Announcing Edward Cowie Orchestral Works from Métier Records

Divine Art Recordings are to release an album of orchestral music by Edward Cowie, which as with their recent and highly praised disc by John McCabe will be a remastered re-release of classic Hyperion vinyl LPs. The two works on this album have a coincidental close relationship with each other. The connection between them is WATER and its ceaseless and constantly changing character and ‘mood’. The intended release date will be this autumn.

The SECOND CLARINET CONCERTO is inspired by a man and his changing and often tempestuous relationship with a great deep lake, Coniston in The Lake District of England. John Ruskin, a famous and brilliant Victorian Arts Scholar, was prone to severe bouts of depression including hallucinations. He bought a large house overlooking and close to Coniston, thinking and hoping it would ‘heal’ his suffering. On good clear days, he felt euphoric, peaceful and uplifted, but when mists, wind, rain and black/grey storms raged, he was hurled into a tempest of fear, Illusions and delusions of overwhelming horror. Ruskin (the solo clarinet) is pitted against and within the forces of nature: fluxes between limpid calm and tortuous turmoil. Only the emergence of a glorious Lakeland sunset at the end of the piece rescues the great man from the black hell of madness. 

The CONCERTO for ORCHESTRA (“Studies in the Movement of Water”), is named after the many and astounding drawings of water made by Leonardo da Vinci. Composer Edward Cowie made a celebrated BBC 2 TV film about Leonardo in which this massive work features. Da Vinci’s drawings abound in turbulence, complex wave-forms, pulsations, folding sand, weaving of water between extremes of mirror-calm and maximum fracture and fragmentation. Also inspired by often storm-bound sailing amongst Scotland’s western Isles, this is a tour de force of unchained orchestral energy- unremitting- unforgiving and unfathomable. It is as visual as it is sonic- bursting with acoustic spray, waves and winds……

EDWARD COWIE has been described as ‘the greatest living composer directly inspired by the Natural World’ – high praise indeed. His first BBC Proms commission was in 1975 for the massive orchestral work Leviathan. Since then he has produced a stream of works inspired by wild (and some not so wild) places on our planet; however his undergraduate studies on physics (and a continuing fascination with particle physics) and studies in painting have also strongly shaped his musical voice. Today he is a skilled composer, conductor, pianist, and visual artist.   Following the imminent release of a recording of three of his string quartets in April (Métier MSV 28603) he is delighted to form a lasting partnership with Divine Art and its new-music imprint Métier and future projects already in hand include a disc of choral works (BBC Singers) and a programme of solo guitar music.

As this new recording is taken from a vinyl LP and no additional works are suitable as ‘fillers’ the 44-minute album will be issued at low-mid price. The great clarinettist Alan Hacker is soloist in the Clarinet Concerto, both works with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, for whom Edward Cowie was the first Granada Composer/Conductor appointee (1982-84). The conductor on this album is Howard Williams.

Edward Cowie: Orchestral Works

• Concerto for Orchestra
  Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra cond. Howard Williams
• Clarinet Concerto No. 2
  Alan Hacker (clarinet)
  Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra cond. Howard Williams

Métier MSV 92108 (Originally released as Hyperion A 66120 issued in 1984)

Original LP Reviews:

‘Scintillating! Powered by a relentless elemental force- what a triumph!’ – The Times (William Mann)

‘An absolute tour de force of orchestral colour and energy! The work pulsates with the ocean’s mood changes. Cowie is a true sonic poet of Nature’ – The Observer  (David Cairns)

‘This is a ravishing and deeply moving testament to the forces of nature and the human mind’ – The Guardian (Gerald Larner)

‘This is Cowie in richly lyrical mood- music saturated with emotional ordeals and the ever-changing light and colour of Coniston. Loved it!’ – The Financial Times (Max Loppart)