Welsh rare bits
Key BBC NOW premieres
Grace Williams Sea Sketches (Cardiff, 1947) The composer maintained a close relationship with the orchestra throughout her career, once describing them to Britten as ‘my Cardiffians (who are dears – and professionals)’. Alun Hoddinott Star
Children (BBC Proms, 1989) A large-scale tone poem whose slow, evocative opening was reportedly described by one critic as ‘astral magic’. William Mathias Symphony No. 3 (Cardiff, 1991) Mathias often conducted the orchestra and, together, they recorded his Symphonies Nos 1 & 2. The Third was his finest. Rhian Samuels Clytemnestra (Cardiff, 1994) A powerful song cycle, setting text from Aeschylus’s Oresteia, premiered by Della Jones. Simon Holt St Vitus in the
Kettle (Cardiff, 2009) Dazzlingly energetic, the work celebrates the orchestra’s virtuosity and its adventurous spirit. Huw Watkins Spring (Cardiff, 2018) A tone poem composed, in Watkins’s words, ‘to mark that sense of renewal that keeps BBC NOW in such great health’.