Walters: Songs Of The Heart, Cycles And Chamber Music - CD (5060113440907)

The Welsh composer Gareth Walters (1928-2012) studied with Jean Rivier and Olivier Messiaen in Paris in the early 1950s, inheriting a formal elegance which characterised his music ever after, enhanced on this disc by a nocturnal, serenade-like quality. The two song-cycles on this disc - Cv¢n y galon ('sSong of the Heart's), set in Welsh, on aspects of love, and Poésies du soir, which evoke the calm of summer evenings - share the song-writing clarity of Britten, whose early encouragement galvanised Walters's career as a composer. They enclose the buoyant, Celtic-coloured Little Suite for Flute and Harp, the expansive Violin Sonata and the gentle Berceuse for harp. Carolyn Foulkes, soprano Sally Pryce, harp Adam Walker, flute Adam Summerhayes, violin Nicola Eimer, piano Wendy Dawn Thompson, mezzo soprano London Concertante, ensemble Gregory Rose, conductor