Score and parts on special sale from the Hire Library

Shot through with silence, String Quartet No.5 delves deeper into the shadowy world of the Fourth Quartet from 2012. The character is subdued and introverted; only towards the end of its 11-minute span does the work open out into something more affirmative, before falling back to the hesitant questioning with which it begun.

‘Subtlety, hesitance, and reserve are compressed to a new level in the Quartet No.5… The quartet starts enmired in silence, and that silence never really goes away… As a master of holding our interest and generating momentum through the simplest of resources, Matthews  has few living rivals in this form.’
Tempo (Robert Stein), 2015