COLIN MATTHEWS was born in London in 1946. He studied with Arnold Whittall and Nicholas Maw; in the 1970s he was assistant to Benjamin Britten, and worked for many years with Imogen Holst. His collaboration with Deryck Cooke on the performing version of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony lasted from 1963 until its publication in 1975. Over five decades his music has ranged from solo piano music through five string quartets and many ensemble and orchestral works. He was Associate Composer with the London Symphony Orchestra between 1992 and 1999, and Composer-in-Association with the Hallé from 2001-10, now their Composer Emeritus.
No Man’s Land, Crossing the Alps, Aftertones
Performers: Hallé Orchestra; Ian Bostridge (tenor), Roderick Williams (baritone); Hallé Choir, Hallé Youth Choir; Nicholas Collon (conductor), Richard Wilberforce (conductor)
Hallé marks the centenary of the First World War with a recording of award winning work by Composer Emeritus Colin Matthews. The main work on the recording, No Man’s Land, follows on from Matthews’ very positive collaboration with Christopher Reid on Alphabicycle Order, written for Hallé in 2007, and stages a dialogue between the ghosts of two dead soldiers whose corpses are strung up on the barbed wire of no man’s land.
