Composer: William Alwyn, Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, Lennox Berkeley, Edwin York Bowen, Howard Ferguson, Ralph Vaughan Williams
Performer: Adam Walker, Huw Watkins
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Chandos
Catalogue: CHAN20265
Release: 2023
Size: 1.21 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Bowen: Miniature Suite for flute and piano
01. I. Humoresque
02. II. Romance
03. III. Scherzo
Vaughan Williams: Suite de Ballet
04. I. Improvisation
05. II. Humoresque
06. III. Gavotte
07. IV. Passepied
Berkeley: Sonatina for Flute & Piano, Op. 13
08. I. Moderato
09. II. Adagio
10. III. Allegro moderato
Alwyn: Sonata for Flute & Piano
11. I. Slow
12. II. Adagio tranquillo
13. III. Allegro ritmico e feroce
Bax: Pieces for piano
14. I. Shadow Dance
15. II. The Princess Dances
16. III. Naiad
17. IV. Grotesque
Ferguson: Sketches, Op. 14
18. I. Proco allegro
19. II. Andante
20. III. Con moto
Bowen: Sonata for Flute & Piano op.120
21. I. Allegro
22. II. Andante piacevole
23. III. Allegro con fuoco
For his second album for Chandos, the flute virtuoso Adam Walker explores the music of British composers with pianist Huw Watkins. Vaughan Williams’s Suite de ballet was commissioned by the French flute virtuoso Louis Fleury (who had given the première of Debussy’s Syrinx). The work uses eighteenth-century French dance forms, a common practice in ‘neo-classical’ composition. Bax’s Four Pieces rescue music from an abandoned ballet originally conceived for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Sir Lennox Berkeley’s Sonatina was originally written for treble recorder; James Galway’s championship of the piece made it a staple of the flute repertoire. Howard Fergusson’s Three Sketches were composed intermittently over a period of twenty years. The theme of the third piece is a Hindu melody, ‘Koyaliňya bole ambuvaň’ (Cuckoos sing in the mango tree). Sonatas by York Bowen and William Alwyn complete this varied and engaging programme.