Grace Williams’ lifelong interest in vocal writing no doubt owed something to her upbringing in Wales. The original works heard here in their premiere recordings span the entirety of her career, ranging from her earliest surviving composition in any genre to 1967’s Fear no more the heat o’ the sun. Williams’ folk song arrangements were often commissions for BBC children’s programmes, and while her craftsmanship is evident irrespective of the song’s country of origin, her stylistic fingerprints are most firmly placed on her understated setting of the beautiful Welsh love song, Cariad Cyntaf.
Works:
•Grace Williams: Slow, slow, fresh fount
•Grace Williams: I had a little nut tree
•Grace Williams: Green Rain
•Grace Williams: Stand forth, Seithenin
•Grace Williams: Ffarwel i Langyfelach
•Grace Williams: Llangynwyd
•Grace Williams: The Song of Mary
•Grace Williams: Shepherds watched their flocks by night
•Grace Williams: Fairground; Flight•Grace Williams: A Lauterbach
•Grace Williams: Le Chevalier du guet
•Grace Williams: 4 Folk Songs
•Grace Williams: When thou dost dance
•Grace Williams: 3 Yugoslav Folk Songs
•Grace Williams: Y Deryn Pur; Y Fwyalchen
•Grace Williams: Cariad Cyntaf
•Grace Williams: Ow, Ow Tlysau
•Grace Williams: Dwfn yw'r mor
•Grace Williams: Lights Out
•Grace Williams: Fear no more the heat o' the sun