A premiere recording is just one highlight on this thoughtful programme
THE STRAD RECOMMENDS
The Strad Issue: March 2026
Description: A premiere recording is just one highlight on this thoughtful programme
Musicians: Tamsin Waley-Cohen (violin) Huw Watkins (piano)
Works: Knussen: Reflection. Prokofiev: Violin Sonata no.1. Stravinsky: Duo concertant. Watkins: Violin Sonata
Catalogue number: SIGNUM SIGCD968
This artfully constructed and sympathetically recorded programme opens with Knussen’s Reflection – an exquisitely perfumed piece, which has notes of Debussy and Messiaen interwoven in the harmonies. Tamsin Waley-Cohen has a silvered tone: lean and pure, but with power when required. Her unassuming aristocratic sonority allows the music to flow, unimpeded by excessive vibrato.
Her impeccable duo partnership with Huw Watkins is alert to nuance and characterisation, allowing the delicate invention to shine through. Once again, Watkins demonstrates his breadth as a composer and performer. His own Violin Sonata in this premiere recording takes up the mantle of Knussen in the way it offers shimmering timbres in adeptly structured invention, as well as delicately coaxing melody, of which the floating and meditative Lento offers a particularly magical example.
The Neoclassical bent is overt in Stravinsky’s linear Duo Concertant, gorgeously understated yet expressive in the Dithyrambe, and energised and rhythmically alert in the Gigue. The ensemble is neat and well-shaped, with a rustic edge to the folk-inspired Eglogue.
A hard edge infuses the second-movement Allegro brusco of Prokofiev’s First Sonata, whose ensuing lyrical passages have fine contrast, ensuring a compelling sense of theatre. Both artists lend great tenderness and haunting expression to the Andante, their reverie abruptly replaced with virtuosic tempestuous invention in the Allegrissimo.
JOANNE TALBOT
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