English and Welsh Music for Oboe and Piano
David Cowley (oboe) and Bryan Evans (piano) (Dryad Discs DJC002)
“English and Welsh Music for Oboe and Piano”, recorded at Ty Cerdd studio in the Wales Millenium Centre by oboist David Cowley and pianist Bryan Evans is due for release September 6th 2010 on the Dryad Discs label (DJC 002). The album serves not only as a major retrospective of some of the most significant 20th century works for solo oboe and oboe and piano but also as a celebration of this outstanding musical partnership of more than thirty years.
The album includes more familiar 20th Century works for oboe - Benjamin Britten Six Metamorphoses, York Bowen Sonata for oboe and piano, Gordon Jacob Seven Bagatelles, Edmund Rubbra Sonata in C - alongside Ronald Binge’s melodic gem The Watermill and the world premiere recording of the Sonata for Oboe and Piano by one of Wales’s most prominent contemporary composers, Guto Pryderi Puw.
The album also showcases Buffet Crampon’s “greenline” oboe - manufactured to the highest professional specifications from a revolutionary material combining particles of grenadilla wood and carbon fibre in a resin base. Overcoming the technical disadvantages of natural grenadilla wood and making efficient use of a scarce natural resource, this is an instrument designed to withstand the rigours of 21st century life whilst retaining the acoustic quality of the traditional oboe.
Previous Reviews
"Both David Cowley and Bryan Evans excel themselves throughout this delightful and enterprising CD" (French Music for Oboe and Piano: Dryad Discs DJC001) Musician 2004
"..blossomed and sang with Cowley's sonorous rhapsodic approach. Bryan Evans accompanied expertly" (Purcell Room) The Times 1983