Colin Matthews (b1946)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Since RW left, there has been a very pleasing increase in the number of living composers featuring on CotW - Oliver Knussen, Nicola LeFanu, five women composers under thirty have all appeared in the past 18 months, and this week it's the turn of Colin Matthews.

To me the more interesting of the Matthews brothers, but (again for me) the works played in this morning's programme demonstrated what I've often found in his compositions - some interesting ideas which aren't subsequently explored/developed but merely stretched out wastefully so that the works wither away into doodling of various degrees of interest. Today's Fourth Sonata for orchestra (a work I've known ever since its recording on DG from yonks ago) begins quite arrestingly, somewhat in the mode of Lutoslawski's Second Symphony, moves on to a section (more akin to Dutileux) with a generic "aching" melody in high 'celli against a more active, syncopated wind, brass and percussion Music, then a long, drawn-out reminiscence of the close of Night Ride & Sunrise - in which material was presented until the process was worked out, at which point it stopped. A combination of predictable and unimaginative thinking. Matthews commented that he "rejected Minimalism" in this work because it didn't allow him to create Form - ironic, then, that Form was the core weakness of the work: a basic tripartite set-up, with little sense of individuality.

The Double String Quartet which followed, I just found tedious: sub-Metamorphosen stuff, too long and not very interesting.

It's excellent that living composers are given their spot in the limelight in this important spot in the schedules, but if - for the sake of the "chat with Donald" format - they have to be British composers (or English-speaking composers) I hope that R3 bites the bullet and get composers with more to offer to talk about how and why they compose and think of Music in the ways that they do.

[BBMmk2]

This very good to hear. Will have to look out more on this programme.

[Richard Barrett]

To me the more interesting of the Matthews brothers

[ahinton]

...which one should presuambly take to imply that you consider each of them to be less interesting than the other?...

[Serial_Apologist]

...which one should presuambly take to imply that you consider each of them to be less interesting than the other?...

...Or at least as uninteresting as the other?

[ahinton]

...Or at least as uninteresting as the other?

Depends on Richard's point of view, I guess (though I'm not clear if my weak attempt at sarcasm got through here!)...

Anyway, interesting as it was that Colin Matthews got taken up by American minimalism and then moved away from it rather before much of it (Terry Riley perhaps excepted) had exerted much of a grip on British musical life, one could suggest that, ultimately, it might have done less for his musical development than other influences.

[ardcarp]

Interested to hear your take on the Fourth Sonata, Ferney, which I heard today for the first time. I admit to being puzzled by it. I'd call the ending 'minimalist' whatever Matthews said. I think Donald tried to suggest that in its early days we called the stuff 'process music'. Mrs A. had just uttered the words 'OMG this is boring' when, as you say, it abruptly ended. Presumably the 'form' (i.e. arresting start and timeless ending) was what the composer intended, so maybe we shouldn't diss his intentions. "A combination of predictable and unimaginative thinking" a bit harsh maybe?

I didn't mind the 'chat with Donald' half as much as the 'chat with Andrew' elsewhere!

[Beef Oven!]

...which one should presuambly take to imply that you consider each of them to be less interesting than the other?...

There was a very interesting, somewhat dialectic discussion about the merits or otherwise of DM on these boards a while back, but I can't find it. Largely involving RB and Jayne, IIRC.

I couldn't decide where I stood on it. On the one hand, I do enjoy his symphonies, piano trios and st4tets, but somehow he seems like a lost opportunity - technically excellent, but very conservative. And if living composers aren't prepared to push on the boundaries of form and medium, we're doomed.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think Donald tried to suggest that in its early days we called the stuff 'process music'.

To this day, this is Steve Reich's preferred term - and a misplaced reference to the "M" word can lead to a frosty interview!

"A combination of predictable and unimaginative thinking" a bit harsh maybe?

Near tautology, too! What I'm trying to get at is that the work sets up a process and just follows it through to the end, regardless. It's rather like somebody discovering the Cycle of Fifths for the first time, and just writing a descending sequence going though the cycle - it's long, it becomes predictable, and at the end, you're just back where you started. Knowing how to use the cycle to create expectations, and then pulling the rug from under these expectations - that's proper composition. CM was still in his twenties when he wrote the Fourth Sonata, and heaven knows there were composers at that time who just went through a formula in a work - lots of forgettable Serial pieces, where the composer just went through all the available permutations of the various series and then stopped, expecting a "worthwhile" piece to result automatically. (And only last year at HCMF, I heard a piece by a much older composer who should know better who also just set up a system and blindly followed wherever it led him - and with the same sort of tedium that resulted.) I think it is "predictable", once the listener grasps what the process is, and "unimaginative" of a composer just to go through the process - s/he needs to dare to disrupt and undermine the process that s/he has created.

I didn't mind the 'chat with Donald' half as much as the 'chat with Andrew' elsewhere!

[Richard Barrett]

I think it is "predictable", once the listener grasps what the process is, and "unimaginative" of a composer just to go through the process - s/he needs to dare to disrupt and undermine the process that s/he has created.

Nothing to do with either Matthews, but I would argue against that notion actually. Firstly, a process being predictable isn't necessarily a weakness, as for example in those pieces of Alvin Lucier involving a very gradual unidirectional change in pitch. Secondly, if a process needs "disruption" and/or "undermining" in order to make it interesting, maybe it wasn't framed so well in the first place and isn't sufficiently rich and complex for its unfolding in itself to retain the listener's attention.

[ahinton]

There was a very interesting, somewhat dialectic discussion about the merits or otherwise of DM on these boards a while back, but I can't find it. Largely involving RB and Jayne, IIRC.

I couldn't decide where I stood on it. On the one hand, I do enjoy his symphonies, piano trios and st4tets, but somehow he seems like a lost opportunity - technically excellent, but very conservative. And if living composers aren't prepared to push on the boundaries of form and medium, we're doomed.

I think that the point here is that some composers make a point of pushing boundaries while others make the most of what might be contained within them of which some things might never previoously have been fully explored (yes, OK, there are also the lazy wastrels, to be sure, but I do not think that we are contemplating any of these when considering the work of the Matthews brothers); there is, to my mind, not merely ample room for both but an absolute necessity for them both in order that we can continue to live in an atmosphere of constant musical diversity, but the most important thing is that composers do what they must, whatever that might be.

The term "conservative" in this context - especially in its wilfully pejorative use - is, I fear, a misleading and unhelpful one; few would, I imagine, set out to be "conservative" in the sense of trying to "conserve" the unconservable in a current climate but, on the other hand, if a composer wants to pay tribute to a tradition or series of traditions, that's fine, as long as he/she doesn't merely do so along the lines that Busoni deprecated, namely in the guise of some kind of suspension in aspic, as it were - in other words a traduction of a real "tradition" achieved by means of attempts to to hide behind some of its manifestations rather than respond to them with creative imagination and intelligence.

[ahinton]

Nothing to do with either Matthews, but I would argue against that notion actually. Firstly, a process being predictable isn't necessarily a weakness, as for example in those pieces of Alvin Lucier involving a very gradual unidirectional change in pitch. Secondly, if a process needs "disruption" and/or "undermining" in order to make it interesting, maybe it wasn't framed so well in the first place and isn't sufficiently rich and complex for its unfolding in itself to retain the listener's attention.

Good points!

[Beef Oven!]

I think that the point here is that some composers make a point of pushing boundaries while others make the most of what might be contained within them of which some things might never previoously have been fully explored (yes, OK, there are also the lazy wastrels, to be sure, but I do not think that we are contemplating any of these when considering the work of the Matthews brothers); there is, to my mind, not merely ample room for both but an absolute necessity for them both in order that we can continue to live in an atmosphere of constant musical diversity, but the most important thing is that composers do what they must, whatever that might be.

The term "conservative" in this context - especially in its wilfully pejorative use - is, I fear, a misleading and unhelpful one; few would, I imagine, set out to be "conservative" in the sense of trying to "conserve" the unconservable in a current climate but, on the other hand, if a composer wants to pay tribute to a tradition or series of traditions, that's fine, as long as he/she doesn't merely do so along the lines that Busoni deprecated, namely in the guise of some kind of suspension in aspic, as it were - in other words a traduction of a real "tradition" achieved by means of attempts to to hide behind some of its manifestations rather than respond to them with creative imagination and intelligence.

Some very interesting observations that I must cogitate.

I don't mean that anyone sets out to be conservative, I'm thinking about the outcome. I wasn't being pejorative.

[ahinton]

Some very interesting observations that I must cogitate.

I don't mean that anyone sets out to be conservative, I'm thinking about the outcome. I wasn't being pejorative.

No, I do realise that, of course!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Firstly, a process being predictable isn't necessarily a weakness, as for example in those pieces of Alvin Lucier involving a very gradual unidirectional change in pitch.

I find it a weakness - I hate being able to foretell/second-guess what a new piece is going to do before it does it: I don't see the point of hanging around for it to happen.

Secondly, if a process needs "disruption" and/or "undermining" in order to make it interesting, maybe it wasn't framed so well in the first place and isn't sufficiently rich and complex for its unfolding in itself to retain the listener's attention.

Yes - as in the case of the cycle of fifths? I suppose if a process is sufficiently rich and complex that I don't (immediately) notice its being a process, then that would take care of the (very real) problem I have with "predictability" - I can't think of a particular piece that does this, but then I wouldn't if I haven't noticed that a process is being unfolded!