COMPOSERS: Britten; Walton; Dowland; McLeod LABELS: Nimbus ALBUM TITLE: Britten • Walton • Dowland • McLeod WORKS: Britten: Nocturnal; Walton: Five Bagatelles etc PERFORMER: Ian Watt (guitar) CATALOGUE NO: NI6226
Ian Watt’s disc is more naturally recorded, even if it initially sounds hard-edged after Grondona. In addition to Britten and Bream, Watt explores another anniversary, the 450th of the composer who inspired Britten’s Nocturnal: an intelligent sequence of four works by Dowland each act as a prelude to a British work from the last 50 years.
Watt’s exceptional range of timbre is especially apparent in John McLeod’s inventive Fantasy on themes from Britten’s ‘Gloriana’, while the opening of Nocturnal is sublime. It is good, too, to hear Thomas Wilson’s haunting Dreammusic. A little more fluidity would occasionally be welcome, but this is a thoughtful and thoroughly enjoyable disc.
Christopher Dingle