Sea Eagle is a survey of seven pieces from the British horn repertoire, recorded by venerable hornist Richard Watkins. Released by NMC Recordings, its name comes from the Peter Maxwell Davies work with which this album begins. This is the oldest work on the disc, composed for the hornist in 1982, and is the only featured solo work. Watkins approaches Maxwell Davies’ challenge with an intense conviction; his sharp-sighted tone and innate ability to convey such contoured phrasings make him a true rhetorician of the instrument. This is especially apparent in the Adagio, in which Watkins soars freely between registers as if slipping between a series of up and downdraughts. The turbulence of his trills and flutter-tongued notes in the outer movements are always well measured and add a marked contrast to the surrounding legato sections.
Gerald Barry’s trio for voice, horn and piano (Jabberwocky) is entirely raucous in the best sense of the word and is a perfect marriage to Lewis Caroll’s nonsensical text. Here the hornist possesses an electric cuivré that penetrates the ears, matching Mark Padmore’s fierce and guttural German pronunciation and Huw Watkins’ jaunty and well-judged piano.
My only qualm with this album is that the remaining works of this disc are not overly memorable (is the horn writing presented all too similar?), except perhaps for the beautiful segue between the horn and cello in each movement of Colin Matthews’ Three of a Kind.
Comments
Log in to join the conversation.