Reviews of Symphony No.7 World Premiere
Performed on Saturday 24th April 2010 by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra,
conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, at The Bridgwater Hall, Manchester
"... a single-movement, four-section work that also has great beauty and
richness. It rings endless changes on a raptuous viola melody, heard at
the outset over tremulous violins, and reaches its climax with a dexterous
percussion cadenza before bounding towards an exuberant close. Breathtakingly
scored, it was superbly played."
Tim Ashley, The Guardian
"... artfully and beautifully composed ... there is a splendid cadenza for
timpani which is the grand climax of the work, and also the signal for a slow,
shadowy Tenebroso section which moves out of darkness into the boisterous
energy of the coda."
Hilary Finch, The Times
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David was marooned in Australia and unable to attend the premiere due to the volcanic ash crisis.
At the post concert reception David was represented by his manager, Edward Clark, and Sally Cavender
of his publisher, Faber Music. Conductor Gianandrea Noseda was joined by his wife Lucia.
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"What makes Matthews's music lovable is the way it embraces straightforwardly
tonal means, with no tricksy post-modern irony or agonised breast-beating. This
new symphony goes further in the direction of limpid simplicity. It takes daring
to place a guileless melody over a row of major chords, but lending those things
a subtle shapeliness and pregnant suggestiveness needs art too, which this
symphony had in abundance."
Ivan Hewitt, The Daily Telegraph
Being played alongside Mahler's 7th Symphony proved no disadvantage to the
premiere of David Matthews' new 7th Symphony, commissioned by the BBC as part of
the ongoing Mahler Fest in Manchester.
Indeed this new 7th rather put Mahler's 7th into context. Matthews, in his
programme note, explained that his composition time was limited to about 20
minutes but he wanted to write a symphony. So he took, as his model, the 7th of
Sibelius and it showed to very good effect.
Built around what amounted to an immediately memorable opening motto theme,
first on violas then dispersed among the other strings, this work is tightly
constructed with plenty of contrast in material and substance. The highlight
comes half way through with an extended, somewhat manic, cadenza for the timpanist,
giving the work, for at least this moment, a touch of Nielsenian frenzy. The coda
is the only tribute/attribution to Mahler's world in its riotous, headlong bedlam
for full orchestra.
Matthews' 7th is a stunning coup d'esteem for contemporary music. What is so
impressive is the individual tone, taken up from the expansive 6th Symphony and
here used in the context of an odyssey that seems to contain an experience that
lasts longer than the 20 minutes or so of its actual duration, very much as we
hear in the Sibelius work.
There are manifold beauties and also a toughness in the sound when needed to
provide contrast amongst the diverse elements on display. The orchestration is
by a modern master, with every note heard to best advantage. There are Sibelian
touches; rustling, tremolando strings, woodwind flourishes, pedal notes in the
deep end of the strings. But these are all moulded by an entirely individual
imagination, one of the very best writing music today.
After the masterly fluency in this superb work, Mahler sounded lumpy and jerky
with, in his 7th Symphony, an unusual amount of stop-go in the work's progress.
But Mahler offers his own view of ecstasy throughout. It is as if he operates his
own Hubble Space Telescope, seeking new vistas trillions of miles away; a universe
no less. Matthews offers us a view of our own land, often an English one, with
values of a people whose fierce but quiet independence has survived the
vicissitudes of outside interference. Not for him arid atonality but more a
fervent desire to communicate the very best qualities in modern music, taking
lessons from the past but moulding them into a wondrous new work.
The performances of both pieces were nigh impeccable. Gianandrea Noseda
clearly believed in the premiere work, producing clear, well balanced sonorities
from an orchestra on top form. In Mahler his brisk tempi prevented some natural
longeurs from deflecting our attention from an obviously flawed but entirely
lovable work, in many ways the most interesting and experimental of the entire
canon of Mahler symphonies.
This was a triumphant night in Manchester and not only for the United football
team, victorious earlier in the day!
Edward Clark
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