Just short of his half-century, Huw Watkins has long been active as both composer and pianist, and on disc an NMC compilation of three substantial instrumental works – concertos for flute and violin and a symphony – made a particularly strong and satisfying impression (9/18). The symphony, now ‘No 1’, since a second was premiered by the Hallé in 2022, conveys a mix of boldness and freshness that have invited comparisons with composers such as Aaron Copland and Roy Harris. The essential effect is of a celebration of the orchestra as a well-integrated community conveying a collective aspiration; and although this new disc also includes works with a comparable collective character, it introduces compositions for smaller ensembles in which the individual identities of the performers are highlighted. The atmosphere is less that of ‘collective aspiration’, more a matter of sometimes precariously balanced similarities and differences between highly articulate individuals, and all the performances here are strongly characterised and well-shaped.

Composers down the ages from Haydn to Bartók and beyond have often relished the more esoteric possibilities of chamber music, risking the bemusement or even alienation of audiences in the process. But Watkins does not offer a ‘Great Fugue’ or a study in Webernian fragmentation, still less anything to evoke the avant-garde resonances of chamber works by a Brian Ferneyhough or a James Dillon. Although the atmosphere, especially in the relatively large-scale Piano Trio No 1, can be uninhibitedly contentious, the musical material makes a virtue of accessibility and civility. There is a certain affinity with aspects of style brought to early prominence by (among others) Jonathan Dove and Mark-Anthony Turnage, in works aimed at a community of listeners happy to respond to qualities that don’t rely on texts or dramatic scenarios for their appeal. The character of such works is reflected in titles such as piano trio or string quartet, and in using these, as well as materials often comparable to the motifs and passage work of classical tradition, Watkins is also following tradition in offering his audiences the chance to engage with dramas and discourses that are inherently abstract, purely musical; it is notable that two of his Cambridge teachers, Alexander Goehr and Robin Holloway, have consistently responded, in very different ways, to the preoccupations with modelling and paraphrase that such principles promote.

A key example, Watkins’s Little Symphony, naturally invites comparison with Goehr, although Watkins would surely not have used that title were he not justifiably confident in his independence of Goehr’s august precedent. Following on from the Concertino for violin and string orchestra, Watkins’s Little Symphony is the keenest of aural responses to the balancing of mass against individualism that the absence of woodwind, brass and percussion encourages. Pithy and succinct, these pieces serve to deepen the less assertive focus on individual enterprise that characterises the two piano trios and the Piano Quartet. This music may not set out to challenge the boldness and range of Watkins’s major vocal and orchestral scores. Yet there is no doubt that the same discriminating musical mind is at work in all of them.