Watkins, H: Partita for solo violin

Featuring exuberant young violinist and pianist Diana Galvydyte and Christopher Guild, this exciting new release brings together an incredible set of works by Eastern European, Italian and British composers, many of whom are alive and still composing to this day.

Italian composer Joe Schittino’s Poem ‘Eglè’ is based on the Lithuanian folk tale of Eglè the Serpent Queen, and is a world premiere recording on this disc. Violinist Diana Galvydyte was born in Vilnius, Lithuania in 1984, and grew up close to this folk-tale and its symbolism. The story - the best-known Lithuanian fairy tale - is considered one of the richest in references of Baltic mythology. This is the piece's world premiere recording.

Eduardas Balsys, the influential Lithuanian composer, wrote a ballet in 1960 based on the same story, and it is this score from which ‘Lament’ and ‘Mischievous Drebulytè’ are taken.

Two fabulous works by Scottish composer James Macmillan also feature - After the Tryst is a setting of William Soutar’s love poem which he originally wrote to sing with a folk band, whilst A Different World is a musical yearning for a dream world in which lovers’ wishes might be fulfilled.

Huw Watkins, one of the UK’s most sought after pianists and composers, wrote his beautiful and virtuosic Partita for solo violin in 2006.

With other excellent works by conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen, along with Graźyna Bacewicz, Venjamin Sher and Vytautas Barkauskas, this disc is an exciting exploration of contemporary works for solo violin and violin & piano.

Welsh composer and pianist Huw Watkins read Music at King's College, Cambridge, where he studied composition with Robin Holloway and Alexander Goehr, and completed an MMus in composition at the Royal College of Music with Julian Anderson. He was awarded the Constant and Kit Lambert Junior Fellowship at the Royal College of Music, where he is now a Professor of Composition. The centrepiece of this disc, commissioned by Sir Nicholas Goodison and premiered by Mark Padmore, sets Dylan Thomas's defiant In my craft or sullen art for tenor and string quartet. Alina Ibragimova excels in the virtuosic Partita for solo violin, which Watkins describes as a 'very fast, relentless gigue’. Huw's brother Paul is soloist in the lyrical Sonata for Cello and Eight Instruments; while there are echoes of Britten and Berkeley in the beautifully wrought Three Auden Songs, sung by tenor Mark Padmore, accompanied by Huw Watkins on piano.