This work for clarinet/bass clarinet, cello and piano was written in 2020for the SOLI Chamber Ensemble of San Antonio, Texas.

till our bodies into the night slip

Chamber piece for viola, viola d'amore and percussion, commissioned by Jennifer Thiessen and Ben Reimer.

Perishable Light

After reflecting for some time on the idea of composing a piece for the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra strings, I decided not to write for the players in their standard sections or groups, but rather to treat each musician as a solo performer, thereby giving myself twenty-two independent voices. (This is certainly not a new idea; it is one that has been exploited by many composers over the past hundred years.) The advantage of this approach is that one gains a tremendous diversity of contrapuntal and textural possibilities.

Many sections of the piece are collections of parallel time streams, which are often just slightly out of alignment with one another, occasionally coming together at certain key structural moments in the music, moments that often correspond with dynamic climaxes. Apart from the few powerful moments, the music tends toward quietness, though not always tranquility. 

Motivically there are several relatively short and closely related melodic ideas used throughout the piece. These are sometimes audible as foreground material, though often, as a result of a web of intertwining, they are lurking below the surface.

The title is taken from the opening sequence of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda's mid-century masterpiece, Canto General.

The Language of Water

String Quartet No. 2 was composed in Winnipeg between September 2002 and February 2003. The work is in three movements, and is approximately twenty-five minutes in duration. The basic tempo arrangement of the movements is moderate, very fast, slow. This structure is intended in a way to push the piece in opposite directions, towards both speed and slowness. In contrast to this directional tension, there is a cyclical aspect to the piece, reflected in the use of certain musical materials throughout the piece, the most obvious of which is the return of the repeated pulse of the opening of the first movement at the close of the final movement.

This work was written for and dedicated to the Mondriaan Quartet, who gave the world premier performance on May 10, 2003, at Crescent Fort Rouge Church in Winnipeg; the performers were:

Jan-Erik van Regteren Altena, violin
Edwin Blankenstijn, violin
Annette Bergman, viola
Eduard van Regteren Altena, cello

String Quartet No. 2

This 1990 work for solo piano is performed by New York-based pianist Peter Vinograde

Two Canadian Masterworks for Piano

Of Time and Sky

El Viento Helado was written for the Mexico City Woodwind Quintet, who gave the world premiere on October 8, 2007 in Guanajuato, Mexico, as part of the Cervantino Festival. The piece was composed in Winnipeg and Berlin between April and August of 2007, and revised in March of 2008. The title is taken from a poem by Antonio Machado (1875-1939)

El Viento Helado

Wind Sketches
	I - speculative
	II - waning
	III - disparate
	IV - somewhat cloudy
	V - capricious
	VI - tenuous
	VII - decisive
The instrumentation of Wind Sketches was simultaneously its most exciting and its most challenging aspect.  Writing for four pairs of wind instruments, each with their own unique sonic characteristics, presents potential problems of blend and balance, while at the same time it provides one a tremendous range of tone colours with which to work.  These factors, coupled with the knowledge of the superb calibre of the performers for whom I was writing, made the composition of this piece very rewarding.
One of the first and most important decision which a composer has to make at the outset of a work is that of overall structure.  Recently I have tended to create pieces in one or two large movements; in Wind Sketches I decided to try a variation on this - to work with a two-part structure, but to break up the first part into a series of short movements.  The six movements which form the first portion of this work are modeled on the six-movement structure of Alban Berg's Lyric Suite for string quartet.  They are arranged in a series of alternating fast and slow movements, with the fast movements becoming progressively faster and the slow ones becoming progressively slower.  There is also a pattern to the lengths of these six movements - the first three become progressively longer and the last three shorter.  The seventh movement provides a balance to the first six, not only because of its greater length, but also because that length allows for the use and development of different kinds of musical materials.  
Wind Sketches was written during the winter of 1988.  It was commissioned by the Academy Winds to celebrate the tenth-anniversary concert of the Winnipeg chamber music group Aurora Musicale.  Financial assistance was generously provided by the Manitoba Arts Council.  The world premier was on May 9, 1988, at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.  

Douglas Bairstow and William Bonness – Oboes
Connie Gitlin and Lori Freedman - Clarinets
Linda Patterson and Norman MacKay - Horns
Vincent Ellin and Amy Bonham - Bassoons
T. Patrick Carrabré - Conductor


Wind Sketches

The Skin of Night was written between September 2005 and March 2006. This fifteen-minute work falls into two sections, delineated timbrally by the change from soprano to alto saxophone at measure 92. 

The germinal motivic ideas that unfold at the opening of the piece, specifically the harmonic interval of a minor second, and the melodic intervals of a rising seventh/falling second and a falling third, provide the basic chordal and melodic building blocks for the piece. These motivic cells engender, among other things, melodic sequences that display an underlying background motion in seconds, and stacked thirds that combine into different major and minor triads played simultaneously by the left and right hands of the piano.

Three seminal rhythmic ideas that occur at the opening also provide material for the work. The first is a single repeated note in the saxophone. This idea appears in various guises over the course of the piece, sometimes as single notes in both instruments, sometimes as full chords in the piano. The second idea is that of syncopation between the saxophone and piano, a rhythmic process that assumes great importance in the work. The third idea is formal in nature, consisting of the alternation between relatively long note values and chains of rapidly moving notes. In its first appearance here at the opening, this alternation differentiates, the formal role of measures one to four from that of measures five to six.

This work was commissioned by the Harrington/Loewen Duo, with financial assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts, whose support is gratefully acknowledged.

The Skin Of Night

Michael Matthews is an esteemed composer of contemporary classical music, known for his evocative and intricately crafted compositions. His works, which span orchestral, chamber, and solo repertoire, are celebrated for their rich harmonic language, expressive depth, and innovative approach to form and texture. His compositions often explore themes of nature, time, and human experience, demonstrating a keen sensitivity to musical color and structural balance.

michael matthews

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