Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Deborah Pritchard, Henry Purcell, Errollyn Wallen, Huw Watkins
Performer: Ruby Hughes, Huw Watkins
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: BIS
Catalogue: BIS2568
Release: 2022
Size: 1.85 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Bach: Partita No. 4 in D major, BWV828
01. V. Sarabande
02. Bach: Gedenke doch, mein Geist, BWV509
Bach: French Suite No. 3 in B Minor, BWV814
03. III. Sarabande
04. Bach: Komm süsser Tod, BWV478
Bach: Partita No. 6 in E minor, BWV830
05. III. Corrente
06. Bach: Liebster Herr Jesu! wo bleibest du so lange?, BWV484
Watkins: Echo
07. I. Echo
08. II. For Each Ecstatic Instant
09. III. If Grief Could Burn Out
10. IV. When You Are Old
11. V. Baby Blue
12. Purcell: By beauteous softness (from Now does the glorious day appear, Z332)
13. Purcell: Music for a while, Z583
14. trad.: I wonder as I wander
15. trad.: Dafydd y Garreg Wen
16. trad.: How Sweet the Answer (The Wren)
17. Pritchard: The World
18. Frances-Hoad: Lament
19. Wallen: Peace on earth
Huw Watkins’s song cycle Echo, composed for soprano Ruby Hughes and premiered in 2017 at Carnegie Hall, is at the centre of this artfully crafted recital. Setting texts by five different poets, the cycle is a work centred on melancholy – on transience, remembrance, and in the final song a numbed cry of inconceivable loss. As such it permeates the entire programme, adding a new and unexpected depth to that which precedes as well as follows.
Another strand of the recital is the idea of how composers across the ages have addressed and echoed one another lovingly in their music – often in the most nuanced and unconscious way. Bach’s solo keyboard works capture something of a sense of timelessness, or more accurately, inspire an emotional connection that transcends time. A similar affinity seems to inform Britten’s folksong arrangements and his realisations of Bach’s Geistliche Lieder as well as the Purcell realisations by Thomas Adès and Tippett. A different kind of echo is created by the inclusion of Britten’s version of Dafydd y Garreg Wen (David of the White Rock) – a nod to the performers’ shared Welsh heritage. Closing the disc, three songs by contemporary British composers admired by both Watkins and Hughes also resonate with the previous works, bringing the programme full circle.