Don’t miss Colin Matthews' appearance on BBC Radio 3’s ‘In Tune’, now available on BBC iPlayer. Colin dicussed the upcoming premiere of his new work No Man’s Land at the BBC Proms this Sunday 21 August. He was joined on ‘In Tune’ by singers Ian Bostridge and Roderick Williams, who will be the soloists for Sunday’s performance, along with the City of London Sinfonia conducted by Stephen Layton.
No Man’s Land is a twenty-five minute work for orchestra and two vocal soloists. The ‘no man’s land’ in question is that of the First World War; a subject close to Colin’s heart, as his grandfather died on the Somme. Set to a text by Christopher Reid, the piece poignantly evokes the ghosts of two soldiers that hang on barbed wire:
‘To pass the time, we let the wind/rummage in the hollows of our skulls/for memories and scraps of song and whisps of rhyme’.
‘To pass the time, we let the wind/rummage in the hollows of our skulls/for memories and scraps of song and whisps of rhyme’.