Bowen: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 BBC Philharmonic - Andrew Davis

• York Bowen (1884 - 1961): Symphony No. 1, Op. 4:
• 1 Symphony No. 1, Op. 4: 1. Allegro assai 12:02
• 2 Symphony No. 1, Op. 4: 2. Larghetto 07:56
• 3 Symphony No. 1, Op. 4: 3. Finale: Allegro con brio 09:51
• Symphony No. 2, Op. 31:
• 4 Symphony No. 2, Op. 31 1: Moderato 13:09
• 5 Symphony No. 2, Op. 31: 2. Lento 12:16
• 6 Symphony No. 2, Op. 31: 3. Allegro scherzando, ma moderato 06:09
• 7 Symphony No. 2, Op. 31: 4. Finale: Grave 11:23
• Total Runtime 01:12:46

Info for Bowen: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2

'Andrew Davis's new series of recordings for Chandos clearly isn't going to confine itself to just the major figures in 20th-century British music, and he could hardly have signalled that more clearly than by this pairing of the two little-known symphonies by York Bowen. The Second has been recorded before, but the First, composed in 1902 when Bowen was an 18-year-old student alongside Arnold Bax at the Royal Academy of Music, was only performed complete in public for the first time last year. It's a fluent but fundamentally unremarkable three-movement work, in a style that owes more to Mendelssohn and Schumann rather than to any later 19th-century British models. By the time of the Second Symphony seven years later, Bowen's style had become more extrovert – the orchestral writing is weightier and more confidently flamboyant, though its faded romanticism still lacks any trace of individuality. Davis and the BBC Philharmonic give both symphonies finely groomed performances, but there's no great act of reclamation going on here.' (The Guardian)

Bowen: Symphony No. 1
Symphony No. 2


BBC Philharmonic
Sir Andrew Davis

York Bowen: Symphony No. 1, Op. 4
I. Allegro assai
II. Larghetto
III. Finale: Allegro con brio
York Bowen: Symphony No. 2, Op. 31
I. Moderato
II. Lento
III. Allegro scherzando, ma moderato
IV. Finale: Grave


York Bowen has a distinguished reputation as a composer and was considered to be one of Britain’s finest pianists.

In his day he was known as ‘The English Rachmaninoff’, and Saint-Saëns described him as ‘the most remarkable of the young British composers’. The works of York Bowen tend to display a blend of romanticism and strong individuality, and although his influences include the likes of Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Grieg, and Tchaikovsky, his music is also strongly defined by textures and harmonies that are uniquely ‘Bowen’. This recording presents the only two surviving symphonies by Bowen: Symphony No. 1 and Symphony No. 2, which are performed here by the BBC Philharmonic under the exclusive Chandos artist Sir Andrew Davis.

Symphony No. 1 was written in 1902 when Bowen was an eighteen-year-old composition student at the Royal Academy of Music. The work is laid out in only three movements (unusual for the time), and requires a relatively modest orchestra. It is a deeply impressive achievement – the beauty and lyricism of the second movement and its myriad of orchestral colourations, together with a unique and often surprising sense of well-being in the finale, demonstrate that here is a genuinely symphonic composer who was not content just to copy established models and appease his professors. At least one movement of this symphony was performed during Bowen’s time at the academy, but this recording may well be the first time that the work has been performed in its entirety. When Bowen composed his Symphony No. 2 just seven years after completing his first, much had happened in the world of modern music, not least in instrumental terms with the acceptance of large orchestras as standard. As a result this work is much larger in scale than his first symphony, and performed with significantly larger instrumental forces too. The finale in particular is spectacular in the way it develops from the tiniest semi-tonal seed into a fiery and almost unstoppable flood of ‘Bowen-esque’ inventiveness. This symphony is the work of an assured composer who was completely certain in his music’s sense of direction and in the positive and life-affirming nature of his compositions.

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