Our May Recording of the Month features three works by British composer Huw Watkins, all of them written for Manchester’s venerable Hallé and Mark Elder (Hallé CDHLL7569). Watkins, born in Cardiff in 1976, studied at King’s College, Cambridge and the Royal College of Music with Robin Holloway, Alexander Goehr and Julian Anderson.

Symphony No. 2 was composed during the COVID lockdowns, which Watkins says only made him more determined it should end on a positive note. The substantial first movement opens with flickering, upward motives, like dust spiralling in a shaft of sunlight. Later, brass fanfares hocket between trumpets and horns with echoes here and there of Britten, while soft strings hint at a post-Vaughan Williams sound world. The outer sections of the nocturnal slow movement exude a consoling balm while the finale is lively and bright, from its gentle, questioning beginning to an exuberant, horn-whooping conclusion.

Fanfare for the Hallé was commissioned to celebrate the return of the orchestra to the concert platform following the first lockdown. Scored for 11 brass instruments, it builds to a confident and defiant climax that surely reflected the national mood....