On 8 February Olivier Stankiewicz premieres Colin Matthews’ Oboe Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra and Elim Chan. The 17-minute work, written for the LSO principal oboe, was commissioned by London Symphony Orchestra – an orchestra with whom Matthews has been working for over 35 years.
In his programme note for the concerto, Tim Rutherford-Johnson describes the work’s energetic, restless character, departing from well-known concertos for the instrument: “There is little in Matthews’ concerto of the languorous pastoralism of the Vaughan Williams, or the gossipy nostalgia of the Strauss. Instead, Stankiewicz is thrown into the teeth of a storm that, while it ebbs and flows, never fully relents.” The soloist is cast, he adds, “as an independent spirit, somewhat set apart from its orchestral colleagues”.
Five sections proceed without a break, loosely recalling a traditional concerto shape. Its first section sets out the argumentative mode described by Rutherford-Johnson – a tempestuous opening section in which a shapeshifting orchestra is set against a more wilful soloist. Oboe and cor anglais come together as siblings in a more flowing ensuing sequence, before the soloist is given free lyrical rein in a central slow section. The pace picks up with an angular scherzo, with antagonistic hocketing between soloist and ensemble. To close, Matthews reprises several earlier passages, before an abrupt end – “as if still in the midst of negotiations”, Rutherford-Johnson notes.
Matthews has written numerous works for the instrument, including two early Oboe Quartets from 1981 and 1989 respectively; Stankiewicz performed the latter at the Winchester Chamber Music Festival with the London Bridge Trio in 2022. The oboe plays a leading role in Postludes, an octet composed for Nicholas Daniel and Britten Sinfonia in 2019 and dedicated to the memory of Oliver Knussen and inspired in turn by his oboe quartet Cantata. The 16-minute work receives its North American premiere from New England Conservatory’s New Music Ensemble and Stefan Asbury on 11 March, where Matthews is Malcolm Peyton Composer-in-Residence for 2026.
The Oboe Concerto continues Matthews’ longstanding relationship with the LSO, where he was Associate Composer from 1992-1999. In 2023 they premiered Mosaics – a set of eleven studies for orchestra – and, at the 2025 Aldeburgh Festival, Book 2 of Debussy’s Images with Antonio Pappano; the 14-minute selection complements Matthews’ earlier orchestrations of Book I of Images and the Préludes. In previous years, they debuted Quatrain (1989), Machines and Dreams (1991), the orchestral version of Hidden Variables (1992), Memorial, and M50 (1995), several of which were subsequently recorded by the LSO under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas. In 1996 Matthews also composed his Concerto for Cello No.2 for the LSO and Mstislav Rostropovich. He has also been a mainstay of the LSO Panufnik Composers Scheme, mentoring over a hundred young composers to date.