Bowen's first to-day

[Roehre]

I listened to the 2nd symphony this afternoon - I'm afraid I got really bored approximately half way through each movement. More examples of musical ideas and phrases developed ad nauseam. A case of just neglect, I fear.

It is an eclectic symphony: overloaded with ideas, stemming from Elgar (1st mvt), Tchaikovsky (2nd mvt, from PIT's 5th in e-minor: horn solo e.g.), Rimsky Korssakov (3rd mvt) and R.Strauss (Till) and some Russians in the finale, in an overtly rimskykorssakovian sauce. Bowen must have studied RK's Treaty on Instrumentation very well. But I don't think it is a boring work.

Pianoconcerto no.3 suffers from the same "evils" I'm afraid, though here Saint Saens is one of the inspirators (4th PC), and -quite impossible as Bowen's PC3 stems from 1904 and Rachmaninov's PC4 from 1928- there are Rachmaninov PC4 pre-echos to be enjoyed as well.

[amateur51]

It is an eclectic symphony: overloaded with ideas, stemming from Elgar (1st mvt), Tchaikovsky (2nd mvt, from PIT's 5th in e-minor: horn solo e.g.), Rimsky Korssakov (3rd mvt) and R.Strauss (Till) and some Russians in the finale, in an overtly rimskykorssakovian sauce. Bowen must have studied RK's Treaty on Instrumentation very well. But I don't think it is a boring work.

Pianoconcerto no.3 suffers from the same "evils" I'm afraid, though here Saint Saens is one of the inspirators (4th PC), and -quite impossible as Bowen's PC3 stems from 1904 and Rachmaninov's PC4 from 1928- there are Rachmaninov PC4 pre-echos to be enjoyed as well.

Ofacachap did not say that it was a boring work - he said that he was bored by it.

Not the same thing at all

[Serial_Apologist]

Quite a lot of Debussy in the slow movement too, I thought - harmonically, and instrumentation-wise. As I listened I thought, "he's trying to mix the same kinds of influences that Bax did more successfully in his symphonies", then realized the work dated from 1912 - so Bowen was ahead of Bax in that regard, at least.

[Roehre]

Ofacachap did not say that it was a boring work - he said that he was bored by it.

No, he didn't, and I didn't say he did.

[amateur51]

No, he didn't, and I didn't say he did.

That's how it appeared to me, as you had linked directly from his quotation.

However I was wrong and I hope that you'll accept my apology, Roehre

[Norfolk Born]

Ofacachap did not say that it was a boring work - he said that he was bored by it.

Not the same thing at all

[Roehre]

That's how it appeared to me, as you had linked directly from his quotation.

However I was wrong and I hope that you'll accept my apology, Roehre

No problem Amateur51, I see where it comes from. My words were unintendedly ambiguous, I have to admit.

[Roehre]

I am afraid listening to Bowen's 4th Piano concerto was not the most uplifting and rewarding activity imaginable.
I do doubt whether it was a good idea to couple this work with exact contemporary works by Bartok and Shostakovich. It shows IMO that at that time Bowen wasn't a towering genius, but only a well trained craftsman without outstanding ideas. This concerto IMO is a Rachmaninov-concerto without the big tunes, and not very inspired on top of that. Where are the inevitable climaxes? Why that note spinning especially in the finale (3 notes up, 3 notes down, 3 notes up, 3 notes down ad nauseam et ad infinitum...)?
The 2nd symphony with all its eclecticism and reminiscences is nevertheless an interesting piece.
I am afraid I think this 4th concerto were better left gathering dust in a drawer.

[Norfolk Born]

Bowen wasn't a towering genius, but only a well trained craftsman without outstanding ideas.

I concur - and the same could be said, to some extent, for many of Parry's and Stanford's orchestral works, don't you think?

[Roehre]

I concur - and the same could be said, to some extent, for many of Parry's and Stanford's orchestral works, don't you think?

Yes, definitely re Parry. Who thinks Schumann's orchestrations are "thick and fat", try Parry's (the exceptions confirming the rule: the slow mvt from symphony 2 and the whole of the 1912 one-movement-symphony no.5, a work really towering within Parry's output IMO.).

For Stanford it applies to a lesser extent I think, but here the later works (Symphony 7 from 1912 e.g.) are the more problematic IMO.

[Serial_Apologist]

I concur - and the same could be said, to some extent, for many of Parry's and Stanford's orchestral works, don't you think?

For me the difference lies in the fact that Parry and Stanford were attempting to establish an indigenous symphonic tradition through inherited models, having little but decades of domination by Victorian religious aesthetic domination between them and Sterndale Bennett - the last (?) British-born composer of significance before them - whereas by the time of York Bowen, and the many composers of the next generation who had not taken on board the significance of Vaughan Williams and Holst's creation of an alternative lineage to Austro-German romanticism (pace lovers of Elgar, Bantock and Holbrooke) little by way of refreshment was left from bygone, imported aesthetics, whether they were Scriabin, Rachmaninov, Brahms, Wagner or Strauss - the mish-mash in York Bowen.

S-A

[Roehre]

For me the difference lies in the fact that Parry and Stanford were attempting to establish an indigenous symphonic tradition through inherited models, having little but decades of domination by Victorian religious aesthetic domination between them and Sterndale Bennett - the last (?) British-born composer of significance before them - whereas by the time of York Bowen, and the many composers of the next generation who had not taken on board the significance of Vaughan Williams and Holst's creation of an alternative lineage to Austro-German romanticism (pace lovers of Elgar, Bantock and Holbrooke) little by way of refreshment was left from bygone, imported aesthetics, whether they were Scriabin, Rachmaninov, Brahms, Wagner or Strauss - the mish-mash in York Bowen.
S-A

I concur, only adding MacFarren to Sterndale Bennett as precursors for Sullivan (his Irish owes not only to Mendelssohn !), Parry and Stanford here.

[3rd Viennese School]

Has it got 12 note music in it?

[Serial_Apologist]

Not to these ears!

[Norfolk Born]

Has it got 12 note music in it?

I hope not - I don't want this thread to turn into a serial....