'Excitingly scored and wonderfully capricious.’    ​The Times

Instrumentation

2.afl.2.ca.2.bcl.2.cbsn - 4231 - timp - perc(2): anvils/glsp/metal pipes (scaffolding)/tam-t - harp - strings

Availability

Score and parts for hire

Programme Notes

'Vivo' means lively, and applies to just over half of this four-and-a-half-minute work. There's a clear divison into two parts, the second of which takes over and radically slows down the descending chords which figure as part of the musical material tossed around rather frenetically in the first part. The fast music returns at the end of the piece, which is dedicated to my wife Belinda - who often complains that I tend to end works softly, although not in this case.

Colin Matthews

 

Reviews

‘Adrenalin had been set coursing by a new and truly festive overture: Matthews' tiny Vivo, a tightly constructed, excitingly scored and wonderfully capricious play of musical conceits from top to bottom of the orchestra.’
The Times (Hilary Finch), 28 July 2003

‘A short, fizzing, brassy preface, Vivo, from Matthews.’
The Guardian (Andrew Clements) 28 July 2003

Vivo

Coughlin-Saunders Performing Arts Center (Alexandria, LA, USA)

Rapides Symphony Orchestra/Joshua Zona

Vivo

BBC Radio 3 (United Kingdom)

BBC Symphony Orchestra/Mark Elder

Vivo

Royal Albert Hall (London, United Kingdom)

BBC Symphony Orchestra/Mark Elder

Vivo

Grote Zaal, Het Concertgebouw (Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Hallé Orchestra/Mark Elder

Vivo

BBC Radio 3 (United Kingdom)