‘Superbly inventive…’   The Sunday Times

Availability

score and parts on special sale from the Hire Library

Programme Notes

Crowning Colin Matthews’ substantial body of chamber music are his string quartets, a remarkably rich body of pieces that span over 35 years of composition. Particularly striking is the Fourth Quartet, from 2012, which won a British Composer Award and was described as ‘superbly inventive’ by The Sunday Times’s Paul Driver. A deeply personal seven-movement work, the quartet flitters through shadowy, half-remembered dances (habanera, barcarolle and musette) before ending, defiant and unresolved, on a stark unison.

Reviews

‘Superbly inventive…’
The Sunday Times (Paul Driver) 18 May 2014

‘The pivotal fourth movement is particularly beautiful and hushed; transporting…’
Classical Source (Colin Anderson), 7 January 2013

‘Matthews’ Fourth Quartet had that satisfying unity and interrelatedness of material fused with a diversity of style and approach that denotes genuinely idiomatic writing for the genre.’
Tempo (Paul Conway), April 2013

 

String Quartet No.4

The Forge, Camden (London, United Kingdom)

Gildas String Quartet

String Quartet No.4

6pm pre concert masterclass

Purcell Room, Southbank Centre (London, United Kingdom)

Gildas String Quartet

String Quartet No.4

All Saint's Church (Dingley, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom)

Elias String Quartet

String Quartet No.4

Wigmore Hall (London, United Kingdom)

Elias String Quartet