Wikipedia

David Matthews (compositore)

compositore britannico

David Matthews (Londra, 9 marzo 1943) è un compositore britannico, principalmente di brani per orchestra, camera, voce e pianoforte.

David Matthews

Biografia

Matthews è nato a Londra in una famiglia amante della musica, anche senza aver effettuato studi in modo formale; il desiderio di comporre non si manifestò fino all'età di sedici anni, e per un certo periodo lui e il fratello minore Colin Matthews, anche lui compositore, furono gli unici insegnanti l'uno dell'altro. L'inizio del "boom Mahler" nei primi anni '60, quando le opere di Gustav Mahler iniziarono a entrare per la prima volta nel repertorio britannico regolare, fornì un enorme impulso creativo per entrambi; ma sebbene da allora abbiano talvolta collaborato come arrangiatori (nell'orchestrare sette delle prime canzoni di Mahler, per esempio) e come curatori della partitura pubblicata della "versione esecutiva" di Deryck Cooke della bozza della Decima Sinfonia di Mahler), se ne andarono per strade separate.

David Matthews read Classics at Nottingham University and afterwards, feeling himself still too much self-taught, studied composition with Anthony Milner; he was also much helped by the advice and encouragement of fellow British composer Nicholas Maw. Then, for three years, he was associated with Benjamin Britten and the Aldeburgh Festival. Not until he was 25 did he produce a work that satisfied him sufficiently to be pronounced his 'Opus 1'. He has largely avoided teaching, but to support his composing career has been employed in much editorial work and orchestration of film music. He has also written occasional articles and reviews for various music journals - the culmination of which activity being his 1980 book about Sir Michael Tippett, a composer he admires enormously.

David Matthews leggeva i classici alla Nottingham University e poi, sentendosi ancora troppo autodidatta, studiò composizione con Anthony Milner; fu anche molto aiutato dai consigli e dall'incoraggiamento del collega compositore britannico Nicholas Maw. Quindi, per tre anni, fu associato a Benjamin Britten e al Festival di Aldeburgh. Fino all'età di 25 anni non aveva prodotto ancora un'opera che lo soddisfacesse abbastanza da essere chiamata la sua "Opus 1". Per lo più evitò di insegnare, ma per mantenersi nella sua carriera di compositore si diede da fare in molti lavori editoriali e orchestrazioni di musica da film. scrisse anche articoli e recensioni occasionali per varie riviste musicali, il cui culmine fu il suo libro del 1980 su Sir Michael Tippett, un compositore che ammirava enormemente.

Caratteristiche

Tippett is indeed one of the strongest palpable influences on Matthews's own music, which could be characterised as a potent distillation and development of certain qualities that distinguish the Tippett, Britten and Maw generations of English composers - notably their ecstatic melodic writing and vibrantly expanded tonal harmony. But underlying this deceptively 'English' surface, and coming increasingly to the fore in recent works, is a concern for large-scale structure that connects rather to the central European tradition, back through Mahler and ultimately to Beethoven. Since the 1990s he has become increasingly interested in the tango as a dance-form capable of bearing complex structures, and in some of his symphonies and string quartets a tango takes the place traditionally reserved for the scherzo.

Produzione

Although he has written a fair amount of vocal music, notably a song-cycle, The Golden Kingdom, on poems of Kathleen Raine and Cantiga, a dramatic cantata on the tragic story of Inez de Castro, to a text by the novelist Maggie Hemingway (who was Matthews's partner for the last ten years of her life), Matthews's output as a whole is centred on the classical instrumental and orchestral forms. His series of (to date) thirteen string quartets is one of the most distinguished that any composer has essayed in recent years; he currently has written nine symphonies. They, and an accompanying cluster of works such as September Music, the Serenade, two violin concertos, concertos for cello, for piano, and for oboe, the symphonic poems In the Dark Time, The Music of Dawn, A Vision and a Journey and the monumental orchestral Chaconne (inspired by a poem of Geoffrey Hill), show that he can handle large and small orchestras with skill.

Matthews celebrated his 70th birthday in 2013. The occasion was marked by: a Nash Ensemble portrait concert at the Wigmore Hall – which included the premiere of A Blackbird Sang, a quartet for flute and strings; a major new symphonic poem, A Vision of the Sea, premiered at the Proms by the BBC Philharmonic; a new concerto for violin, viola and strings co-commissioned by the Presteigne and Cheltenham Festivals; two piano pieces for William Howard performed at the Spitalfields Festival; and the release of two recordings – a disc of piano music for Toccata Classics featuring pianist Laura Mikkola, and a Dutton disc of Matthews’ Symphony No. 7 (Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/John Carewe) and Vespers for Choir and Orchestra (BSO/The Bach Choir/David Hill)[1]

Libri

  • Michael Tippett, An Introductory Study, Faber & Faber, 1980.
  • Landscape into Sound (the 1st Peter Fuller Memorial Lecture), Claridge Press, 1992
  • Britten, Haus Publishing, 2003
  • David Matthews: Essays, Tributes and Criticism, Plumbago Books and Arts, 2014

Note

  1. ^ David Matthews - Biography, su fabermusic.com.

Collegamenti esterni

Controllo di autoritàVIAF (EN) 109939543 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0000 8407 2140 · SBN LO1V148909 · LCCN (EN) n80165143 · GND (DE) 133819078 · BNF (FR) cb12416298w (data) · J9U (EN, HE) 987007264997405171 · NDL (EN, JA) 001158805
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