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 Watkins, 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.

Track Listing:
1-3. Sonata for Cello and Eight Instruments
Paul Watkins (cello), The Nash Ensemble / Ian Brown

4-9. Four Spencer Pieces
Huw Watkins (piano)

10-12. Three Auden Songs
Mark Padmore (tenor), Huw Watkins (piano)

13-17. Partita for solo violin
Alina Ibragimova (violin)

18. In my craft or sullen art: Goodison Quartet No.4
Mark Padmore (tenor), Elias Quartet