David Matthews was born in London in 1943 and started composing at the age of sixteen. He read Classics at the University of Nottingham (which has also made him an Honorary Doctor of Music ) and afterwards studied composition privately with Anthony Milner. He was also much helped by the advice and encouragement of Nicholas Maw. He spent three years as an assistant to Benjamin Britten at Aldeburgh in the late 1960’s. He has largely avoided teaching, but to support his composing career has done editorial work (he collaborated with Deryck Cooke on the performing version of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony) and orchestrations of film music.
He has also written a book on the music of Michael Tippett, and has just completed a book on Britten which will be published in spring 2003. He published a lecture on the relation of music to painting, Landscape into Sound, and reviews for various journals. Matthews is Music Advisor to the English Chamber Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Deal Festival.
His music is widely played in Britain and abroad, is frequently broadcast, and over a dozen of his works are available on CD.
His musical language on the one hand grew out of his English background and his special concern for the music of Tippett, Britten and Maw; but it is also strongly connected to the central European tradition, back through Mahler and ultimately to Beethoven. Matthews has been much concerned with working in the great inherited forms of the past (symphony, string quartet, lately oratorio) and finding new ways of renewing them. To date he has written five symphonies and ten string quartets; also four symphonic poems (two of which: In the Dark Time and Chaconne, have recently been recorded by the BBC Symphony Orchestra for the NMC label). His numerous chamber works include commissions by the Schubert Ensemble, Nash Ensemble, Brodsky Quartet, Brindisi Quartet and many others; vocal music includes a dramatic scena, Cantiga, for soprano and orchestra, premiered at the 1988 Proms, and a large-scale Vespers for soloists, chorus and orchestra for the Huddersfield Choral Society. His recent large-scale work, Concerto in Azzurro is a cello concerto for Steven Isserlis and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and was premiered in October 2002 in Swansea with Richard Hickox. (January 2003)
Web: http://www.fabermusic.com/serverside/composers/Details.asp?ID=MATTHEWS,%20DAVID
Matthey Gabriel (español)
Gabriel Matthey nació en Santiago de Chile. A los nueve años comenzó sus estudios de piano, cuatro años más tarde se interesó en la guitarra y poco después se acercó a la composición produciendo su primera obra, Juego y Tensión para guitarra sola, a los 14 años de edad. En 1973 comenzó a estudiar ingenería en la Universidad de Chile y al año siguiente, simultáneamente, empezó estudios sistemáticos de guitarra en la Facultad de Ciencias y Arte Musical y Escénica (hoy Facultad de Artes) de esa misma casa de estudios. En 1980, junto con titularse de Ingeniero Civil, ingresó a la carrera de Licenciatura en Composición, teniendo como maestro en los ramos principales a Cirilo Vila, y en 1986 realizó estudios particulares con el compositor Andrés Alcalde. En 1989 ingresó a la Asociación Nacional de Compositores, Chile (ANC), siendo elegido en 1992 presidente de la institución, cargo que ejerció hasta 1997. La preocupación de Gabriel Matthey por la vida musical del país le llevaron a asumir la presidencia del Consejo Chileno de la Música entre 1994 y 1998, donde realizó, al igual que en la ANC, valiosísimas tareas en la organización y fortalecimiento de ambas entidades musicales, lo que ha beneficiado grandemente a la música nacional. Actualmente es profesor de la Facultad de Artes de la Universidad de Chile, miembro del Comité Editorial de la Revista Musical Chilena y del Comité de Música del Instituto Chileno Norteamericano.
Matthey ha compuesto música instrumental, vocal y electroacústica, habiendo sido la mayoría de sus obras presentadas en público y algunas editadas en fonogramas. (Biografía por Fernando García)