I. Aria cappricciosa II. Intermezzo III. Aria conclusa

 

My Divertimento for double string quartet was written at the request of Sir Peter Pears for the 1982 Aldeburgh Festival, and is dedicated to him. The first performance was given, at very short notice after the original performers dropped out, by members of Divertimenti under the direction of Oliver Knussen. The work, which also exists in an arrangement for double string orchestra, lasts just over 20 minutes.

 

For the first performance I wrote that “the use of the word ‘divertimento’ usually implies a work that isn’t meant to be taken too seriously.  Although this work is not, in fact, particularly light-hearted, one of my criteria for composing it was that I should allow the music to pursue its rather wayward path without too many conscious restrictions”.

 

The first movement is perhaps the clearest example of this, moving from an alegiac C-sharp minor through many abrupt changes of mood before returning to an echo of the opening. The intermezzo is characterised by shadowy, fleeting images, marked in the score “as if holding a conversation without wanting to be overheard”. The finale is ‘conclusive’, on one level, in that it rounds off the musical argument.  But the work is open-ended, because the anticipated return of the opening does not materialize, and the final chord is not a resolution.

 

Colin Matthews

 

‘A piece which lengthens the list of splendid British music for strings… there’s no denying the skill, industry and imagination that went into its making, not to mention the quality of its ingredients.’

The Boston Globe (Richard Dyer), 5 August 1991

 

‘The work’s harmonic world is also explored with professional confidence, if also sometimes with quirkiness, the style being one of a tonality extended far enough to stop anyone worrying whether key centres are in sight or not … and ends with one of Matthews’s most striking inventions: a line which begins at the bottom of one of the cellos and then quickly stirs itself, gathering in octaves all the other instruments before the final chord…’
The Times (Paul Griffiths), 24 June 1982

 

'The overriding impression of this score is of its beauty and richness of invention.'
Gramophone (David Fanning), June 1986