Echo / Ruby Hughes, Huw Watkins

$10.99
Label
BIS
Release Date
November 4, 2022
Format
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    Featuring ⌄
    • COMPOSER
      Traditional, Johann Sebastian Bach, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Deborah Pritchard, Henry Purcell, Errollyn
    • PERFORMER
      Ruby Hughes, Huw Watkins
    Product Details ⌄
    • RELEASE DATE
      November 04, 2022
    • UPC
      7318599925684
    • CATALOG NUMBER
      BIS-2568
    • LABEL
      BIS
    • NUMBER OF DISCS
      1
    • GENRE
      Classical
    Works ⌄

    1. Partita No. 4 in D Major, BWV 828: V. Sarabande

      Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach

      Performer: Huw Watkins

    2. 5 Spiritual Songs: No. 1. Gedenke doch, mein Geist, zurücke (after J.S. Bach's BWV 509)

      Composer: Benjamin Britten

      Performer: Ruby Hughes, Huw Watkins

    3. French Suite No. 3 in B Minor, BWV 814: III. Sarabande

      Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach

      Performer: Huw Watkins

    4. 5 Spiritual Songs: No. 4. Komm, süsser Tod (after J.S. Bach's BWV 478)

      Composer: Benjamin Britten

      Performer: Ruby Hughes, Huw Watkins

    5. Partita No. 6 in E Minor, BWV 830: III. Corrente

      Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach

      Performer: Huw Watkins

    6. 5 Spiritual Songs: No. 3. Liebster Herr Jesu (after J.S. Bach's BWV 484)

      Composer: Benjamin Britten

      Performer: Ruby Hughes, Huw Watkins

    7. No. 1. Echo

      Composer: Huw Watkins

      Performer: Ruby Hughes, Huw Watkins

    8. No. 2. For Each Ecstatic Instant

      Composer: Huw Watkins

      Performer: Ruby Hughes, Huw Watkins

    9. No. 3. If Grief Could Burn Out

      Composer: Huw Watkins

      Performer: Ruby Hughes, Huw Watkins

    10. No. 4. When You Are Old

      Composer: Huw Watkins

      Performer: Ruby Hughes, Huw Watkins

    11. No. 5. Baby Blue

      Composer: Huw Watkins

      Performer: Ruby Hughes, Huw Watkins

    12. 4 Songs: No. 1. By Beauteous Softness (After H. Purcell)

      Composer: Thomas Adès

      Performer: Ruby Hughes, Huw Watkins

    13. 7 Songs, Vol. 1: No. 5. Music for a While (After H. Purcell)

      Composer: Michael Tippett, Walter Bergmann

      Performer: Ruby Hughes, Huw Watkins

    14. Tom Bowling and Other Song Arrangements: No. 6. I Wonder as I Wander

      Composer: Benjamin Britten

      Performer: Ruby Hughes, Huw Watkins

    15. 8 Folk Song Arrangements: No. 6. Dafydd y Garreg Wen (David of the White Rock) (arr. C. Matthews for voice and piano)

      Composer: Benjamin Britten

      Performer: Ruby Hughes, Huw Watkins

    16. Folk Song Arrangements, Vol. 4, "Moore's Irish Melodies": No. 3. How Sweet the Answer (The Wren)

      Composer: Benjamin Britten

      Performer: Ruby Hughes, Huw Watkins

    17. The World

      Composer: Deborah Pritchard

      Performer: Ruby Hughes, Huw Watkins

    18. Lament

      Composer: Cheryl Frances-Hoad

      Performer: Ruby Hughes, Huw Watkins

    19. The Errollyn Wallen Songbook: No. 12. Peace on Earth

      Composer: Errollyn Wallen

      Performer: Ruby Hughes, Huw Watkins


Huw Watkins’ song cycle Echo, composed for soprano Ruby Hughes and premiered in 2017 at Carnegie Hall, is at the center of this artfully crafted recital. Setting texts by five different poets, the cycle is a work centered on melancholy – on transience, remembrance, and in the final song a numbed cry of inconceivable loss. As such it permeates the entire program, 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 realizations of Bach’s Geistliche Lieder as well as the Purcell realizations 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 program full circle.

REVIEW:

Here, in a recital that includes two world premieres, Hughes and longtime collaborator Huw Watkins combine contemporary works with works from centuries past. Somber themes connect them: the transience of life. Loss. Grief.

Watkins’s five Echo songs are exceptionally beautiful. Listen to the falling cascades in his setting of Emily Dickinson’s “For Each Ecstatic Instant.” Admire how vocally responsive Hughes is in the Purcell, how fragile and precious she sounds in Errollyn Wallen’s “Peace on Earth,” and how much she can communicate with barely a whisper of sound. Marvelous.

-- Stereophile