Colin Matthews: No Man’s Land, Crossing The Alps & Aftertones

Listen on Presto Music. Free thirty day trial. Find out more.

[Matthews] conveys the poetry's underlying menace, overlaying the chorus's music with diaphanous string harmonies like acrid vapour...[Crossing the Alps] seems to blend Holst's mysticism with... — BBC Music Magazine, January 2015, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 27th Oct 2014
Catalogue No: CDHLL7538
Label: Hallé
Length: 60 minutes

Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days

British Music - up to 25% off

Special offer ends: 08/05/2024

Hallé - Up to 25% off

Special offer ends: 19/06/2024

This release includes a digital booklet

Hallé - Up to 25% off

Special offer ends: 19/06/2024

Matthews, C: Aftertones

Work length27:06

$13.00

$18.20

$22.75

Roderick Williams
Hallé Choir, Hallé Orchestra, Hallé Youth Choir
Nicholas Collon

I. Dim Through Cloud Vails

Track length2:39

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

II. In the Ashen Twilight

Track length1:37

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

III. In the False Moonlight

Track length2:08

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

IV. Oaks, Once My Friends

Track length1:25

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

V. Swift Away the Century Flies

Track length1:20

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

VI. Time Has Healed the Wound, They Say

Track length1:20

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

VII. But No, This Fiction Died

Track length1:55

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

VIII. A Brown Charred Trunk That Deadly Cowered

Track length1:18

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

IX. Interlude

Track length3:08

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

X. There the Puddled Lonely Lane

Track length3:31

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

XI. Stones Could Talk Together Then

Track length1:37

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

XII. Trees On Hilltops Then Were Palms

Track length2:27

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

XIII. Half In Glory, Half In Fear

Track length2:41

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Matthews, C: Crossing The Alps

Work length6:21

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Hallé Orchestra, Hallé Youth Choir
Richard Wilberforce

Matthews, C: No Man's Land, Part 1

Work length14:54

$9.00

$12.60

$15.75

Ian Bostridge, Roderick Williams
Hallé Orchestra, Hallé Choir, Hallé Youth Choir
Nicholas Collon

Introduction

Track length1:04

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

There Are Two Skeletons

Track length2:30

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Before Divine Creation

Track length2:40

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

An Old Crow

Track length1:07

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Snug In My Dug-Out

Track length1:53

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

I’ll Tell You Something

Track length0:43

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

You’re Quite Right, Sir

Track length1:40

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Fritz Is My Friend

Track length1:05

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Someone Takes Up His Mouth Organ

Track length2:12

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Matthews, C: No Man's Land, Part 2

Work length11:53

$7.00

$9.80

$12.25

Ian Bostridge, Roderick Williams
Hallé Orchestra, Hallé Choir, Hallé Youth Choir
Nicholas Collon

I Know A Village Some Way Away

Track length1:26

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

I Was Sharing A Smoke

Track length1:01

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Interlude

Track length1:44

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

In My Dream Last Night

Track length2:27

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

I Went To Sleep In A Bath

Track length2:41

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

They Are Drunken

Track length1:06

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

So Come And Join the Forces

Track length1:28

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

About
Reviews
Explore

About

Hallé marks the centenary of the First World War with a recording of award winning work by Composer Emeritus Colin Matthews.

The main work on the recording, No Man's Land follows on from Matthews’ very positive collaboration with Christopher Reid on Alphabicycle Order, written for Hallé in 2007, and stages a dialogue between the ghosts of two dead soldiers whose corpses are strung up on the barbed wire of no man's land.

Matthews describes himself as having being “obsessed” with the First World War for some while (his grandfather died on the Somme) but to having found it to be a difficult subject to treat musically. He had asked Christopher Reid to provide the text for this work, suggesting the concept of a soldier in the midst of war, almost unaware of what he's found himself in.

In the event Reid’s sequence of poems provided something different: the ghosts of two soldiers hang on barbed wire in no man's land.

The recording features leading vocal soloists Ian Bostridge and Roderick Williams for whom the work was written.

No Man’s Land won the 2011 British Composer Award in the Vocal category Aftertones was commissioned by the Huddersfield Choral Society to mark the millennium and Matthews specifically chose to set poetry of the First World War because he felt that we cannot celebrate the twenty first century without absorbing the lessons of the twentieth.

Colin Matthews is Composer Emeritus of the Hallé. He studied music at the Universities of Nottingham, and Sussex, where he also taught, and subsequently worked as assistant to Benjamin Britten from 1972 - 6, and with Imogen Holst from 1971 - 84. He collaborated with Deryck Cooke for many years on the performing version of Mahler's Tenth Symphony. Since the early 1970s his music, ranging from solo piano music through three string quartets and many ensemble and orchestral works, has been played worldwide by leading soloists, orchestras and conductors and has won numerous international awards.

Reviews

January 2015

[Matthews] conveys the poetry's underlying menace, overlaying the chorus's music with diaphanous string harmonies like acrid vapour...[Crossing the Alps] seems to blend Holst's mysticism with Kodaly's more exotic and wonder-struck harmonic style. Yet most affecting of all is No Man's Land.

6th November 2014

The two soloists are superb and Nicholas Collon gets piquant, pithy playing from the members of the Hallé...The music on this disc is very interesting and the performers have served Colin Matthews very well.

21st December 2014

In No Man’s Land...Matthews sets Christopher Reid’s harrowingly blasé dialogue between two imagined skeletons. The millennium choral work Aftertones (words by Edmund Blunden) evokes something of an Elgarian flavour.

9th November 2014

The Hallé forces, Bostridge, Williams and Collon give committed and assured performances.

Offer,Colin Matthews: No Man’s Land, Crossing The Alps & Aftertones

CD

Downloads

Contents

Download queue