It gives me special joy to qualify Ingo Lauf's and Nuron Mukumi's accompanying note to this album when they claim that 'to this day it remains a mystery why the English composer and pianist York Bowen has largely fallen into obscurity and his music is unknown even to experts today.' Mukumi's unfailing virtuoso command and poetic affection joins several other pianists in their commitment to a composer whose crosscurrents tell of the influences of Rachmaninov, Medtner, Chopin, Grieg and John Ireland, heart-felt influences who in no way dominate or submerge an entirely personal idiom. Stephen Hough started the ball rolling when, searching for an English composer who would satisfy his deeper instincts he alighted on York Bown and recorded an album that has understandably acquired cult status. This was followed by the complete Piano Sonatas and the Piano Concertos Nos 3 and 4 from Danny Driver, the First Piano Concerto from Michael Dussek a 4 CD survey of the piano music from Joop Celis, a solo recital rom Nicolas Namoradze and the 24 Preludes from Cristina Ortiz. As a corollary there is APR's album of York Bowen's own complete 78 recordings, and a further disc on Lyrita. Here, gratefully is an Aladdin's cave of treasures, of music once dismissed as old-fashioned but now relished for a timeless beauty.
The 24 Preludes are multi-faceted, ranging in mood from the sombre to the 'furioso'( a frequent term capturing Bowen's darker moods.) If I was to single out my own special favourite it would be No 7. Who can resist its pleading as an exotic if distant relative of Schumann's 'Entreating Child' from his 'Kinderscenen. Replace child with adult and you have an open and beguiling love letter to say nothing of an ideal encore with which to baffle and enchant your audience.
Extras include 'Reverie' with its Grieg-like turn of phrase, 'Zara,' a lady hard to resist and Nocturne from the 'Miniature Suite' opus 14 No 2. Still further there is a literal interpreation of Prospero's title 'Portraits of York Bown' with pictures of the composer by artists who are friends of the pianist's family . There is also a telling quote from Bowen who, stung as his popularity turned to neglect, wished 'to compose music that is still music' and, as a corollary, 'if modern life is ugly, then there is all the more reason why music should bring beauty into it.'
Bryce Morrison