Concert Piece for Voice and Orchestra

1897 Dream of Endymion, The (‘Scena’ for Tenor), f.p. London, Philharmonic Society, Davies, Ben (ten.), 17.vi.1897, orig. MS: London, RCM, MS 5058g?, pub. Novello, Ewer & Co, 10446 (vocal score only, 1897), lib. Bennett, Joseph, Piece for tenor and orch.

Songs (solo)

Too numerous to list, Cowen’s 300 or so songs encompass everything from the popular ballad to the high art song, the latter of which led him to be described as ‘the English Schubert’ in 1898. The subject matter, like so much else in his output, repeatedly refers to flora, fauna, children, fairies, religious subjects, or a combination of them. With regard to his much maligned ballads, Cowen says that he

wrote a large number of these…during my spare time from more important work…These were mostly of a stereo-typed pattern, with two, and sometimes three verses, a catching refrain (if possible), an easy accompaniment, to suit young lady amateurs, and words that told some little sentimental or pathetic story…One song I wrote, ‘The Children’s Home’, was, I think, responsible for more musical passings-away and transportations to heaven of little children than any severe epidemic of measles in real life ever could be. For a long while afterwards nearly all the songs were cast in this infanticidal mould…All the same, I cannot see why the so-called ballad, if it be a good one, should be looked down upon with contempt. A simple poem, set to simple, melodious music is surely better and more capable of making its way direct to the heart than a vague wandering about of unvocal passages coupled with unexpected discords and inharmonious sounds in the accompaniment.
Such songs as Schubert’s ‘Serenade’, Brahms’ ‘Wiegenlied’, Haydn’s ‘My mother bids me bind my hair’, and many others…by the great masters are, after all, only ballads, and their appeal is all the stronger by reason of their simplicity and melodiousness.
The mistake is that English ballads are all classed together in one and the same category – namely, they are ballads, and nothing more – and because the successful ones (not always the best) happen to be more remunerative to the composer than other forms of compositions, no distinction is drawn in the minds of the hypercritical between the good and the bad.

Gervase Hughes described Cowen’s song-writing skills as ‘ballad-mongering’, and indeed in many respects this is true; Cowen was a dominant figure in domestic music-making in the late-Victorian drawing-rooms, where his music was so in keeping with the tastes of his audiences. Writing in the 1940s about this phenomenon Reginald Nettel observed:
There is always a good deal of drivel in anything that commands the attention of the multitude…We tend to regard to-day [these songs] as indescribably dull, but our grandparents enjoyed them with as much alacrity as a modern cinema audience will enjoy the sob-stuff provided by some calculating Hollywood syndicate.

However one may deplore Cowen’s ‘gift’ for the writing of craftsmanlike sentimental songs to ready-made formulas (and almost every critic does), one cannot blame Cowen for accepting the inducements to compose such trifles, as the monetary rewards could be substantial. Cowen’s best songs, however, are as good as anything written by Schubert or Schumann, and therefore his description as the ‘English Schubert’ is an apt one. Arthur Jacobs cites Cowen’s Golden Glories, which he says ‘shows a real individuality and shapeliness in its cunning setting of a five-line stanza’, and The Nautch Girl’s Song, which ‘has an application of pseudo-oriental touches which is by no means overdone’, as his best songs. Gervase Hughes selects I Wonder, Love was once a little boy, Thoughts at Sunrise, and The Nautch Girl’s Song, as his choices. Geoffrey Bush chooses Cowen’s setting of Longfellow’s Thy Remembrance, in which Cowen ‘walks the narrow dividing line between sensitivity and sentimentality with tact and assurance’. Only modern prejudice prevents a concerted effort to revisit the better examples that flowed from Cowen’s pen. He sought inspiration for his songs from many sources and authors: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, G. Clifton Bingham, Sir Walter Scott, Hugh Conway, A. C. Swinburne, Thomas Moore, Adelaide Procter, Mrs Hemans, Edward Teschemacher, Longfellow, Keats, Barry Cornwall, William Wordsworth, R. E. Francillon, George Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Shelley, Arthur Conan Doyle, Dinah Mulock/Craik/Craig, and Fred Weatherly. The quality of the texts varies enormously, and it is often cited as a criticism of Cowen that he was unable to sort the ‘wheat from the chaff’.

Duets, trios and Part-songs

Like Cowen’s songs, there are many duets and part-songs; a significant minority are arrangements of his solo songs.

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