Matthew Taylor’s musical
education took him on a route that could
be described as largely conventional.
Studies under the shrewd guidance of
Robin Holloway at Cambridge University
were supplemented by a period with Edward
Gregson at the Royal Academy of Music.
Yet it was Taylor’s
friendship with and admiration for Robert
Simpson that was to play a crucial role
in shaping Taylor’s development as a
composer. Indeed his name may be more
recognisable to some as the conductor
of Simpson’s Eleventh and final Symphony
in Hyperion’s pioneering survey of Simpson’s
symphonic output than for his own now
substantial catalogue, which includes
three symphonies.
Unlike Simpson, whose
many well documented years at the BBC
ended in conflict and political loggerheads,
Taylor’s diverse career encompasses
multiple roles as composer, teacher,
conductor and pianist. In the music
itself Taylor and Simpson have more
in common. Like Simpson, Taylor shares
a predilection for works on a substantial
scale, nearly always architecturally
underpinned by the use of traditional
forms. Many of Simpson’s musical heroes,
including Beethoven and Haydn, are shared
by Taylor whose inherently symphonic
thought processes take a direct line
back from Simpson to Nielsen and Sibelius,
another two of Simpson’s revered masters.
This is the first disc
dedicated to Matthew Taylor’s music
and two of the works immediately demonstrate
his interest in traditional forms of
structure. The Op. 17 Piano Trio draws
on Beethoven, in particular his Piano
Sonatas Op. 31, No. 2 in D Minor (the
Tempest) and the final Sonata,
Op. 111 in C Minor. The latter
Sonata’s first movement forms the model
for the first movement of Taylor’s Trio,
effectively a sonata-allegro that alternates
passages of brief repose with a backdrop
of predominantly turbulent material.
Interestingly and as is the case on
numerous other occasions in both the
Piano Trio and Third String Quartet,
it is echoes of Tippett rather than
Simpson that often surface in both the
harmony and counterpoint. At fifteen
minutes long the central panel of the
work, an extended Theme and Variations,
is very much the fulcrum of the Trio.
Falling into distinct halves, the movement
gradually emerges from the darkness
of its opening to arrive at a conclusion
of still serenity that is the precursor
to the understated Allegretto finale,
an effect that Taylor intended to counteract
the comparative violence of the opening
movement. Beethoven is again the model,
this time the finale of his Tempest
Sonata providing the impetus, with the
ghost of Tippett once again not far
away.
The Third String Quartet
is a more condensed affair, commissioned
by the Norfolk and Norwich Festival
and first performed there in 1995, since
when Taylor has added a Fourth Quartet
to his canon. Cast in three movements
of roughly equal length, the work takes
as its basis the potential of a single
chord, the first movement opening in
dynamic fashion before passing through
passages of occasionally scherzo-like
playfulness. A wistful Poco allegretto
e misterioso slow movement provides
an affecting interlude before the rhythmic
vitality and drive of the ensuing Vivace
finale appears to propel the quartet
to an energetic conclusion that ultimately
falls away to an ending of suddenly
disarming simplicity.
Conflict and Consolation
follows an exact chronological line
from the Piano Trio and Third Quartet
and was written at the request of the
Kensington Symphony Orchestra for a
performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall
in 1996. Boldly scored for orchestral
brass, timpani and percussion the opening
movement is a tour de force for
all concerned. The music launching itself
into a series of aggressive, strident
figures that enter into a pitched battle
for supremacy before a manic percussion
cadenza breaks through the battle and
leaves a sole, questioning tuba receding
into the distance. Consolation
comes in the form of an extended second
movement that explores a series of brass
chorales, each of contrasting character
and instrumentation before the music
once again subsides to expose the tuba
singing alone in conclusion.
Matthew Taylor might
not speak with a voice of striking originality,
but that he speaks with authority is
never in doubt. All three of these works
are convincing and cohesive in their
musical thought. Above all they present
a powerful case for the survival of
the essentially symphonic composer in
the stylistic maelstrom that is the
early twenty-first century.
Christopher Thomas
Lowbury Piano Trio (Pauline Lowbury, violin; Ursula
Smith, cello; Elizabeth Burley, piano) 
