Three of Matthews’ most substantial works feature on this new disc, including the evocative and pictorial Music of Dawn; his dramatic cello concerto Concerto in Azzurro (mastered by cellist and Young Musician of the Year, Guy Johnston) and A Vision and a Journey, all beautifully executed by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Rumon Gamba.
The collection has been highly acclaimed in International Record Review, who gave the disc its ‘Outstanding’ classification:
‘The Music of Dawn (1989-90) is a fascinating and gripping piece, inspired by the eponymous painting by Cecil Collins (‘one of the most important painters of the twentieth century’, says Matthews)… Certainly this 27-minute piece is pictorial and atmospheric, with much exotic percussion and a vivid suggestiveness; yet, for all this, the overriding impression is of a musical content that is richly lyrical, dance-like and powerful, the orchestration being particularly imaginative. Some listeners may hear passages reminiscent of Tippet’s The Rose Lake (which was written in 1993, after Matthews’s opus, such comparison forming a glowing endorsement)… the music ravishes the ear and the senses, and the piece as a whole is spellbinding.
Whereas The Music of Dawn enjoyed an outside stimulus, [A Vision and a Journey] stems more from the composer’s own imagination… It is a score to return to; there are numerous rewards in doing so.
Concerto in Azzuro is a cello concerto written for Steven Isserlis and was completed in 2002. The ‘blueness’ of the title stems from the island of Lundy, which the composer visited (having started the piece) and found it ‘suffused with blue’ and which helped Matthews move the work on. It is in a single movement in which may be found three nominal sections. Yet the music’s very diversity seems to be more of a metamorphosis over the 24 minutes – after all, the transition from the first part (which has numerous changes of tempo and much deft interplay between soloist and ensemble) to scherzo is seamless; and the slow (very beautiful) finale continues some of the moods heard earlier if now distilling more magic from them.’
International Record Review (Colin Anderson), February 2009
'[The Music of Dawn] is a richly scored response to a painting by Cecil Collins that makes no bones about sharing its musical imagery with other representations of sunrise and the sense of new beginnings - by Wagner, Strauss, Ravel, Schoenberg - but in a spirit of homage rather than dependency, creating something distinctive out of the contrasts between dance-like exuberance and soulful lyricism...
A Vision and a Journey reinforces the aspirational theme, suggesting a kind of pilgrim's progress, or hero's life, as it travels through well defined stages of fervent, at times rhapsodic questing. There are brief hints of Tippett in the string writing, but the heritage represented by such ultra-Romantic composers as Bax and Bantock is not spurned either, in a dramatic and engaging fantasia which is all the more effective for its imaginative way with some very simple basic ideas.
Concerto in Azzurro - "concerto in blue" - is another evocation of light, sky, and an underlying sense of the transcendent... the concerto builds persuasively to a marvellously understated, touchingly poetic ending.'
Gramophone (Arnold Whittall), April 2009