A setting of Rainer Maria Rilke’s five sonnets to Orpheus for tenor and harp (translation by J.B. Leishman). First performed by Peter Pears and Osian Ellis at the Wigmore Hall in London in May 1977.
Reviews
‘Matthews takes a great risk in setting the lavishly complex sonnets of Rainer Maria Rilke, with their remote, mystical aestheticism, in a simple, almost child-like way. It is all too easy to limit and confine the range of such poetry, but the control and insight of Matthews’ response removed many doubts.’
— Nicholas Kenyon, Financial Times