The score to Colin Matthews’ Divertimento

Colin Matthews’ 21-minute Divertimento for double string quartet was written at the request of Peter Pears for the 1982 Aldeburgh Festival. Matthews’ title does not reflect light-heartedness but rather the music’s own wayward and capricious development across the work’s three movements. It opens with an Aria cappricciosa in C-sharp minor of shifting moods; an Intermezzo of shadowy, fleeting images follows, marked in the score “as if holding a conversation without wanting to be overheard”. An Aria conclusa offers an ambiguous and open-ended finale. The piece also exists in an arrangement for double string orchestra.

'The overriding impression of this score is of its beauty and richness of invention.'

Gramophone (David Fanning), June 1986