On 23 and 24 October John Storgårds conducts Colin Matthews’ Fuga with the Lapland Chamber Orchestra in in Rovaniemi and Kemi.
Fuga is an instrumental version of Part III of The Great Journey, a song cycle for baritone and 8 instrumentalists that ranks among one of Matthews’ most substantial musical statements. Based around the story of the conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Part III describes his journey into the interior of Central America between 1527 and 1536, where he was later lost; Matthews’ music is laced with evocative fragments from Fernando Franco (c.1520-1585), one of the earliest known Mexican composers, as well as other elements of sixteenth-century music, which drifts in and out of Fuga’s 10-minute span.
The piece previously received its Finnish premiere at Avanti! Summer Sounds in 2003. Fuga was recorded alongside The Great Journey in 2012 by Nash Ensemble, conducted by Lionel Friends, on NMC. It has received performances in recent years from Red Note Ensemble, Nash Ensemble with Martyn Brabbins, the Ensemble Residentie Orkest, and Composers Ensemble, appearing at KlaraFestival, Aspen Festival, and Dartington International Summer School over the years.
In 2015 Storgårds conducted the Finnish premiere of Matthews’ Traces Remain with the Tampere Filharmonia, his 20-minute symphonic palimpsest that is a melancholy tangle of spectral allusions to lost or unfinished works by Beethoven, Mahler, and Schoenberg. In 2009 he performed Matthews’ Pluto, the Renewer – his scherzo-like postscript to The Planets – with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2006 he joined the BBC Symphony Orchestra for studio performances of Matthews’ Hidden Variables, Unfolded Order – the concert premiere of Matthews’ score for the Royal Ballet – and Sonata No.5: Landscape.