and the initial apprehension that two discs’ worth would become too much of a muchness was laid to rest early on. Spanning almost the whole of Bowen’s compositional career, the works demonstrate his development as a composer, a comparison between Romance in D flat major (1900) and Rhapsody in G minor (1955) shows Bowen moving away from a contemplative style towards something more combative, the instruments giving the appearance of squabbling during the first section of the Rhapsody before the mood turns more sensitive.

Power and Crawford-Phillips have admirably demonstrated that they are more than fair ambassadors for Tertis’s original campaign, showing us what an under-rated instrument the viola can be.