Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra – Michael Hall, conductor
Program Notes
I Poco allegro
II Moderato
III Scherzo/Finale
The work is in three movements, with several common thematic ideas shared between movements one and two. The first movement in particular is characterized by the continuous revisiting of a group of basic musical ideas, with the motives always heard from a different perspective and in a different context. The second movement recasts the opening theme of the first into an incipient and finally realized lyrical song. The final movement is a kind of scherzo with changing metres, underpinned with extensive percussion.
Symphony No. 2 was composed in Winnipeg between May and September of 2001. My work on this piece was facilitated by a Major Arts Grant from the Manitoba Arts Council, whose support is gratefully acknowledged.
Symphony No. 2 is dedicated to the memory of my father, John William Matthews, 1919–2001.
World Premiere:
February 7, 2002
Centennial Concert Hall, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Centara Corporation New Music Festival
Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra — Michael Hall, conductor
Reviews
Composers evoke a sense of outdoors
Written by James Manishen from Winnipeg Free Press on January 8, 2002
The work was commissioned by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. Financial assistance for the commission was provided by the Canada Council. The Rockefeller Foundation provided the generous support of a one-month residency at the Bellagio Center in Italy, which provided me with extensive and dedicated time to work in a stunning environment. This assistance is gratefully acknowledged.
The world premiere of movements II and III took place in Belgrade on May 20, 2005. Michael Matthews conducted the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra with soloist Paul Marleyn.
I Mil caballitos persas se dormían
II Quiero dormir el sueño de las manzanas
III Todas las tardes en Granada
IV Puedo ver el duelo de la noche herida
V Como me pierdo en el corazón de algunos niños
VI Por el arco de Elvira
Each movement of this suite of pieces takes its title from a fragment of a poem by the Spanish author Federico Garcia Lorca. With its childlike, magical, and yet searing imagery, Lorca’s work has always affected me deeply. These lines are excerpted from poems in a 1936 collection, The Tamarit Divan.
I
A thousand Persian ponies fell asleep
in the moonlit plaza of your forehead
while through four nights I embraced
your waist, enemy of the snow.
II
I want to sleep the sleep of apples
to withdraw from the tumult of cemeteries
I want to sleep the dream of that child
who wanted to cut his heart on the high seas.
III
Each afternoon in Granada
a child dies each afternoon.
IV
I can see the duel of the wounded night
writhing in battle with noon.
V
As I lose myself in the heart of certain children
I have lost myself in the sea many times.
Ignorant of the water I go seeking
a death full of light to consume me.
VI
Through the arch of Elvira
I’m going to see you pass,
to feel your thighs
and begin weeping.
This work was commissioned by CBC Radio for the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra. Simon Streatfeild conducted the premier performance at Westminster Church in Winnipeg, on February 11, 1998.
Three Percussionists, String Quartet, String Orchestra
Program Notes
The idea of writing a concerto grosso is one which I have carried around in my head for some time. The idea of contrasting physically separated groups of voices or instruments has manifested itself in many ways throughout music history. From antiphonal chant, Gabrielli’s music for St. Mark’s cathedral in Venice, the Baroque concerto grosso, the multiple choirs of Berlioz and Mahler, works of Charles Ives, up through the fascinating music of Iannis Xenakis, Henry Brant and Alfred Schnittke, composers have been drawn to write for opposing/contrasting forces.
In the Baroque concerto grosso, a larger group of instruments (the tutti) is set in opposition to a smaller group of soloists (the ripieno). In my case I have chosen a tutti of strings and a ripieno of string quartet and percussion trio. This provided me not only with the contrast of large vs. small, ensemble sound vs. solo sound, but also a contrast within the ripieno group itself, between the beautiful and highly distinct timbres of percussion and string quartet.
Concerto Grosso was composed in Winnipeg during the late summer and fall of 1997. It was commissioned by Simon Streatfeild and the Mantoba Chamber Orchestra, with the assistance from the Manitoba Arts Council. The world premiere was given by Simon Streatfeild and the MCO at Westminister Church in Winnipeg on May 19, 1998.
Reviews
Unlikely paring a thumping success
Written by James Manishen from Winnipeg Free Press on May 21, 1998
“. . . the premiere of Matthews’ impressively structured Concerto Grosso. Matthews stays in bounds of the Baroque format, using the odd pairing of string quartet and a trio of percussionists as soloists. Throughout the four-movement work Matthews creates an absorbing mix of sounds, colours and motion, logically presented in an accessible idiom and coherently organized. It’s a piece that deserves to win more than a few friends.”
Since the composition of Landscape for piano and string orchestra (1990), none of my orchestral work has involved a soloist. So the opportunity to write a piano concerto was an exciting one, especially since it was to be for the exceptional pianist Jorge Suarez.
One of the great challenges in a concerto is to solve the difficulty caused by having two resources (ensemble and soloist) with which to present and develop thematic material. This requires a carefully thought-out balance between these two elements, from which must unfold the dramatic effect of the work. And it is above all the drama of the interaction between the soloist and orchestra which I have sought to convey; in this sense the work comes out of and places itself in the continuum of the Western art music tradition.
I designed the concerto in five movements, though it is essentially a modified three movement work, with movements two and four being cadenzas (the first for the orchestra, the second for the soloist). It is my intention with this dual-cadenza structure to make a statement about the equality of the partnership between the orchestra and the piano, as well as to provide a sense of balance around the central slow movement. The whole work then emerges as a type of arch form. This partnership is further enhanced by the detailed ensemble interaction which is called for between the orchestra and soloist.
My Concerto for Piano and Orchestra was composed between March of 1998 and May of 1999, in both Canada and France. It was commissioned by Eduardo Diamuñoz and the Orquestra Sinfónica Carlos Chavez, and was written for pianist Jorge Suarez. Financial assistance for the commission was provided by the Canada Council for the Arts.
The premier performance tooke place on June 25 and 27, 1999, at the Teatro Degollado in Guadalajara, Mexico. Gordon Campbell conducted the Jalisco Philharmonic Orchestra with soloist Jorge Suarez.
Into the Page of Night derives its title from a fragment of a poem by the Ukrainian writer Arkadii Dragomoshchenko (b.1946).
There are days when the sky is open.
From daybreak a foggy disc touches the ground.
But in the heights, in feathers tinted gold,
With difficulty you can make out a star’s
distant, incomplete appearance
Defined in unlit empty space
Still nothing but a point
Not yet sunk into the page of night.
The work was commissioned by Bramwell Tovey and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra for the 1999 Du Maurier Arts Ltd. New Music Festival. Financial assistance for the commission was provided by the Manitoba Arts Council. The world premiere was given on February 6, 1999, at the Centennial Concert Hall in Winnipeg; Rosemary Thompson conducted the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.
Reviews
New Music Festival echoes Last Night at the Proms
Written by James Manishen from Winnipeg Free Press on February 9, 1999
“The best music came early on, in the world premiers of Glenn Buhr’s Symphony No 1 (de Joie) and Michael Matthews’ Into the Page of Night.
Michael Matthews’ piece was as urban as Buhr’s was other-worldly. Tougher and more concentrated, the Matthews was a symphonic coiled spring, its argument sure handed, its resolution satisfying.”
I Lento misterioso; Poco allegro
II Lento e sostenuto
III Scherzo
IV Moderato
Symphony No. 1 was written during 1996 and 1997. It structured in a four-movement form, a compositional challenge to myself, and a conscious acknowledgement of the world from which it stems. I have a deep love for the twentieth-century symphonic tradition, from the work of Mahler at the beginning of the century, continued by Shostakovitch, and more recently by Holmboe, Tubin, Pettersson, Lutoslawski and Schnittke — an eclectic group, to be sure, but all with an interest in the large-scale structures, the development of motivic relationships, and the creation of an organic wholeness which is at the core of symphonic thought.
This work was commissioned by Virko Baley for the Kiev Camerata Orchestra, with financial assistance from the Canada Council.
Reviews
Written by John Story
MATTHEWS Out of the Earth.1 Symphony No. 1; Virko Baley, cond; Therese Costes (sop); Kiev Camerata; TNC CD-1415 (65:21)
This disc is my introduction to Canadian composer Michael Matthews (b. 1950). His harmonic idiom has much in common with the later works of Peter Maxwell Davies, particularly in pieces like his long and powerful second and third symphonies, with which Matthews’s Symphony No. 1 (1996–97) has a good deal in common. Tonally based, the harmony is quite dissonant. The melodic aspect has a French quality (the scherzo practically quotes Messiaen, for example). For all that, Matthews’s sense of rhetoric and form is comparatively conservative—one will not find the sort of complexity or exploration of uncharted realms that makes Elliott Carter’s contemporary Symphonia so thrilling. Matthews’s Symphony No. 2 has been performed in Canada since this recording was made in 1999, and one hopes that it is on the agenda of TNC. The First certainly deserves the widest possible hearing and would be a terrific addition to the growing number of big symphonies from North America that have finally been making serious headway into the contemporary orchestral repertoire. The present performance, recorded by the Ukraine-based Kiev Camerata, here expanded to full symphony orchestra size, seems resplendent and is extremely well recorded. While elsewhere I come down fairly hard on Virko Baley’s skills as a composer, I have no complaints whatsoever about his skills as either a conductor or as an A&R man.
It has been suggested that the future of concert music lies in linking like-minded souls around the world to form a new, perhaps even more vibrant, audience. If that’s the case, then this project stands out as a monument to this new era. Within this global context, Michael Matthews can claim citizenship of a new music world. Not only has he lived in many different parts of the globe, including Pakistan, Korea, the Caribbean and several different parts of North America, he also continues to work with musicians around the world. This project combines his talents with those of the American composer/conductor Virko Baley, with Therese Costes, a vocal soloist from Canada, as well as with musicians from Ukraine, creating a virtual international concert hall. Unlike the recently popular post-modern composers, Michael Matthews has crafted a musical world melding a vast array of ideas together to form a new aesthetic. His music is at once grounded in the past, and without being self conscious, allows the musical ideas to find a new frame of reference that is at once familiar, but also original.
Two Interludes was awarded third prize in the 1997 du Maurier Ltd. Canadian Composers’ Competition. The wolrd premier performance took place at the Centennial Concert Hall in Winnipeg, on January 28, 1997.
Reviews
Written by Rick MacMillan from Classical Music Magazine on March 1, 1997
“Michael Matthews won the $3,000 third prize for his highly polished Two Interludes.”
The title of this piece is from a poem by the Chilean poet and Nobel prize winner Pablo Neruda. It is from a larger work entitled The Heights of Macchu Picchu. The excerpt quoted below is from poem number eight in the series of twelve which make up the complete cycle. Neruda’s poem was inspired by his visit in 1943 to the ruins of Macchu Picchu, the lost Inca city high up in the Peruvian Andes, a city whose existence was rediscovered only in 1911.
The cycle deals with many issues, the prevailing one being the journey to the interior of the self in search for meaning and one’s place in the world. This particular poem is an “evocation of surging nature and pre-Columbian man linked in their common dawn, and fused together by a warm instinctive love which the poet summons up from the past to transfuse the present and embrace the future” (Robert Pring-Mill, The Heights of Macchu Picchu, xvii).
Technically my piece is made up of a series of five basic ideas (stated within the first 60 bars), each of which recurs and develops independently. I see the piece as a metaphor for our (and Neruda’s) experiences of nature and life as an ever changing tapestry of related and unrelated events, and our attempt to draw meaning from them.
This work was commissioned by the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra with financial assistance from the Manitoba Arts Council. The premiere performance took place at Westminster Church in Winnipeg, on March 24, 1993; Simon Streatfeild conducted the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra.
Ven, minúscula vida, entre las alas
de la tierra, mientras–cristal y frio, aire golpeado–
apartando esmeraldas combatidas,
oh, agua salvaje, bajas de la nieve.
Come, diminutive life, between the wings
of the earth, while you, cold, crystal in the hammered air,
thrusting embattled emeralds apart,
O savage waters, fall from the hems of snow.
Pablo Neruda, The Heights of Macchu Picchu,trans. Nathaniel Tarn, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1966, p.39.
Reviews
Written by Joseph Stevenson from All Music Guide
The following review appears in the All Music Guide:
The title of this large-scale tone poem for chamber orchestra (nearly twenty minutes long) is from the line “entre las alas de la tierra,” from the poem “The Heights of Macchu Picchu,” by Pablo Neruda, the Nobel Prize winning Chilean poet. The composer1s intention was to describe musically Neruda1s impressions on visiting the old Incan city in 1943. He saw in Neruda1s poem a metaphor of humanity1s attempting to draw meaning from the experience of nature and life. The music is rich, dense, and mystical. It is based on five basic motives, all of which are presented within the first sixty measures. It is a complex and moving work, which requires some rehearing for the listener to experience its full impact, as its many ideas are often deeply layered over each other. Matthews was born in Newfoundland in 1950, and has studied and worked both in the United States and Canada.
Composer's premier impressive
Written by James Manishen from Winnipeg Free Press on March 26, 1993
The idea for Landscape came from a poem of the same title by Mexican poet Octavio Paz. This poem first appeared in a collection of Paz’s calledSalamandra (1958-61). In my piece I have attempted not to portray a landscape as such, but rather to evoke, as Paz does, images of contradictions – of locations or events which seem to exhibit exclusively one quality, but which in reality also contain opposite characteristics. The titles of each of the two movements provide images of stability and motion, yet by its very nature each aspect of this “landscape” contains its own complement.
Landscape was commissioned by Margaret Bruce, Peter Gelhorn and the Roseberry Orchestra, with financial assistance from the Manitoba Arts Council. The world premiere was given in Toronto in July of 1991, with conductor Gary Kulesha and pianist Christina Petrowska.
