Barddoniaeth Daear / Poetry of Earth

Alun Hoddinott has acute sensitivy in selecting poetry and prose for setting to music. During a long and enriching career he has composed for some of the most notable voices of our time. Since 1991, Alun has enjoyed working with a number of singers and instrumentalists of the young generation and prominent among them is the baritone Jeremy Huw Williams. His flexible voice and extraordinary textual insight have inspired a series of special works ober the last decade or more. The present CD contains contrasted examples – a cycle for voice and harp settings deliciously varied group of poems under the title Poetry of Earth; a cycle for voice and piano celebrating the bicentenary in 1999 of the birth of Russia’s Shakespeare, Alexander Pushkin, in resonant translations; and a dexterous collection of folk-song settings full of memorable touches. Over the years Hoddinott has also written for a number of our finest harpists – Osian Ellis, Elinor Bennett, Ieuan JOnes and Manon Morris. His second harp sonata “Tempi” was composed for Manon in 1997 and it exploits every possible example of the harp’s technique. The folk-song composer enjoyed himself hugley in so doing!