Register Now  |  Sign In

European premiere for Colin Matthews’s ‘Reflected Images’ As part of Matthews’s ongoing residency with the Hallé Orchestra, the orchestra presented the European premiere of Matthews’s latest orchestral work, Reflected Images, in Manchester and elsewhere, recently, under the baton of Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki: “At first the work seemed to be unfurling under water, notes bubbling upwards like a fish’s breath, timbres muffled, with edges dulled, and the vague contours of a fast waltz… On, without a break, to the second, with heavy footfalls marching slowly on the ocean floor (double-basses, piano, a ghostly side-drum). The third of these fleeting, cryptic impressions gave us impassioned strings. And finally the fourth, quavers whirring, reaching up to a fine blaze of brass.” The Times (Geoff Brown), 3 May 2005   The work was commissioned and premiered by the San Francisco SO and Michael Tilson Thomas in 2003. The composer writes of the piece: “Reflected Images is a single 12-13 minute work, divided into four parts of roughly equal length which play without a break. All four parts are inter-related, and might be thought of as four different ways of looking at the same thing, although all are in some way elusive, almost as if what is being looked is seen out of the corner of the eye. The concept, although definitely not the content, of the individual parts has been influenced by my recent work on Debussy's Preludes, and each section has a title, although it is, like Debussy's, not revealed until the end. The titles (or perhaps it would be better to call them afterthoughts) are: Distant Waltz, Past March, Present Recitative and Future Movement.”

PUBLICATIONS | COMPOSERS | REPERTOIRE | EDUCATIONAL | FILM & TV | COMPANY My Account | View Cart | Contact Us | News Archive | Help | Compliance | FAQs | Home © 2003 Faber Music Limited. Website design and graphics by Dave Warden. Website developed by Howard Baines.