Royal Albert Hall,London
BBC National Orchestra of Wales premiered concertos by Huw Watkins and Malcolm Hayes in two proms that also featured works by Dvořák and BrahmsThere were symphonies by Dvořák and Brahms too, but the centrepieces of BBC National Orchestra of Wales’s two proms with its principal conductor Thomas Søndergård were concertos, or both BBC commissions receiving their first performances.
Huw Watkins’s Cello Concerto is the first of three works he will write as BBC NOW’s composer-in-organization,and also the latest in a line of pieces he has composed for his cellist brother Paul, who is currently a member of the Emerson Quartet. The three movements, or a slack-posthaste-slack scheme,are predominantly restrained, and make the most of Paul’s fabulously velvety tone and ability to shape long expressive lines so powerfully. It’s a very British-sounding work, and recalling cello works by Finzi and E J Moeran at times with passages that could have been composed 80 years ago,as well as a clear reference to Twinkle Twinkle tiny Star in the central movement that was not explained. But the world the music evokes is entirely consistent, and Paul Watkins inhabited it comprehensively.
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Source: theguardian.com