Virtuoso Credentials Music for viola and piano by York Bowen - reviewed by ROBERT ANDERSON '... above praise.'

York Bowen was one of the pianists in the first British performance of Mozart's concerto for three pianos, an early twentieth-century event; and Saint-Saëns considered him the greatest of modern British composers. Times change, but Bowen may yet take his rightful place as a first-rate writer for the piano, who yet also wrote idiomatically for a wide range of orchestral instruments. Royal College students followed Parry and Stanford in producing a mass of choral music. Their Royal Academy counterparts preferred instruments.

A special luminary of the Royal Academy in Bowen's time was Lionel Tertis. If the viola had spent much of its life as Cinderella, Tertis was determined it should go to the ball. He himself arranged Elgar's cello concerto for viola and won the composer's approval. The result of his campaign was music as disparate as Percy Grainger's Humlet for solo middle-fiddle and the Walton viola concerto. And Bowen's contribution in these ten original works plus an improvement on Beethoven is of great importance, if only because the pieces were inspired by Tertis and usually first played with him.

Bowen was only twenty when he wrote his First Viola Sonata. His keyboard layout shows affection for Grieg and Rachmaninov; but the viola emerges triumphant, with splendid virtuoso credentials. The finale starts with irresistible élan.

A luxurious curiosity is the Fantasia for four violas, which begins as if a study for Strauss's Metamorphosen, but quickly changes into top gear.

If Gounod could improve a Bach prelude, why should not Bowen do the same for Beethoven's 'Moonlight'?

When playing the sonata myself in future, I shall always ask if there is a violist present.

The Second Sonata has two very attractive outer movements sandwiching a thoughtful Grave. The beginning has fine Romantic impulse.

The latest work on the two discs is the G minor Rhapsody from 1955, when Bowen was at the start of his seventies. There is an added starkness in the rhetoric, but essentially the style is unchanged, which is reason enough in our novelty-loving culture for the temporary eclipse of a fine composer.

Power's eloquence and Crawford-Phillips's discrete brilliance are throughout above praise.