In November 2026 Pluto, the Renewer, Colin Matthews’ postlude to Holst’s The Planets, appears in a new choreography at the Yeongdeungpo Art Hall in Seoul, danced by the Yoon Byeol Ballet Company. The quicksilver orchestral scherzo will appear as part of The Earth: us, an original ballet based on Holst’s orchestral suite. Choreographed by Kim Yu-chan, it is conceived as a cosmic journey in which the universe, humanity, and music flow into one, with the dancers’ bodies given free rather than fixed orbits.
Matthews’ 6-minute piece begins before ‘Neptune’, with its offstage choir, has concluded, with high, muted violins launching a series of scurrying figures. Rather than continuing the hieratic, timeless character of the proceeding movement, Matthews writes fast music, inspired initially by the idea of solar winds. The asymmetric meter and warlike fanfares, which burst through as the piece gathers momentum, also recall the opening movement of The Planets. As its climax recedes, the sounds of the female voices from ‘Neptune’ drift back in, as if they had been present all along, and Matthews’ scherzo disappears as mysteriously as it began.
Matthews has created several works for the dance stage. His first foray into ballet was Pursuit, choreographed by Ashley Page for The Royal Ballet in 1987. The score for the 25-minute ballet was an expanded version of Matthews’ ensemble work Suns Dance for the London Sinfonietta. The score, for sixteen players, is imbued with extraordinary, breathless energy, with its music subject to almost continuous variation.
In 1999 he was reunited with Page and the Royal Ballet, reopening the house after its long hiatus with Hidden Variables, designed by Antony McDonald. The 26-minute piece combined the 13-minute title work for orchestra with a newly-commissioned score Unfolded Order, creating a work in two parts. The music played up the more sensuous and lyrical aspect of Matthews’ imagination; “Page’s cast looked magnificently erotic and knowing”, wrote The Guardian.
Matthews celebrated orchestrations have also been taken up by choreographers. 2009’s Sensorium, choreographed by Alastair Marriott, took five of Debussy’s Préludes, previously orchestrated by Matthews for Mark Elder and the Hallé Orchestra. The sensuous, shimmering orchestral textures gave rise to a limpid neoclassical ballet for twelve dancers, conceived as a part of a programming celebrating one hundred years since the foundation of Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes alongside The Firebird and Les Sylphides.