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

[Bryn]

Wonder no more: no!

One knows that, and appreciates why, Richard is no fan of the RAH's acoustic properties, but I reckon his CONSTRUCTION would make a very fine Prom indeed. With the right, ahem, marketing, it could attract a large in-hall audience, too.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

One knows that, and appreciates why, Richard is no fan of the RAH's acoustic properties, but I reckon his CONSTRUCTION would make a very fine Prom indeed. With the right, ahem, marketing, it could attract a large in-hall audience, too.

Nine Rivers would "fit", too. But, in the immediate wake of Roger "What do you mean, 'No cutting edge Music'? We've got some Birtwistle" Wright's programming talents, no chance!

[EdgeleyRob]

A very respectable piece, I thought - the most immediately attractive work (IMO) from this composer, written in a Musical language not far removed from, say, Rubbra or Martinu - with flavours from the post-RVW pastoralists and Mahler #10 at various points. Well worth hearing.

I once heard it said that Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy was Tchiakovsky's most attrative work – so the acccolade is double-edged. Rubbra was doing his thing from the 40s to the 70s. As direct and digestible as DM's music often is, I don't think history will be kind to someone doing this sort of thing in the early 21st century.

More than just well worth hearing IMVHO.
A marvellous piece.
So what if it doesn't break new ground.
So what if it follows the RVW-Rubbra line (Leighton and Rawsthorne were brought to my mind at times too).
My kind of Symphony this,what super dance suite like finale.
Didn't care too much for the rest of the programme

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I once heard it said that Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy was Tchiakovsky's most attrative work – so the acccolade is double-edged.

But was not so intended (even without the three typos) from me.

Rubbra was doing his thing from the 40s to the 70s. As direct and digestible as DM's music often is, I don't think history will be kind to someone doing this sort of thing in the early 21st century.

Maybe not tomorrow - but surely for today. More substance worth paying attention to than in other works whose focus is on "audience accessibility", I thought.

[ahinton]

It's kind of you to say so but please not in the RAH. The Round House would be the place in London I think.

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

Now I'm no fan of David Matthews' work either. I appreciate that music doesn't need to "break new ground", though if I'm honest I do prefer when it does, and I also appreciate that Matthews doesn't write the music he does in order to court "accessibility", but what I don't like is music that appears to be in a state of denial about the second half of the twentieth century ... , I'm sure that will be thought unfair but that's how I hear it.

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 ...

[jayne lee wilson]

DAVID MATTHEWS SYMPHONY NO.8. LIVE HDs RELAY, BBCPO/GRUBER 17/04/15.


Matthews reaches a peak in his symphonic output through nos. 4 to 6; from the chamber-musical 4th, with its Machaut-inspired polyphonic opening and a tango for a scherzo, then the sheer brilliance of the 5th's cut-and-thrust which starts out as neo-classical then goes far beyond into dreamlike evocations (cf. Schnittke Concerto Grosso No.4/ Symphony No.5); to the towering confrontational expressionism of No.6 - it's quite an impressive sequence!
The 7th returned to the earlier one-movement-with-subdivision structures of 1 and 3; almost monothematic, it seemed both a culmination and a backwards look. Simpler, fresher, more optimistic. A happy note to end the cycle on...

But here we are with an 8th. An afterglow, perhaps?
After an emotionally ambiguous slow introduction comes a leaping, vaulting, almost Straussian theme in a seemingly conventional Romantic mood of aspiration - a quest in search of a climax. But the focus seems unsure, and after about 5' the energies dwindle on a drumroll, followed by a mysterious and reflective slow section about 4' long, recalling the mood of the opening and perhaps preparing the ground for the central slow movement.

This is an intense adagio, a string-dominated elegy for a lost friend, and it really does seem the heart of No.8, based on two themes of remarkable beauty. You almost feel the symphony was written to find a home, or a frame, for it. But the emotion is carefully shaped here: after a little over 4' a fugal section begins on a second theme, leading to an anguished climax where both melodies are combined, then a dark, bleak coda. This extraordinarily eloquent piece is one of Matthews' finest creations, even in an output rich in slow movements (both separate and within larger structures).

Nor should the seemingly carefree finale be taken as shallow or irresponsible; for now, the waves of grief have come to shore, and these 4 dances are for the most part gentle, delicate and atmospheric. The last is woven from characteristic materials - shimmering instrumentation, a pastoral oboe, distant trumpets... then thematic fragments of the first dance, drifting and fading towards a nocturnal close (like Mahler in the scherzos of his 7th and 9th symphonies, but here warm and glowing rather than nightmarish) - a close which is surprisingly brusque, even a little throwaway - a single quiet chord, like the shutting of a distant door.

There are many precedents for dancing, carefree-seeming finales: works as different as Honegger 4 or Shostakovich 6 come to mind. This one seems perfectly judged: a deft and subtle balm after the intensity of the slow movement.

This composer rarely repeats himself. The 8th is very different from its sharply-focussed predecessor, as from the earlier separate-movement symphonies Nos. 4 and 5 (my personal favourites). I still have a few doubts about the musical focus (or lack of it) of the first movement. But the performance may have been partly to blame: the BBC Phil will surely project it with greater confidence and physical boldness in the later performances it deserves. True perhaps of the finale too, but - they commissioned it and played it!

So a symphonic afterglow perhaps, perhaps rather more. But if, after a symphonic cycle of endless variety of moods, forms, and musical inventiveness, Matthews wants to paint a few sunsets, why shouldn't he?
But really, you feel he's unlikely to do the same again...

[ahinton]

Eloquently expressed as ever, Jayne - thank you very much for your always insightful and sensitive comments!

[jayne lee wilson]

Eloquently expressed as ever, Jayne - thank you very much for your always insightful and sensitive commetns!

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 (and which shouldn't be lost amid inessentials).

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

[ahinton]

Mon Dieu!

David Matthews, anyone?...

[french frank]

Mon Dieu!

David Matthews, anyone?...

Indeed. There has been moderatorial intervention in the hope that people will respect the topic.

[Bryn]

Mon Dieu!

David Matthews, anyone?...

Not for me thanks, though I applaud his contributions to Cooke's work on Mahler's sketches for the 10th.

[Beef Oven!]

Not for me thanks, though I applaud his contributions to Cookie's work on Mahler's sketches for the 20th.

Me neither, but I like his 5th (and earlier works).

[Bryn]

Me neither, but I like his 5th (and earlier works).

Please do not quote my careless typos.

[EdgeleyRob]

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 (and which shouldn't be lost amid inessentials).

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

Well I would like to thank you Jayne and Alistair for posting your thoughts.
I have listened now 3 times and this work is fast becoming a favourite of mine.
Only managed to get the thing out of my head this evening by listening to Manfred

[Richard Barrett]

in the hope that people will respect the topic.

I thought I'd give this symphony a listen so as to check whether my earlier comments did respect the topic, ie. the music of David Matthews, and also because Jayne gave such a glowing account of it. In fact, listening confirmed as far as I'm concerned all the (arbitrarily removed!*) things I said about his music previously. For me, listening to it was like experiencing a limp and clammy handshake for half an hour. In its less anonymous moments I suppose it was somewhat reminiscent of Tippett but without any of that composer's sharp edges and vehement precision; but overall I found it a sad exercise in denial, and seeming nostalgia for formal and expressive certainties which never really existed in the first place (hence my previous comparison).

(* part but in fact not all of my post appears quoted by ahinton, with an ellipsis where something I guess I'm not allowed to say used to be)