Review: Thomas Bowes Records Elgar’s Violin Concerto

English violinist Thomas Bowes returns to Rubicon with a new album dedicated to Elgar, centred on his acclaimed Violin Concerto alongside his celebrated miniatures, arranged for violin and orchestra by British composer Eleanor Alberga. Joining them, Nic Fallowfield conducts the Sinfonia Arcadiana, composed of some of the finest session musicians in London. Bowes is well known for his impressive career in film music — he has over three hundred credits to his name and is in constant demand in the film world. Outside of his work for the screen, Bowes has been a member of the London Philharmonic and the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, as well as leading the Maggini String Quartet and acting as concertmaster of the London Mozart Players. After having recorded both Walton’s and Barber’s violin concertos, Bowes has now decided to focus on Elgar’s.

Thomas Bowes

OFFICIAL TRAILER: Elgar by Thomas Bowes

Elgar was recorded at Studio 1 in Abbey Road, where, ninety-four years earlier, Elgar himself recorded the concerto with Yehudi Menuhin after opening the studio a year earlier. The recording has since become a reference for many violinists and musicians alike. Coincidentally, Bowes has also spent much of his career playing film music in this same room.

The relationship between Bowes and Elgar’s concerto is somehow special; over the years, it has become a source of emotional nourishment for Bowes. He first discovered it at a young age through his parents. For him, it is one of the greatest love songs ever written — a conception that translates into his deeply emotional interpretation of the work. At the same time, Bowes’s reading does not radically depart from the established tradition of the piece, and in many ways remains close to the expressive character associated with Menuhin’s well-known interpretation. Rather than attempting to reinvent the concerto, it feels like an elegant, emotional ode to the original recording and the interpretative tradition that has grown around it. Bowes, Fallowfield and the Sinfonia Arcadiana navigate over an hour of complex yet highly expressive music with brio, bringing listeners both nostalgia and splendour.

Thomas Bowes and Eleanor Alberga at Sir Edward Elgar’s Abbey Road Studios © gramophone.co.uk

Bowes and Alberga have been career and life partners for over thirty years, and have collaborated through Alberga’s two violin concertos, both written for Bowes. The duo chose the miniatures to accompany the concerto after performing them as encores for many years. Alberga’s arrangements breathe new life into the pieces, providing a lighter, welcome complement to the emotionally charged concerto without taking focus away from the central work.

Elgar often commented on the emotional charge of the lengthy violin concerto, finding it too emotional himself, even though he was very fond of it. It remains one of his greatest and final successes. Initially composed for Fritz Kreisler, it premiered in London in 1910, with Elgar conducting. Over a hundred years later, Bowes’s response is deeply emotional and perfectly executed — disguising any technical challenges there may be. The recording is warm yet modern, and the release proves to be deeply personal and a statement in Bowes’ recording career.