Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 24 in F sharp major, Op. 78

In recent years York Bowen, the composer, has enjoyed a spectacular revival, but until now his talents as pianist (barring a late recording of his own music for Lyrita) have not been heard since the days of 78s. At the height of his success, in the first decades of the 20th century, Bowen was as much known as pianist as composer and frequently performed at the Proms amongst other things. His first recording, a very rare disc on the Marathon label, was released in 1915, but the bulk of his work was done for Vocalion; after they went bankrupt in 1927 he appears to have made no further 78s. Pride of place must go to Bowen’s Beethoven 4th Piano Concerto. This was the very first recording of the work and its neglect has been due to the fact that it was one of the last recordings to be made under the old acoustic process which was superseded the year the work was issued. Bowen’s pianism is extremely fluent and he plays his own cadenzas! Through all the featured works we hear a pianist who plays in the ‘grand manner’ and that, and his preference for romantic repertoire, reveal him as somewhat atypical of the English pianist of his time. Perhaps his nickname ‘the English Rachmaninov’ did indeed hit the nail on the head.

Written between 1794 and1823, Beethoven’s Piano sonatas bear witness to the full evolution of Beethoven’s genius: they range from the sonatas of his youth, when he was still indebted to Mozart, Clementi, and Dussek, through the experiments of his middle period, and up to the strict and concise forms of his final masterpieces. This 2-disc set ranges from the opus 13, Pathétique,” (composed in 1798 when Beethoven was about the same ages Leotta now is), through the opus 111, the last of cycle.