• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • Biography
  • Works
    • Upcoming performances
    • Past performances
  • Recordings
  • Listen
  • Gallery
  • News & Views
    • Articles
  • Contact

Colin Matthews

Composer

The Isambard Kingdom Brunel of contemporary music …

— Paul Griffiths, The Times

To Compose without the Least Knowledge of Music … (1991). Wind sextet

A realization of Ein musikalisches Wurfelspiel (A Musical Dice Game) ascribed to W A Mozart, K. 516f

The rules of A Musical Dice Game – first published in 1793 and ascribed to Mozart as K. 516f (with more than a little likelihood of authenticity) – allow for the throw of the dice to determine the order of 176 bars of given musical material, so organized as to produce each time by chance a 16-bar waltz.  Obviously the rules have to be strictly obeyed if the waltz is to come out right.  Although I have obeyed the rule – except for the fact that I used randomly-generated numbers instead of throwing the dice 176 times to get my eleven variations – I’ve also applied further random operations in variations 4, 6, 8, 10 and 11; allowed for the dice to fall sixteen times in succession on “8” in variation 7; and subjected the instrumentation to chance in variation 10.

Categories: Chamber

Primary Sidebar

Search Works & Recordings

Filter Works

Work categories: START AGAIN

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

View all performances

Useful Links

Faber Music
NMC Recordings
The Holst Foundation

© 2023 Colin Matthews · Website by Bookswarm

Menu
  • Home
  • Biography
  • Works
    • Upcoming performances
    • Past performances
  • Recordings
  • Listen
  • Gallery
  • News & Views
    • Articles
  • Contact