Huw Watkins
Fanfare; Symphony No. 2; Concerto For Orchestra
Hallé Orchestra/Mark Elder
Hallé CDHLL7569 68:20 mins
Colourful, imaginatively structured, communicative without being banal, Huw Watkins’s music usually spreads instant delight. And often, in his orchestral music, it’s the same kind of delight.
One work might be a symphony and the other a concerto, but when miniature motifs chase each other, climaxes keep building and woodwind tendrils prettily curl, it’s hard keeping the two genres apart. Similar fingerprints occur in Watkins’s previous symphony, recorded by the Hallé in 2017. In making the family resemblances clear, Watkins, you could argue, is following the symphonic models of Mozart and Haydn, rather than Beethoven. And what’s wrong with that?
- Mozart: child prodigy, melodic genius, Romantic forerunner... and our greatest composer?
- Beethoven unleashed: the man, the myth, the music that shook the world
Pleasure is further enhanced by the pairing of the Hallé’s skills with Watkins’s individual symphonic language, scattered with echoes from the past (Walton’s energy, Vaughan Williams’s pastoral musings, Sibelius’s metamorphosing themes).
During his years as the Hallé’s music director, Mark Elder’s special aim was to make the orchestra supreme in British repertoire, something very apparent in its eloquent warmth and the many instrumental solos, so gracefully shaped. Woodwinds get multiple chances to chortle and gambol, while the brass keep roaring, strikingly so in the Fanfare, written to celebrate the Hallé’s re-awakening after nine months of Covid-induced silence.
Meanwhile, the symphony and concerto show Watkins’s skill at orchestral bustle, and the central slow movements glory in lyrical contemplation, tugging at the listener’s heart. Instant delight, as I said.
