Ruby Hughes & Huw Watkins - Echo (2022) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. Partita No. 4 in D Major, BWV 828: V. Sarabande
02. Gedenke doch, mein Geist, BWV 509 (Arr. B. Britten for Voice & Piano)
03. French Suite No. 3 in B Minor, BWV 814: III. Sarabande
04. Komm, süsser Tod, BWV 478 (Arr. B. Britten for Voice & Piano)
05. Partita No. 6 in E Minor, BWV 830: III. Corrente
06. Liebster Herr Jesu, wo bleibst du, BWV 484
07. Echo: I. Echo
08. Echo: II. For Each Ecstatic Instant
09. Echo: III. If Grief Could Burn Out
10. Echo: IV. When You Are Old
11. Echo: V. Baby Blue
12. By Beauteous Softness (Arr. T. Adès for Voice & Piano)
13. Music for a While, Z. 583 (Arr. Sir M. Tippett & W. Bergmann for Voice & Piano)
14. I Wonder as I Wander (Arr. B. Britten & J.J. Niles for Voice)
15. Dafydd y Garreg Wen (Arr. B. Britten & C. Matthews for Voice & Piano)
16. Folksong Arrangements, Vol. 4: How Sweet the Answer (The Wren)
17. The World
18. Lament
19. Peace on Earth

Huw Watkins’ 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 programme, three songs by contemporary British composers admired by both Watkins and Hughes also resonate with the previous works, bringing the programme full circle.

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