York Bowen | A Picture from the Fortress Wall, Op.61/3

From "Fragments from Hans Andersen" It is autumn: we stand on the fortress wall, and look out over the sea.... and at the Swedish coast on the other side of the Sound, which rises high in the evening glow. Hans Christian Andersen (1805 – 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales. Andersen's fairy tales, consisting of 156 stories across nine volumes, have been translated into more than 125 languages. They have become embedded in Western collective consciousness, accessible to children as well as presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers. His most famous fairy tales include "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Little Mermaid", "The Nightingale", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", "The Red Shoes", "The Princess and the Pea", "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling", "The Little Match Girl", and "Thumbelina." Andersen's stories have inspired ballets, plays, and animated and live-action films. Edwin York Bowen (1884 – 1961) was an English composer and pianist. Bowen's musical career spanned more than fifty years during which time he wrote over 160 works. As well as being a pianist and composer, Bowen was a talented conductor, organist, violist and horn player. Despite achieving considerable success during his lifetime, many of the composer's works remained unpublished and unperformed until after his death in 1961. Bowen's compositional style is widely considered ‘Romantic’ and his works are often characterized by their rich harmonic language.