An Inner Sky

Four Northern Visions, suite for orchestra (2023)
I. The Rapids / Forsen
II. Forest lake in moonlight / Tjärnen i månsken
III. Lichen, Granite / Renlav, Urberg
IV. Northern lights / Norrsken

Parts and score available from Edition Skellton
https://www.skellton.com/produkt/peterson-matthew-four-northern-visions/

Four Northern Visions

Horn Trio: Winning Isn't Everything It's the Only Thing (2024)
Matthew Peterson

Ben Goldscheider, horn
Callum Smart, violin
Richard Uttley, piano

Recorded live April 20 2024 in Sandviken, Sweden

Commissioned by Legato (Kalmar Läns Musikstiftelse, Musik i Blekinge, Musik i Syd, Musik Hallandia) with funding from Kulturrådet/The Swedish Arts Council

Horn Trio: Winning Isn't Everything It's the Only Thing

"Laudamus te" -Mass Ordinary

"Let my joyfully streaming face make me more radiant:
Let my hidden weeping arise and blossom" -Rainer Maria Rilke

Mass, for soprano and percussionist, combines fragments of the mass ordinary with fragments of poetry by Forugh Farrokhzad, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rumi, and Sonia Sanchez.

Percussionist Jon Hess suggested a small, portable percussion setup. We chose a palette of metal percussion featuring tuned bowls and pot lids, adding crotales, tam tam, and a tubular bell. The "found" instruments form the center of the sound, giving this work a resonant and beautiful sound world that suggests timelessness and ritual.

The choice and shape of texts used was a result of a fruitful collaboration between the composer and singer Sonja Tengblad. Sonja imagined a unique work that would fuse poetry and liturgy into an intimate and personal religious statement that could be performed in both concert and worship settings.

Gloria (from "Mass" for soprano and percussion, 2012)

The Three Motets for All Saints - Salve Regina, Non Nobis, and "And lo a great multitude" were commissioned by Musik i Syd for Lund Choral Festival, and first performed 22 October 2021 by Sofia Vokalensemble, cond. Bengt Ollén. Recorded by Swedish Radio P2; this recording is for perusal purposes only.

Non Nobis

Aurora (2022) for large orchestra, recorded by the St Olaf Orchestra and conductor Steven Amundson live from Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis. 

"The lights of the aurora moved and shifted over the horizon. Sometimes there were shafts of yellow tinged with green, then masses of evanescence which moved from east to west and back again...Streaks of yellow and orange and red shimmered along the flowing borders. Never for a moment were they still, fading until they were almost completely gone, only to dance forth again in renewed splendor with infinite combinations and startling patterns of design...Shafts of light shot up into the heavens above me and concentrated there in a final climactic effort in which the shifting colors seemed drained from the horizons to form one gigantic rosette of flame and yellow and greenish purple." - Sigurd Olson, "Northern Lights" (1956).

AURORA for orchestra

chamber orchestra
2222/2200/timp/1perc/strings
duration 10:30

Isaiah 55: 10-12

10
     As the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return to it without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
11
     so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
12
     You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.

*performed by the Uppsala kammarorkester; winner of the 2014 Uppsala Tonsättartävling and Publikens Pris*

And all the trees of the field will clap their hands

III. brIght

II. ! o(rounD)moon

I. l(a leaf falls)oneliness

IV. Norrsken / Northern Lights

III. Renlav, Urberg / Lichen, Granite

Four Northern Visions I. Forsen / The Rapids, II. Tjärnen i månsken / Forest lake in moonlight

Högalidsmässan (2023)
musik av Matthew Peterson
text av Gunilla Lindén

Beställningsverk från Högalidsförsamling, Stockholm, för att fira Högalidskyrkans 100 års jubileum. 

Inspelning från uruppförandet 10 Juni, Högalidskyrkan, Stockholm.
Benedikt Melichar leder Högalids Oratoriekör och Högalids Kammarorkester och brasskvartett, med organist Nils Larsson.

Högalidsmässan

Högalidsmässan - VI. Låt oss tacka och lova Gud (Benedicamus)

Högalidsmässan - V. O Guds Lamm (Agnus Dei)

Högalidsmässan - Interlude 3 - O Guds Lamm

Högalidsmässan - IV. Helig (Sanctus)

Högalidsmässan - Interlude 2 - Helig

Högalidsmässan - III. Trosbekännelse (Credo)

Högalidsmässan - II. Ära och lovsången (Gloria och Laudamus)

Högalidsmässan - Interlude 1 - Ära och Lovsången

Högalidsmässan - I. Herre, förbarma dig (Kyrie)

Progressive Waves (2023) for solo cello and recorded cellos.

Composed for and recorded by Maja Molander.

Progressive Waves

for SSAA a cappella chorus
commissioned by Carolinae Röster and Ulrika Emanuelsson

text adapted from Psalm 32
"You are my hiding place
Protect me from trouble
Surround me with songs of deliverance"

20-års Jubileumskonsert

You Are My Hiding Place

Horn Trio: III. Winning Isn't Everything It's The Only Thing

Horn Trio: II. I Never Lost I Just Ran Out Of Time

Horn Trio: I. Use It Or Lose It

Empire Builder (2012)
Matthew Peterson

ENSEMBLE NEO
Sara Hammarström, flute
Mårten Landström, piano
violin
Nikolay Shugaev, cello

Recorded live in concert April 19 2024 at Folkoperan in Stockholm, Sweden

Empire Builder

Vagabond (2024) for chamber orchestra 2222/2200/1perc/strings

Commissioned by Musik i Dalarna for Dalasinfoniettan and chief conductor Claire Levacher

Recorded live at the September 6 2024 world premiere in Kristine Kyrka, Falun, Sweden

Vagabond

orchestra
2222/4221/timp/3perc/hp/strings
duration circa 6:00

"Of the parent's heart begotten,
Ere the world began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega, the source and the ending
Of the things that are, that have been,
and that the future shall bring.
Evermore and evermore."

-Aurelius Prudentius, from Liber Cathemerinom
(translation by the composer)

Corde Natus was commissioned by St. Olaf College to open the 2014 St. Olaf Christmas Festival. A prelude for orchestra, Corde Natus is a musical meditation on the ancient Latin poem "Corde natus" and the medieval plainchant melody "Divinum Mysterium." These two works combine in the well-known Christmas hymn, "Of the Father's Love Begotten." 

"Corde Natus," translated directly, means "of the heart" or "heart born."

*performed by the St. Olaf Orchestra*

Corde Natus

Reflections on the Death of the Beloved (2008) for symphonic band is dedicated to the St. Olaf Band and Timothy Mahr. It was commissioned by the St. Olaf Band with help from the Miles "Mity" Johnson Endowment.

Note by the composer: 

This piece began as something very different, and far less personal.

In October 2007 I began writing a new work for symphonic band. At that time I planned to write two movements for band inspired by Norse mythology. One would be a meditation on the tragic story of Balder, and I immediately began sketches on a deep lament for the brass choir.

Over the past several years, six young people who were part of my community died before their time. They were lost to accidents, crime, disease, and war. Two passed immediately after I began work on this piece. As I reflected, the lament took on new meaning, and the music took new directions.

When it came time to name my work, I tried to think of titles that would hide or soften the serious and personal thoughts that informed the composition. But nothing but Reflections on the Death of the Beloved seemed honest.

It is painful when lives are lost to tragedy, especially when those lives are young. They have gone on to realms unknown and we cannot yet follow. But we remember, and we love, in whatever ways we can.


Reflections on the Death of the Beloved

Lux Aeterna (2017) was commissioned by Gustaf Sjökvists Chamber Choir with funds from Kulturrådet (Swedish Arts Council).  World premiere 14 October 2017 at Ersta Kyrka, Stockholm, Sweden. Performed here by Gustaf Sjökvists Kammarkör and Hägerstens Kammarkör, 3 Feb 2018, cond. Kerstin Börjeson.

Lux æterna luceat eis, Domine:
Cum Sanctis tuis in æternum:
quia pius es.
Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine:
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Cum Sanctis tuis in æternum:
quia pius es.

Lux Aeterna

Cantate Domino (2018), motet for SATB a cappella chorus commissioned by Sofia Vokalensemble.

Recording: Sofia Vokalensemble, Bengt Ollén conducting
Stockholm, 21 October 2018

Cantate Domino

Miserere Mei (2006) for SSAATTBB chorus.

Sometimes I have to cry out to God in minor chords.

"Miserere mei, Deus
Averte faciem tuam a peccatis meis:  et omnes iniquitates meas dele."

(Have mercy on me, God
Hide your face from my sins, and block out all my iniquities)

Miserere Mei (SATB a cappella chorus)

Matthew Peterson (b. 1984) writes music that explores frontiers of sound and expression. He has composed over sixty works commissioned and performed by orchestras, choirs, opera companies, chamber ensembles, and soloists around the world. He lives in Dalarna, Sweden.

composer Matthew Peterson

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