Description
William Mathias was born in Whitland, Dyfed. He studied at the University College of Wales, and subsequently at the Royal Academy of Music. From 1970-1988 he was Head of the Music Department at the University College of North Wales, Bangor. Mathias musical language embraced both instrumental and vocal forms with equal success, and he addressed a large and varied audience both in Britain and abroad. He was also known as a conductor and pianist, and gave or directed many premières of his own works. He was made CBE in the 1985 New Year’s Honours. In 1992, the year of his death, Nimbus Records embarked upon a series of recordings of his major works.
Fenestra is full of opportunities for varied and exciting colours, the choice of which is left very much to the player’s discretion.
Programme Notes:
The English for ‘Fenestra’ is ‘Windows’. The darkness of the work’s opening is gradually illuminated by sound windows of varying tempi, brightness and colour. The player is invited to adapt this metaphor on each occasion to the given individuality of the instrument, allied to the acoustic in which it is placed. This work was composed very much with Jennifer Bate in mind as first performer and dedicatee. Its basic idea was, indeed, generated through knowledge of the infinite care Jennifer Bate devotes to the important matter of registration – something which has to be thought out anew for virtually every occasion and location. Important as colour is, it nevertheless remains a metaphor for the work’s musical argument, which proceeds and develops in a one-movement span from darkness to light.
© William Mathias
Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press
