The Flaying of Marsyas, Op.42

Oboe, string quartet

English Chamber Orchestra.

To the challenge of an oboe quintet, one high-pitched instrument added to an ensemble that already has two. Matthews’s solution is brilliantly dramatic. The Flaying of Marsyas is a concerto, and a virtuoso one… the long central section a contest between the two soloists, the ‘apotheosis’ at the end an ingenious and formally satisfying device whereby Marsyas “learns” from his defeat and absorbs Apollo’s aristocratic lyrical idiom into his own instinctive one.