Following up the success of the Auracle LP of Colin Matthews's chamber music (AUC1007, 6/86), Unicorn-Kanchana give us the chance to get to know two of his most ambitious projects to date. Landscape is the fifth of a series of orchestral sonatas which have been the vehicle for Matthews's largest-scale thoughts over a number of years; the Cello Concerto was a BBC commission which had a somewhat mixed reception at its Prom premiere in 1984.
Colin Matthews is an eclectic who is sometimes accused of letting influences submerge his own creative personality. In these works the accusation cannot stick. Yet I am not so sure that is all to the good. In my own experience his individuality tends to define itself most convincingly in his reactions to given styles. Here, free from such bonds, the invention strikes me as comparatively undisciplined and difficult to get a foothold on.
The clear sense of large-scale design encourages one's efforts, as does the sheer beauty of some of the ideas. The early stages of the Cello Concerto have both properties—passionate declamation from the soloist looping down from his persistent high A's, and the eventual link-up with a struggle upwards from pedal C sharps. I am impressed too by the Pettersson-like brooding atmosphere. But I was left wondering just how essential the cello's personality was—no reflection on Alexander Baillie's superb command of the solo part—and whether the size of the orchestra was not a dubious extravagance.
Matthews has compared Landscape to a series of progressions from darkness to light with three starts and several false arrivals and the elusive continuity of a dream. Again there are many impressive things but again I am worried by the suspicion that much of it is overwritten and looks more exciting on paper than it sounds.
Of course the danger is always that one is rationalizing one's own failure to find the right wavelength, rather than actual faults in the music. Or maybe the performances or recordings miss something—they seem faithful enough to the letter of the score, but much of the notated detail is inaudible or ineffectual. If these works do not impress me quite as much as the chamber pieces I reviewed in June or as much as Unicorn-Kanchana's recordings of Goehr, Knussen and Hugh Wood, I am no less convinced that both Matthews and Unicorn-Kanchana are powerful forces for the good of British music. I repeat my hope that Colin Matthew's First String Quartet will soon be recorded (perhaps coupled with one by his brother David); and in the orchestral sphere I trust that someone is lining up Hugh Wood's Symphony, Maxwell Davies's Second, and Birtwistle's works.'