On 11 January Nash Ensemble premiere David Matthews’ Serenade and Tango at Wigmore Hall. Commissioned by the Nash Ensemble to celebrate their 60th anniversary, the 5 ½-minute work underlines the longstanding collaboration of composer and ensemble.
Scored for two violins, viola, cello and double bass, Matthews explores the lyrical and rhymical characters of the ensemble by turns. The opening Serenade is cast in a lilting 9/8, its textures given richer and darker hues with the ensemble’s addition of double bass to the lower strings, and showcasing Matthews’ intuitive feeling for melody. The violin launches the spikier ensuing Tango, drawing other members of the ensemble into its dynamic dance as the work struts towards its flamboyant finale, featuring a brief cadenza-like outburst before the conclusive gesture.
Tango has long been a key source of inspiration for Matthews. The fourth movement of his Symphony No.4 (1990) replaces the classical minuet with the dance, which Matthews has since reimagined in a host of different arrangements. At the opening of his debut opera Anna (2018-2022), with a libretto by Roger Scruton, learning to tango is a sign of the titular character’s newfound freedom in a post-authoritarian society. Matthews’ love for tango was one of the subjects explored in Barrie Gavin’s documentary A Composer’s Landscape, first screened at the Presteigne Festival in 2023 marking Matthews’ 80th birthday.
Matthews and Nash Ensemble have been longstanding collaborators, having given over sixty performances of his work to date. In December 2023 Roderick Williams joined the group to perform Six Songs, a 2005 arrangement of Brahms’ lieder for medium voice and a chamber ensemble of flute (doubling piccolo), clarinet, bassoon, horn, and string quartet with double bass.
Over the years they have given numerous premieres of his work, including several cycles for voice and ensemble, showcased on their Winter Passions disc (2010). It includes the titular Pushkin settings (1999) for baritone Stephan Loges and clarinet, string trio and piano, and his brooding setting of T.S. Eliot Marina (1988), also featuring Loges. Terrible Beauty (2006) for mezzo-soprano and seven instruments sees Susan Bickley sings extracts from Homer’s Iliad and Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra; the disc also features Matthews’ two String Trios and Clarinet Quartet.