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I have to take another look at Cowen's opera THORGRIM, which is set in Iceland. I think nothing exists of it now beyond a piano-vocal score, of which we have a copy at Eastman.  There's a very funny description of Joseph Bennett's libretto in the Athlone "The Romantic Era"; in comparing Thorgrim to Wagner's Siegfried, Thorgrim is described as "an unprincipled thug".

There is little doubt that 'Thorgrim' was meant to be Cowen's 'Siegfried' or 'Lohengrin'. With his credentials for his 'Scandinavian' Symphony, he was an obvious choice to set this drama. Unfortunately, neither Joseph Bennett (the librettist), nor Cowen, had the skills to bring such an undertaking to a satisfying fruition. What we have does only survive in the piano-vocal score, which is a shame, because I don't doubt that the orchestration would have been imaginative and well worth a look through...

Following on from Albion's quote:

"Quite often, neglected composers have simply been defeated by the sheer volume of music clamouring to be heard during their lifetime: I could weep at the labour of Parry, Stanford, Cowen and Mackenzie endlessly producing large-scale and often highly accomplished and attractive works for soloists, chorus and orchestra for the Provincial Festivals between 1880 and 1910 only to have them performed (usually badly) once or at most twice including a London performance. They lived during a period of prodigious production when novelty was the cult and, without the benefits of recording, a work performed once or twice in its existence surely has not had anything like a fair hearing."

This really is the crux of the argument for resurrecting these unsung composers. They were part of a 'system' that favoured novelty over anything else, where one or two performances were the maximum a composer would ever likely to get of their efforts. I have seen many minutes of choral societies, and orchestras for that matter, from the 19th Century, where the selection process immediately dismissed a work that had already been heard 'elsewhere', because of its lack of 'novelty'. Provincial Festivals rarely offered top-notch performances and so many of the beauties of the works were probably never appreciated, and of course, as Albion has also said, we don't have the benefit of recordings of them. It often takes me several hearings of a piece before I can say I really get to understand it. These composers and their works deserve better...

I am with Albion with his Cowen list that includes the first two symphonies, the operas, choral works and some of the miscellaneous orchestral music...

I would particularly like to hear his 4th,although I somehow doubt that there is anything particularly Welsh about it.

Unfortunately, there is nothing Welsh about the so-called Cambrian symphony, and I must also report, having seen the score, that IMHO it is the dullest of his extant symphonies.

I have to agree, the score of the 'Welsh', does look rather bland and certainly appears to be the dullest of symphonies 3-6. The story of the 'Welsh'/'Cambrian' title is a little confused too. It appears Cowen didn't personally give the attribution, although he had spent some time in Wales where the inspiration for the symphony came from...I think I would still like to hear a performance or recording to prove its standing though...

Looking back at the quote: "Why assume that anything in music constitutes northernness?...A composer may subtitle a symphony "The North" (has anyone mentioned Frederic Cowen yet?) but even if it throws in a few Norwegian folk tunes it is still basically "about" the manipulation of its own musical material. The exception might be overtly programme music, or impressionistic tone pictures where the music is intended to express the mood of a particular place."

The Cowen 'Scandinavian' Symphony certainly has that 'northernness'. While it is not a programme symphony as such, Cowen's writings in a letter clearly indicate that he had 'scenes'/'images'/'unlying stories' for some of the movements. Also some of the material could well have been extracted from or inspired by Norwegian folk music, which he heard whilst touring as accompanist to Trebelli on several occasions in the late 1870s in Scandinavia. What makes it sound 'Scandinavian' or 'Northern' though, that is more difficult to answer...

Curiously, the soundworld of some of Cowen's music predates, but is quite close to, what we later hear in Sibelius...sustained brass especially and often the use of the darker colours of the orchestral palette...

Tortellini?
(Or Marcello cello sonatas?)

Yes, "Tortellini" could serve as Marcello or any number of far less talented composers, in my view.

I've only ever heard Cowen's 3rd symphony, and I'd love to hear the 4th and 5th. Their names alone are inviting, at least to my traditional English ear - located as I am out here in the far-flung colonies! !

There is quite a lot of people that share your view on this...

I think that by far the best recorded Cowen piece (both the music and the performance) is the Hyperion recording of his Concertstuck for Piano and Orchestra (coupled with Somervell's Highland Concerto) on Hyperion.

Indeed, a much better recording than the 'Scandinavian' or 'Idyllic' (I don't have too many issues with the 'Idyllic' though).

@Christopher Parker - I think you are entitled to bias having produced a well-argued thesis about a (today) fairly shadowy figure from Victorian English music.  Although I have read only around 20% of the text so far (not just the biography though) it is obvious you treat the composer objectively and with insight. 

The thesis was a labour of love over 6 years and I tried to be as objective as I could. I remain hopeful that more of Cowen's music will get an airing by top-notch orchestras and conductors at some point in the future, as I am convinced there are fine moments amongst some of the mediocrity that is there too! Then we will all be able to make much more aural evidence-based assessments, rather than having to rely on playing through the scores on the piano, listening to not necessarily first rate recordings on, or relying on Sibelius computer software to give us an impression...

Yes, your observation about the missing scores compounding the difficulties of reassessing Cowen's music is definitely true. When I was writing my Ph.D on Cowen, I really did feel that my hands were tied in getting a real feel for his orchestral touch, which many commentators mentioned as a feature of his compositions during his lifetime. There is little doubt that his deft orchestrating skills sometimes lifted music that was in many ways banal. One only had the extant orchestral pieces like the Butterfly's Ball, Indian Rhapsody, the dance suites, the Phantasy of Life and Love, Concertstuck, the 4 later symphonies and a few other bits to give an impression of what his orchestral sound was really like. The few extant, if not always fantastic, recordings helped too, so when one was looking at the operas and the cantatas one really just had to imagine what he might have done. Even worse is the loss completely of many of the early works, and even more astonishingly the last two orchestral pieces, i.e. The Magic Goblet/The Luck of Edenhall and the Miniature Variations. I still live in hope that some of them may resurface, but may be the Second World War claimed some of them and the horrific policies of some of our publishing houses that allowed original manuscripts to be lent out willy-nilly and sometimes just thrown away after publication, their job seemingly having been done!

Slightly off the topic, If any one is interested in Cowen's grave it is in the Jewish Cemetary in Golders Green< London.  This was not his 'birth'  name and strangely he was born in Jamaica and brought to London as a child.
Giles Enders

Cowen died on 6 October 1935, of Myocarditis at 105 Maida Vale, London, aged 83.  He was buried at Golders Green Jewish Cemetery, which is divided into both Orthodox and Liberal sections. His grave, in the Liberal section at Row 48, Grave No. 3, is in a poor state of repair; the headstone is engraved 'IN LOVING MEMORY OF FREDERIC HYMEN COWEN, KT, MUSDOC, CANTAB, EDIN, BORN KINGSTON, JAMAICA, JAN 29TH 1852, DIED IN LONDON OCTOBER 6TH 1935'.

[do]

With regard to the full score of Cowen's Concertstuck on IMSLP, pages 34 and 35 contain seven bars into which a piano part has been handwritten. Admittedly it is only a very brief passage (of unknown provenance), but it may be of interest to the relevant person at Hyperion!

Those seven bars of piano solo do make it into the new Hyperion recording! I emailed Hyperion suggesting some further orchestral works by Cowen which would be worth investigating and Simon Perry has passed these on to Martyn Brabbins who is going to have a look through the full scores. I realise that I'm probably in a minority of one in finding this quite exciting ...

I would like to join this minority!

Yes, I am with Albion on this one...'The Five', obviously not the 'Mighty Handful'!, are Sullivan, MacKenzie, Cowen, Parry and Stanford: these are the flag-bearers of the British Victorian musical period...

[Christopher J. Parker - The music of Sir Frederic Hymen Cowen (1852-1935) : a critical study. PhD (2007)]

Also now online is

Christopher J. Parker - The music of Sir Frederic Hymen Cowen (1852-1935) : a critical study. PhD (2007)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1834/

As with Duncan Barker's thesis on Mackenzie, this is the only recent study of any significance.

Perhaps I am biased, but I do recommend a read of this!

[I]

I rather liked his defence in his foreword of his persistent use of the first person singular pronoun throughout the book. I found that I had a lot of sympathy with what he wrote!

I think that Lionel's point about his self-importance reflecting the importance which his contemporaries bestowed upon him is a very fair one. If you look at British musical lexicons of the period you'll find that Cowen's name looms large.

How true. Cowen's name does crop up a lot until about the turn of the First World War and then he rapidly disappears from practically any musical reference book of note, almost as though he had never existed! By the thirties, and before he had even been delivered to his grave, his name rarely gets a mention in any contemporary book about British music!

I do look forward to the same surprise being expressed when someone reads Boulez' utterances a hundred years from now: "Did Boulez really think of himself as a major figure?"

I always think, if a composer doesn't blow his or her own trumpet, who else is going to?! Regardless of a composer's talent, if they don't believe in themselves, the chances are that others are not going to do so. Boulez certainly had a high opinion of himself and as part of that generation of modernists perhaps he deserves some credit, but was he a major figure...well...