Originally posted by Roehre
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I'v e not heard that one either but I have read somewhere that, when MW's appointment was announced William Walton responded to it that they'd got the wrong Malcolm. -
William James Mathias was born at Whitland, Carmarthenshire in 1934. A child prodigy, he started playing the piano at the age of three and began composing at the age of five.
At the outset he felt the need to establish a fully professional compositional technique in order to advance from the predominantly amateur vocal culture which surrounded him in rural south Wales, and which had dominated Welsh musical life for generations. The result was a wide-ranging and eclectic style which nevertheless exhibited its own distinctive voice.
A brief period of serial experimentation while a student in London convinced him that he should remain true to his instincts.
An important feature of Mathias's early music is a sense of ritual, manifested in musical terms as a tendency to unfold an argument through sequential figuration and repetition within a developmental framework. By the late 1960s he radically transformed the surface of his music by highlighting sequential repetition without the presence of transitional material. Such a move is evident in Invocations for organ (1967) which is also the first work in which Messiaen's influence becomes apparent, both harmonically and colouristically. The most impressive of Mathias's works in this idiom is the first String Quartet (1967), in which the music possesses a new astringency of tone within an integrated single movement.
The third Piano Concerto (1968), featuring a virtuoso solo part that Mathias himself performed at the première, achieves a richer blend alongside an articulation of the ritualistic archetype from a specifically Welsh perspective. The Harpsichord Concerto (1971) sharpens the neo-classical framework of Mathias's style together with melodic, intervallic and rhythmic elements which introduce a neo-mediæval flavour into the language.
The cantata This Worlde's Joie (1974) crystallized his popular vocal and choral style on a large scale; its dramatic character led to his only full-scale opera, The Servants, a collaboration with Iris Murdoch. Set in a remote and claustrophobic country mansion, notionally in a snow-bound eastern Europe at the turn of the last century, the scenario blends philosophy with melodrama in a typical Murdochian brew about freedom and servitude. Mathias's score achieves a glowering immediacy which brings the varied characters vividly to life against a striking choral backdrop.
In a sequence of late chamber works (second and third quartets, violin sonata) Mathias introduced a darker, introspective element. This tendency reached its culmination in the powerful Third Symphony (1991). At the same time much of his later music is suffused with light.
He was appointed as CBE in 1985.
His most impressive things:
Opera "The Servants", 1980
Sinfonietta, opus 34, 1966
Symphony no. 1, opus 31, 1966
Symphony no. 2, opus 90, 1983
Symphony no. 3, 1991
Piano concerto no. 1, opus 2, 1955
Piano concerto no. 2, opus 13, 1960
Piano concerto no. 3, opus 40, 1968
Concerto for orchestra, opus 27, 1964
Harp concerto, opus 50, 1970
Harpsichord concerto, opus 56, 1971
Clarinet concerto, opus 57, 1975
Horn concerto, opus 93, 1984
Organ concerto, opus 91, 1984
Oboe concerto, 1990
Violin concerto, 1991
Flute concerto, 1992
String quartet no. 1, opus 38, 1967
String quartet no. 2, opus 84, 1981
String quartet no. 3, opus 97, 1986
Piano sonata no. 1, opus 23, pf, 1963
Piano sonata no. 2, opus 46, pf, 1969
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Thanks Sydney. I've tended to find Mathias' music rather lacking in depth and originality. Maybe time to re-assess.Comment
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Thanks from me too, I love WM's music especially the String Quartets“Music is the best means we have of digesting time." — Igor StravinskyComment
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Having enjoyed this new recording featuring both their works, I can say I appreciate both aspects of their musical personalities. important and unique composers.
https://www.classical-music.com/revi...sins-songbook/Comment
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