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Colin Matthews

Composer

Matthews can handle grandeur and intimacy with equal skill.

— Fiona Maddocks, The Observer

Broken Symmetry (1991-2). Orchestra

Broken Symmetry was designed as a scherzo, but its structure is complex.  Its first half consists of three scherzo sections and three ‘trios’ (after an introduction the first trio precedes the first scherzo).  There is a frenetic centre to the work, and then the first half is recapitulated in reverse.  But it is not a mirror image, as the symmetry is broken, and the scherzos and trios contract, collide and distort, becoming virtually unrecognisable in the process.  The imagery is perhaps that of a machine going out of control, and when it has reached its fastest and most extreme, it collapses, and the mechanism very quickly runs down.

At the pre-concert talk for the first performance of Broken Symmetry, in the spring of 1992, I said that I had thought of the piece as perhaps the scherzo of a ‘mega-work’.  This idea grew into my orchestral work Renewal, of which Broken Symmetry forms the third part.

Categories: Orchestra

Recordings

Decca (2003)

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20 January, 2021 - La cathédrale engloutie (Debussy/Matthews)
Orchestre de Paris, Ludovic Morlot (conductor)
Philharmonie, Paris, France

4 February, 2021 - Eleven Studies in Velocity
Royal Academy of Music
Livestreamed from the David Josefowitz Recital Hall

27 April, 2021 - Seascapes (World Premiere)
Nash Ensemble
Wigmore Hall, London

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Useful Links

Faber Music
NMC Recordings
The Holst Foundation

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