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Symphonies 1-6
Symphony No. 1 in C minor, f.p. St. James’s Hall, London, cond. Cowen, 9.xii.1869, unpub.
Symphony No. 2 in F major, f.p. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, Liverpool Philharmonic Society, cond. Cowen, 8.x.1872, unpub.
Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Scandinavian, f.p. St. James’s Hall, London, cond. Cowen, 18.xii.1880, pub. Albert J. Gutmann, Vienna (1882)
Symphony No. 4 in B flat minor, The Welsh, f.p. St. James’s Hall, London, Philharmonic Society, cond. Cowen, 28.v.1884, pub. Novello, Ewer & Co., London (1885?)
Symphony No. 5 in F major, f.p. Cambridge, Cambridge University Music Society, cond. Cowen, 9.vi.1887, Novello & Co., London (1906)
Symphony No. 6 in E major, Idyllic, f.p. London, Richter Concert Series, cond. Richter, 31.v.1897, Breitkopf and Hartel, Leipzig (1898)
By the time of Cowen’s youth the symphonic genre had gradually emerged over the previous hundred years to become the vehicle set aside by composers for their most intense and substantial orchestral thoughts. As is clear from several of Cowen’s comments made later in his life that he regarded his outpourings in this form as his most significant contribution, even though his success as a composer was attributed more to his penning of a veritable deluge of popular ballads and songs, as well as being an accomplished writer of choral works. In 1869 at the tender age of 17, fresh from his final training at the Stern Conservatory and some further piano lessons from Sir Charles Hallé, and with a blossoming career ahead, Cowen began to compose his first symphony. Brahms, nineteen years his senior, had yet to write his first symphonic composition, and Bruckner and Tchaikovsky had both only produced their earliest examples a few years before. Dvorak was also only a fledgling symphonist with his first two such works in existence by the mid-1860s. Of Cowen’s native contemporaries, Parry had yet to commit his first symphony to paper, nor had Stanford, although Sullivan’s youthful, but fluent and assured Irish Symphony was extant by this date. Cowen had no real English models to turn to, apart from Sterndale Bennett, Macfarren, Prout and his old master Benedict. But these works do not demonstrate the power of their German cousins, and Cowen turned instead to the Mendelssohnian and Schumannesque examples that he would have studied at Leipzig and Berlin.
Cowen regarded himself primarily as a symphonist, and it was his two C minor works that did much to launch his career, the first symphony bringing him to the nation’s attention in 1869, and his third earning him a world-wide reputation in 1880. The fourth, fifth and sixth symphonies seem to have done little to bolster his standing further, although he regarded the fifth as his masterpiece in this genre.
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