Reviews of premieres at the Lichfield Festival

David has enjoyed a wonderful fortnight in his residency at Lichfield Festival. Amongst the varied offerings of the Festival, David had a total of ten pieces performed, two of which were world premieres. Below are two review extracts on the premiere of Toward Sunrise (City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lahav Shani, 8 July 2015).

David with the Sacconi Quartet

Stephen Pritchard, The Observer, 12 July 2015

David Matthews, that elder statesman of English music, shares a love of the natural world with Elgar, Delius, Holst and Britten. The landscape around Presteigne is a favourite with him, and he and film-maker Barrie Gavin are collaborating on a piece that will celebrate the glories of the Welsh border in sound and vision. The film has yet to be completed but when Matthews learned that scientists had discovered that magnetic loops in the sun's corona vibrate in rising fourths, he could not resist incorporating them into a piece for orchestra depicting the emergence of a fresh new day. The film can catch up later.

It would seem that the coronal loops vibrate with the interval C to F, adding a low B underneath - the real music of the spheres. Comparisons with the Dawn sea interlude from Peter Grimes are inescapable but, while the occasional bird skitters across Britten's score, Matthews's Toward Sunrise, given an exuberant world premiere by Lahav Shani and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at the Lichfield festival last week, has whole choirs of birds trilling in ecstatic praise of first light. Transcription of birdsong has become a feature of Matthews's later work, and here he displays his Messiaen-like mastery of the form, with flute, oboe, cor anglais and clarinet perching on watercolour chords, while timpani, gong and contrabassoon herald the gradual rising of the sun, the contrabassoon growling out that low B with the strings marking out the rising fourth in ever-increasing excitement. I can't wait for the film.

Richard Bratby, The Arts Desk, 11 July 2015

As a complete performance, nothing really came up to the level of the opening item: the world premiere of David Matthews' Toward Sunrise. Written as a birthday gift for the documentary-maker Barrie Gavin (who'd travelled from Wales for the occasion), it was conceived by Matthews as the score for an (as yet) unmade film - a symphonic nocturne evoking the hours before daybreak in the Welsh borders.

It's in oils rather than watercolours. Cor anglais and strings sketch out the landscape, brass chords loom out of the darkness and the long shadows of Vaughan Williams and Sibelius stretch over the hills before the sun rises and the work ends on a stark, piercing, high B for violins. Shani and the CBSO gave a loving, wholehearted performance. Still, what does it say about our orchestral culture that a work this attractive, by a symphonist of Matthews' standing, has gone nearly five years without a hearing? The Festival's second Matthews premiere didn't have to wait quite so long. Dawn Chorus, completed earlier this year, was premiered the following night by Ex Cathedra under Jeffrey Skidmore.

Matthews seems to have an affinity for aubades. This, too, dealt with the early morning, expressed through the medium of wordless a capella chorus. With solo voices singing birdsong-inspired material (Matthews aimed for euphony rather than a Messiaen-like clangour) in all corners of the Cathedral while the body of the choir intoned shimmering Lark Ascending chords in the distant Lady Chapel, the atmosphere was such that you barely registered the tour-de-force of ensemble. Touchingly, Matthews had dedicated Dawn Chorus to Stevenson, and this was a Lichfield Festival moment in excelsis: music inspired by these people and this place, that sang of renewal on a summer night.