Bowen: Viola Sonatas 1 / 2 (Phantasy) (NAXOS 8572580)

The Bridge Duos warmly received recital disc of English Music for Viola (8.572579) is joined here by a programme of York Bowens brilliant pieces for viola and piano. This new recording will provide fresh impetus to these relatively under-represented masterpieces. Matthew Jones (top) is violist of the Bridge Duo (with pianist Michael Hampton), and a professor at Trinity College of Music, Royal Welsh College and Charterhouse International Music Festival. He has given master classes around the world.
The performances are stellar. Performance ***** Recording **** –BBC Music Magazine,Jan’12With perfectly gauged transitions,tempo relationships and rubato,the Bridge Duo demonstrates an unobtrusive,no-nonsense way with music that cab easily be all over the place. –The Strad,Feb’12Both works provide a refreshing and varied sequel to the Brahms viola sonatas with which they are in many ways unjustly compared. Bowen’s effulgent and often suave harmonic language is at once more opulent and extrovert, his aesthetic outlook rather less cerebrally classical than his German predecessor. Matthew Jones and Michael Hampton’s enthusiastic and sympathetic performances bring out this aspect of Bowen s style in spades, especially in the slower movements, and Jones’s generous tone is admirably well suited to this braenly Romantic repertoire, especially in the lyrical parts of the later and more mature Phantasy of 1918, above all in the wonderful Poco adagio, where the sense of control is particularly persuasive and affecting. –Gramophone,Mar’12