David Matthews SYMPHONY NO. 8 First Performance 17/04/15

[Alison]

Sorry to have missed the deleted messages which sounded unusually stimulating...

[jayne lee wilson]

And thank you, Alistair, for the wonderful breadth and depth of your #37, which said so much - of real importance - that I was trying to figure out a way of saying...

I urge all the devoted listeners here to go back and read it.

Hey Alison, ahinton's post I refer to here has now been restored as #35, thanks to an enlightened moderator... and it is indeed a good read, and essential for understanding this thread!

[jayne lee wilson]

Oh what the heck - here it is - we don't want it getting lost or forgotten again...

I cannot envisage RAH doing any music any real favours, actually.


Well, it's how you hear it, there's nothing to be said about that, really; you have to hear it the way you do, just as do others who hear it differently. It's good that you appreciate that David Matthews doesn't write as he does to court accessibility, popularity or anything else, but I cannot see how music written as, for example, he writes it can in and of itself be in a state of denial about the second half of the last century. What IS the second half of that century, anyway? It's Xenakis and Rubbra, Ferneyhough and McCabe, Sorabji and Arnold, Hespos and Stevenson and so on and so on; in other words, a far richer diversity of musics than was the case even a century ago and I'd have thought that this is something to be celebrated.

Take Ferneyhough and Matthews, for example, born in the same country within less than two months of one another yet their musics could hardly be more different. As far as I know, their paths crossed only once, when each was in his late 'teens at what would then have been a rare Prom (I think) performance of Rachmaninov's first symphony, which evidently impressed them both. Finnissy and Colin Matthews were likewise born in the same country barely more than a month apart, yet look again at how different their musics are.

Howells has been mentioned upthread (or perhaps in another thread); I well recall the late Derek Bell telling me that, when he studied with him, Howells was always going on to him about Boulez, Stockhausen and other Darmstadt oriented composers, which I have to say surprised me rather and Bell found this heavy going.

"In denial" suggests in practice either an ignorance or a wilful rejection, but do people who don't care for David Matthews' music really do so because they believe him to be ignorant of or wilfully to reject the work of, say, Stockhausen, Nono, Boulez or whoever? Were that to be the case and were it to be correct (which it most certainly isn't), one could only conclude that Matthews (and others) write as they do either as though such composers didn't exist or as some kind of reaction againt them and their work, which would be an unacceptable way for a composer to work. Matthews writes as he does because that's the way he feels that he wants to write; to do otherwise would be an act of creative dishonesty, much as it would be were you to compose tonal symphonies against your will or better judgement, if I may say so. Being aware (i.e. not in denial) of other musics isn't the same as identifying with them.

I'll say nothing about Matthews' 8th symphony yet because I want to listen to it again at least once before doing so ...

[Serial_Apologist]

For anyone wanting to avail themselves of the Matthews, here's the link, for the next 27 days:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02pg10k

Unfamiliar with this composer I've found a range of echoes of past British symphonists I love here, especially Bax in terms of orchestral splendour, organic workout and overall "feel". A rich enjoyable experience, albeit not as dramatically involving for me at any rate as some of John McCabe's symphonies and other orchestral works, especially the latter's No. 3; but enough to motivate me to investigate other works.

[Barbirollians]

For anyone wanting to avail themselves of the Matthews, here's the link, for the next 27 days:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02pg10k

Unfamiliar with this composer I've found a range of echoes of past British symphonists I love here, especially Bax in terms of orchestral splendour, organic workout and overall "feel". A rich enjoyable experience, albeit not as dramatically involving for me at any rate as some of John McCabe's symphonies and other orchestral works, especially the latter's No. 3; but enough to motivate me to investigate other works.

I agree - it was an enjoyable experience and I liked that sense of surge and swell of the sea off the Kent coast . I can understand the criticism in one sense in that had one been told it was written in the 1950s one would not be surprised but this is not a work that sounds to me as if it looks back - it is Matthews way of looking forward just down a different path.

[jayne lee wilson]

A few links...
Probably best to start with 1,3 and 5, even though I feel 1 and 3 are less distinctive - the 5th is a high point!
But don't start with 2 and 6, the longest and most complex structures - (and completely different from 4, 5 or 7). They'll take longer to grasp & you don't want to put yourself off ...(though even the 5th took me 3 or 4 hearings before it clicked - now, I can't imagine why!).
And don't overlook the NMC of 4 - it's one of the best (with a cliffhanger ending...) , and a lovely anthology as well. I think you see where this is heading....

http://www.amazon.co.uk/David-Matthews-Symphony-No-Vespers/dp/B00HAV1I6M/ref=sr_1_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1429560591&sr=1-2&keywords=david+matthews+symphony

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Matthews-Symphony-Nos-David/dp/B001T07MSS/ref=sr_1_5?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1429561278&sr=1-5&keywords=david+matthews+symphony

http://www.amazon.co.uk/David-Matthews-Sym-Cantiga-Sept/dp/B00008UVCV/ref=sr_1_4?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1429560591&sr=1-
4&keywords=david+matthews+symphony

http://www.amazon.co.uk/David-Matthews-Symphonies-Nos/dp/B003AR0R26/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1429560591&sr=1-1&keywords=david+matthews+symphony

These all come with the composer's own detailed notes - I tend to plunge in (and get lost ) before reading such things but they are very helpful as practical listening guides.
The Duttons have lovely cover art, especially the Scotrail Glencoe poster for 1/3/5.

[Serial_Apologist]

You're most kind, jayne. Thanks very much - will check these out over the next few days.

[teamsaint]

The second symphony can be heard in a performance conducted by Simon Rattle on Youtube

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rYxgJsHdA4k

[Serial_Apologist]

The second symphony can be heard in a performance conducted by Simon Rattle on Youtube

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rYxgJsHdA4k

Brill - thanks, TS.

[EdgeleyRob]

Yep,great stuff ts and thanks for the links Jayne.

[Richard Barrett]

had one been told it was written in the 1950s one would not be surprised but this is not a work that sounds to me as if it looks back - it is Matthews way of looking forward just down a different path.

I'm not going to say any more about my reaction to the music, but I'm really intrigued as to what this might mean. That is to say, what is it about this "different path" of looking forward which is different from looking backward?

[ahinton]

I'm not going to say any more about my reaction to the music, but I'm really intrigued as to what this might mean. That is to say, what is it about this "different path" of looking forward which is different from looking backward?

I'm not quite sure what it means either although, as you know, my reaction to the music happens to be very different to yours. The main reason why I am unsure of this is that I don't really see Matthews as seeking delibersately to look either backward or forward in this symphony although, that said, I would accept what I read to be implicit in Barbirollians' premise to the extent that there is in any case more than one way to look forwards and more than one way to look backwards. You have stated that you accept that not all music should of necessity be ground-breaking, even though you prefer it to be so - and what might strike some as ground-breaking might not necessarily convey the same impression to others in any case - but if breaking new ground and looking forward are to be seen as broadly synonymous, it would not be unreasonable to assume that a composer doesn't necessarily have to look forward or make some kind of pretence of doing so in order to validate his/her work. That David Matthews' eighth symphony in particular and perhaps the vast majority of his work fails to appeal to you for any reasons including those that you've cited, that's the way it is, of course and it cannot be any different.

[hedgehog]

Barbirollians :

"had one been told it was written in the 1950s one would not be surprised but this is not a work that sounds to me as if it looks back - it is Matthews way of looking forward just down a different path."

I'm not going to say any more about my reaction to the music, but I'm really intrigued as to what this might mean. That is to say, what is it about this "different path" of looking forward which is different from looking backward?

I would be interested to read an explanation of this too.

Unfortunately I can’t find anything in this Symphony to savor. He works in a recognizable idiom so, accepting that, I think what I find least appealing is that he depends on melodic lines/phrases but these lines never, not even in the slow movement, manage to transcend the underlying harmony even once; always I hear them just delineating a chord structure and this irritates me to the extent that I would say it’s poor writing. If there was something more interesting going on in those chords or another parameter like use of instruments, rhythm, dynamics etc it wouldn’t grate, but there isn’t and it does.

This is of course, just an opinion, but one coming from an attempt to find out why it didn't appeal to me. JLW writes that the slow movement seems to be the heart of the piece. I agree with that, it's just that for me the themes there don't add up to much at all

[ahinton]

he depends on melodic lines/phrases but these lines never, not even in the slow movement, manage to transcend the underlying harmony even once; always I hear them just delineating a chord structure and this irritates me to the extent that I would say it’s poor writing. If there was something more interesting going on in those chords or another parameter like use of instruments, rhythm, dynamics etc it wouldn’t grate, but there isn’t and it does.

I'm not sure that I fully understand what you're getting at here; is it that you don't find the harmonies interesting enough and that, because you don't and in view of what you also find to be the lack of interest in instrumentation, rhythm, dynamics etc., the outcome has no appeal or is it because you find the melodic shapes too heavily dominated by the underlying harmony or both? Perhaps I'm being rather dense but I don't think that I fully understand what you mean by melodic lines not "managing to transcend" that underlying harmony.

[hedgehog]

I'm not sure that I fully understand what you're getting at here; is it that you don't find the harmonies interesting enough and that, because you don't and in view of what you also find to be the lack of interest in instrumentation, rhythm, dynamics etc., the outcome has no appeal or is it because you find the melodic shapes too heavily dominated by the underlying harmony or both? Perhaps I'm being rather dense but I don't think that I fully understand what you mean by melodic lines not "managing to transcend" that underlying harmony.

Yes I mean that I "find the melodic shapes too heavily dominated by the underlying harmony " and that the harmonic movement itself, or any other parameter that might be in operation is not interesting enough to compensate it or By transcend I guess I mean that one has a strong sense of a horizontal line as an independent entity.