Interview, Colin Matthews on NMC

2024 is a big year for NMC. The label, formed by Colin Matthews and Imogen Holst, is marking 35 years as a record company with the release of an album of music by Imogen. Imogen Holst was a selfless composer who gave much to the cause for her father Gustav (whose own birth anniversary falls this year), and for Benjamin Britten, for whom she was an amanuensis.

When Imogen and Colin set up the Holst Foundation, not long before her death in 1984, its role was not to subsidise the music of her father, but to support the work of living composers. In discussion with Colin we explored their friendship, discussed the music on the album – including Matthews’s own orchestration of the Festival Anthem – and considered NMC’s place in a quickly changing classical music record industry. 

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Congratulations on reaching 35 years as a record company. Given that NMC has stayed very true to its original aim, it must be an achievement of which you are very proud.

Yes, I’m very proud of its achievement and of the dedicated (tiny) staff and supportive Board who make it possible. When we started, we could hardly have imagined how far we would progress, and there were several times when we nearly went under, particularly at the time of Birtwistle’s The Mask of Orpheus and the Elgar/Payne Symphony No. 3, which were too important for us to allow to fail. 

I get the impression there was a lot of positive energy right from the start thanks to your lasting friendship with Imogen Holst. What qualities did she bring to your partnership, and how did you complement each other?

For all her firm views - of which there were many! - she always had an open mind and liked contrary opinions. I was able to persuade her to look again at some of her father’s earlier music of which she had been rather dismissive: she was delighted, for instance, to rediscover how impressive a work the Whitman setting The Mystic Trumpeter is. We worked together for ten years, and I think she was one of the most thoroughly musical people I have known. 

You mentioned how Imogen was more ‘alive’ than almost any person you knew. Is it right to say NMC still carries something of that spirit into its recording projects and outreach?

Her spirit of adventure is something I’ve always been inspired by, and everyone involved with NMC has endorsed that. I’ve written elsewhere of seeing her 1972 Proms prospectus marked up with John Cage’s HPSCHD as a ‘must’. 

Discovering Imogen feels like the ideal way to mark her contribution to NMC, but also a very necessary release to bring her to a greater audience?

Although it took some years after her death to get NMC off the ground I knew from our discussions of what the newly formed Holst Foundation might do that it had her blessing. She was hopelessly self-effacing about her own music, but it needs to reach a wide audience. We took over the Court Lane album of her chamber music a few years ago and were surprised that an already released disc made such a positive impression. This made it clear that we could go further with this new album.

Does the album also reflect her personality?

In some ways her personality, like that of her father, was something of an enigma - she was very reserved in her public appearances and broadcasts but could be very extrovert in private. I don’t think this is reflected in her music, which is direct and individual, and shows great craftsmanship.

How would you describe her writing for orchestra, and particularly in comparison with that of her father?

She wrote little for orchestra, and I think she was careful not to be influenced by her father (his main influence is on her extensive use of folk song). The early overture Persephone, which is really a symphonic poem, is very much her own, obviously picking up some influences (Ravel, for instance in the opening) but I don’t think anyone coming to it blind would suspect it was written by Holst’s daughter at the age of 21. The choral/orchestral What Man is He? is the only work on our recording which is at all Gustav Holst-like.

What inspired you to orchestrate the Festival Anthem?

It’s a strange case, in that it’s carefully written out for chorus with accompaniment of organ or piano but lacks any dynamics or tempo indications. Although it was composed while she was teaching at Dartington (in 1946) this implies that it was never tried through there - there is no other performing material than the manuscript score. The organ part looks in some ways like an afterthought and would probably have needed expanding if used in performance, so it seemed logical to provide instead a string orchestral accompaniment, which fitted very well with other works on the recording.

When you started NMC, were there other labels you admired and wanted to emulate, or did it feel like a completely new venture?

To set up a label that would be exclusively for living British composers was something completely new, the only parallel being Composers Recordings in the USA. Both Virgin and Collins Classics were more adventurous than the major labels in the 1980s, and we were very grateful that we were able to take over most of Collins’s contemporary catalogue after it folded in 1998. 

Was there ever a temptation or pressure to stray from your original blueprint?

Well we have strayed from the original blueprint by recording music by significant composers no longer living - Elisabeth Lutyens and Bill Hopkins being amongst the first, followed by previously unrecorded works by Britten and Tippett, and of course Elgar. A few recordings include non-British music, but on a small scale, and we were offered a DVD of Elliott Carter’s 103rd birthday concert, an offer we could hardly refuse.

The Anthony Payne release, Visions and Journeys is a particularly valuable addition to the NMC discography for all sorts of reasons – paying tribute to Payne and also Sir Andrew Davis, both much-missed. What do you recall of them both?

It has been very difficult in recent years to have to write obituaries for people I knew well, Olly Knussen, Harrison Birtwistle, Hugh Wood, Gordon Crosse and Simon Bainbridge amongst others. Tony Payne was a good friend, and his death was a shock as I had very recently spoken with him about our plan to release an album of his BBC commissions. We had worked happily with Andrew Davis on a number of recordings, including The Mask of Orpheus, which I was delighted to learn recently was, of all his recordings, the one of which he was most proud. Both he and Martyn Brabbins waived their royalties on the Tony Payne disc, which was typically generous of them.

You have a very satisfying breadth of music in the label, thinking of the recordings made of the music of Birtwistle, Harvey, Turnage, Anderson and so many more...

It was always the policy to reflect the widest possible range of music, regardless of style – our earliest recordings featuring James Dillon, Howard Skempton and the Composers Ensemble set the tone. We were at our most adventurous with the NMC Songbook for our 20th anniversary in 2009, with just under 100 composers represented.

Among the newer composers, who do you see helping push NMC forward into its fifth decade?

It feels a bit invidious to name names, with so many composers coming through and deserving recording. We have a lot of compilations which help this process, as it takes time to build up to a whole album for one composer, and our Debut Discs series is still catching up with composers who should have had their first disc years ago; Richard Baker a recent example.

When commissioning or approving recordings, are you now mindful of digital music consumption? Are there NMC releases that lend themselves more towards online listening?

I think that the choice of online listening is very much up to the listener, but we’re increasingly releasing download only, partly because of the expense of physical formats - which still attract sales but are inevitably going to decline further than they have already. But we were very early in on simultaneous release of CD and high-quality downloads: not many of the younger generation own a CD player! Like every label we’re frustrated by the very low level of income from streaming when our streamed tracks run into the millions.

On the other hand, with vinyl sales increasing and cassettes holding relatively steady, are you likely to lean on those formats again?

For old times’ sake we released a cassette for our 30th anniversary but I suspect that was a one-off. Vinyl we have talked about but is an unlikely direction.

Do you receive many approaches for recordings from composers today – and are there any that ‘got away’?

We do have many more applications than we can cope with, but all applications are discussed by our artistic committee. Yes, some have ‘got away’, but we never try to stand in the way if a better offer comes a composer’s way or if we think another label might be more appropriate.

How do you see the wider classical recorded music industry – is it responding positively to the age of streaming and shorter attention span?

I’m not sure I’m the best person to answer this - you probably know better! Short attention span is a problem, but at NMC we adapt our marketing for different audiences e.g. short works and movements can appear in playlists and on radio.

In the label’s very recent history (last five years or so), which recordings have given you most satisfaction?

Again I’m not sure I should name names! Too many to simply list, but I’m very happy with the way we’ve expanded our reach in recent years. Our distribution service, which includes Huddersfield Contemporary Recordings and the Birmingham Record Company labels, has been an important new element.

NMC’s Britten releases did a great deal to broaden people’s perception of his music (I have really enjoyed all three albums). Given your connections to Britten, it must have been very satisfying to promote his music in this way.

Obviously, I was in an ideal position to help these albums come about, and it didn’t feel as if we were going too far outside NMC’s remit in releasing previously unrecorded works, or first performances - I’m thinking of Barbirolli conducting the Sinfonia da Requiem in New York, and Britten and Pears’ private recording of the Michelangelo Sonnets. Both of these needed a huge amount of work to clean up from well-played 78rpm discs.

Do you think living British composers are represented much better now than they were in 1984?

Undoubtedly! And I’m glad we’re not the only label doing this.

Could we learn from how record companies in other countries promote the music of their composers?

The support for music in many European countries is exemplary, and we cannot but be jealous of the sympathy for the arts in general in so many other countries. Recording companies benefit greatly from this level of understanding.

How has NMC’s work in musical education been developing, and what plans do you still have in this area?

We have worked a lot in the education field, and I’d cite our collaboration with Music Masters and Chineke! as outstanding examples. But it’s not our main area of expertise, and with such a small staff there’s only so much we can achieve.

With a change of government, how do you see the climate for new music improving as Labour’s first term takes shape?

Well, it could hardly get worse! A Prime Minister who studied at the Guildhall School of Music is a pretty good start, and the move away from treating the arts as a ‘Mickey Mouse subject’ can’t come soon enough.

How has NMC changed as a label since you founded it – do record labels stand for something very different these days?

I think NMC has remained pretty true to its ideals, and our original statement of intent is still valid today. I’m very happy with how it has developed, and I’m glad to be able to take more of a back seat with such committed staff. (In the early days I produced nearly all of our recordings, but I have happily been able to leave this mostly to others over recent years.)

What can we look forward to from NMC in the next five years – dare I say it, looking towards the half century?

More of the same, but with continuous variations (as befits a musical organisation!). Selling recordings is no way to maintain financial stability - as we had to prove to the Charity Commission in the early days of establishing NMC as a charity! We have to fundraise vigorously for every album and project we embark upon, and to keep the organisation afloat. There are many ways you can support us and we also have a Friends scheme.