A lapsed viola player, I welcome Lawrence Power’s desire to expand the available repertoire for the melancholic Cinderella of the strings. York Bowen (1884–1961) was one of those English composers who responded rhapsodically to the talent of his older contemporary Lionel Tertis, the player who did more than any other to establish the viola as a solo instrument. It is easy to dismiss Bowen’s music as conservative, but the two viola sonatas of 1905 and 1906 are clearly inspired by the romantic style of Brahms’s late sonatas for clarinet or viola. They are worthy successors, at least when played with the sumptuous tone, passionate conviction and supreme technical address that Powers lavishes on them here. Even finer are the two single-movement pieces, the Phantasy in F major, written to show off Tertis’s virtuosity in 1918, and the much later Rhapsody in G minor. Fillers include an arrangement of the famous opening movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and an unusual Fantasia for four violas, written for Tertis and his pupils in 1907. Crawford-Phillips relishes the bravura of York’s writing for the piano (the composer’s first instrument) in this superbly executed set, unlikely to be equalled very soon.

Hyperion CDA 67651/2 (2 CD)

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