Don Owen

With his critically acclaimed AVIE Records releases of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Gabriel Fauré and Sergei Rachmaninov to his credit, the celebrated British pianist Charles Owen scales the heights of Franz Liszt’s anthology Années de pèlerinage, Première année: Suisse (“Years of Travel, First Year: Switzerland”), which evokes the great 19th-century pianist-composer’s Swiss sojourns with aural impressions of the Alpine landscape, its peaks and valleys, mountains and streams, and the country’s distinctive folk music. Literary references abound as they do in the album’s concluding piece, the emotional Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude (“The Blessing of God in Solitude”) which was inspired by a poem penned by Liszt’s friend Alphonse de Lamartine. Emotions ran equally high for Charles Owen who turned to Liszt during lockdown. The uncertainty of being homebound throughout the pandemic was eased by the extra meaning and solace of the composer’s evocations of journeying, experiencing the natural world and its sense of beauty and liberation.

The renowned horn player Martin Owen is joined by the violinist Francesca Dego and pianist Alessandro Taverna in this varied and compelling programme. Mozart's Horn Quintet, KV 407 is one of the earliest examples of the horn in chamber music - although this partnership was embraced by Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and Schumann among many others. The Quintet is unusually scored for horn, violin, two violas, and cello, but the majority of the melodic interplay in the work occurs between the horn and the violin, so replacing the lower strings with piano works very well. Brahms's Horn Trio was the first major work for this instrumentation, and remains one of the finest in the repertoire.

The renowned horn player Martin Owen is joined by the violinist Francesca Dego and pianist Alessandro Taverna in this varied and compelling programme. Mozart's Horn Quintet, KV 407 is one of the earliest examples of the horn in chamber music - although this partnership was embraced by Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and Schumann among many others. The Quintet is unusually scored for horn, violin, two violas, and cello, but the majority of the melodic interplay in the work occurs between the horn and the violin, so replacing the lower strings with piano works very well. Brahms's Horn Trio was the first major work for this instrumentation, and remains one of the finest in the repertoire.

The final instalment in a celebrated three-part series by Contrapunctus, directed by Owen Rees, exploring the music of the Baldwin Partbooks, a remarkable treasure-house of Tudor sacred polyphony, some of which is not found anywhere else.

Foundation singer Owen Gray, also known as Owen Grey, is credited as Jamaica’s first home-grown singing star as he was the first singer on the island to sing in a style that wasn’t mento, calypso or jazz. His work spans the R&B, ska, rocksteady, and reggae eras of Jamaican music, but although he had a notable amount of hits under his belt and a lot of his recordings were of astonishing quality, the man was never highly regarded and didn’t receive the recognition he truly deserved. Perhaps the reason for this might have been his choice of material and direction that hasn’t always felt sincere.