‘A source of great inspiration’: Tamsin Waley-Cohen on the world premiere recording of Huw Watkins’ Sonata

Read more Featured Stories like this in The Strad Playing Hub  

Huw and I have known each other for more than 20 years and worked together closely for 15. I had long hoped that he would write something for me, and really for us, to play together. It felt the natural choice to include this gorgeous sonata on this album, as Huw has been one of the most important artistic influences in my life - like a musical older brother. He was close to Oliver Knussen too and knew him much longer than I did, and so it’s fitting to have their works featured in this album, Reflection, side by side.

Huw and I were lucky to find each other by happenstance, when I was recommended one of his early pieces to play for the BBC Young Musician competition, and he was a fellow at the Royal College of Music. Our paths crossed again at Prussia Cove a couple of years later and I invited him to play some recitals with me, as soon as I had any with respectable fees.

A bit like dating, with musical partners, when it works, you know it. While we had very different ways of working, our musical values were aligned, and therefore our differences were also our strengths. We quickly built an innate sense of trust on stage, breathing, creating and conjuring worlds of sound together, happy taking risks with a clear understanding of the structure and emotional content we wanted to prioritise.

I remember once tears rolling down my cheeks as I listened to him play the opening of the slow movement of Beethoven’s tenth sonata during one of our concerts. His playing continues to be a source of great inspiration, alongside his own music. I have listened to Huw’s music over the last 20 years and I consider him undoubtedly one of the great composers of today. He has the courage to write music that is searing, heartbreaking, playful, and completely his own. What’s more, it really works for the instruments it is written for and is a pleasure to play.

This sonata was commissioned by Wigmore Hall and Sir Vernon Ellis, and was originally scheduled to be premiered during the summer of 2020. Of course, we were deep in lockdown then. But Wigmore’s pioneering streaming series meant that we premiered it in the November of that year, to a rather empty hall, but probably a bigger audience online than would have fit in the physical hall in person.

It was the last concert I played before my daughter was born, and I had to sit down to play. My hands were beginning to become a touch swollen and less flexible than usual, and so I found some unusual ways to get around the demanding passagework in the more stratospheric passages. But I was determined that this piece should make it out into the world, not to be delayed and delayed again.

Since then, each time we play it is somewhat a highwire experience, in the best way. The calm exterior belies a restless questing quality, and while some passages may look simple on the page, the combination of the sound worlds of violin and piano is handled to create beguiling and ever shifting sands of rhythm and tonality.

I look forward to this sonata taking its place in the violin recital repertoire and hearing many others play it in years to come.

Huw Watkins’ Sonata features on Reflections, out on Signum Classics on 6 February 2026.