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Colin Matthews

Composer

Matthews’ statement has a power and elegance that are quite his own.

— Paul Driver, The Sunday Times

Britten : Praise We Great Men (1976-7). Chorus & orchestra

Cover of score for Britten's Praise We Great Men

Britten’s setting of Edith Sitwell’s poem ‘Praise We Great Men’, was left unfinished at his death. It was being written for Mstislav Rostropovich to include in his first season with the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington D.C, in 1977. The manuscript breaks of after 118 bars, near the end of the fifth of an intended ten sections.

I didn’t ‘complete’ it, as there was nearly half still to be written when Britten died, and I felt it should stop exactly where he had left it. (Except that, after an empty bar, I added an instrumental coda, based on the penultimate section.) We’d already agreed that I would orchestrate it, and I completed the score a month or two after Britten’s death. It was nearly another ten years before Rostropovich gave the first performance at Snape Maltings in 1985 with the Philharmonia Chorus & Orchestra.

Categories: Arrangements and orchestrations, Choral, Orchestra

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28 March, 2023 - Time Stands Still, Dual, 23 Frames for Piano, Horn and String Trio
Nash Ensemble
Wigmore Hall, London

28 March, 2023 - Seascapes
Claire Booth (soprano), Nash Ensemble
Wigmore Hall, London

1 April, 2023 - Hidden Agenda
London Bridge Trio
Hall 2, The Sage Gateshead, Tyne and Wear

28 May, 2023 - Mosaics (world premiere)
London Symphony Orchestra, Francois-Xavier Roth
Barbican Hall, London

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Useful Links

Faber Music
NMC Recordings
The Holst Foundation

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