Matthus from Berlin: Expressionist Urgency in Orchestral Dress
The German Democratic Republic produced its share of competent composers who navigated—with varying degrees of compromise and conviction—the treacherous waters between socialist realism and modernist expression. Siegfried Matthus belongs among the more interesting cases: a composer who found his voice in an accessible but not diluted expressionism, writing music that could speak to audiences without patronizing them.
This Brilliant reissue (originally on Berlin Classics) captures Matthus in his early forties, conducting the orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin in two substantial works from the mid-1970s. The performances date from 1978, and while the engineering shows its age—there’s a certain boxiness to the orchestral sound, a slight hardness in the upper strings—the readings themselves possess an authority that only the composer can bring to his own scores.
The Cello Concerto of 1975 announces itself with a brass gesture that’s genuinely arresting, not merely attention-seeking. What follows is a three-movement design played without pause, music that owes something to Berg’s lyrical expressionism and perhaps—though the connection is less obvious—to the textural thinking of late Lutosławski. Josef Schwab’s cello enters not as soloist but as protagonist in an ongoing drama, declamatory one moment, searching the next.
The first movement’s architecture rests on those initial germ cells, material that Matthus worries and transforms with considerable skill. There’s real anguish here, a troubled quality that never tips into mere theatricality. About halfway through comes a cantabile section of genuine beauty—cello and strings in conversation, scored with that delicate transparency that suggests Matthus knew his Berg intimately. The movement culminates in an extended cadenza that serves as bridge rather than display piece, leading directly into the Lento.
This slow movement offers respite, though an uneasy one. Matthus achieves a kind of nocturnal shimmer, delicately scored—you can hear the influence of his theater work in these passages, the way he paints atmosphere with minimal means. But the peace proves fragile. Disruptions intrude, memories of the first movement’s violence.
The "finale", marked Prestissimo, functions as nervous "rondo", brilliant and slightly desperate. It attempts to dispel accumulated tension but never quite succeeds—by design, I think. The work concludes with a massive orchestral glissando, and Matthus’s own program note describes this as “Basta!” rather than triumph. Indeed. It’s a gesture of exhaustion or dismissal, not victory, and it’s all the more honest for that refusal of false consolation.
The Symphony No. 2 (1976) pursues similar expressive territory. Cast in four movements also played without break, it develops a limited fund of material with considerable concentration. The opening Sostenuto broods and hesitates, mysterious without being mystifying. Brass eventually assert themselves, but nothing resolves—uncertainty prevails. The movement simply circles back to its beginning, transformed but not transcended.
An agitated "Scherzo" section ("Allegro" assai) follows, driven by nervous fanfares that refuse to coalesce into anything stable. This peters out—there’s no better word for it—leading to a Lento that revisits the refined nocturnal world of the concerto’s slow movement. Long melodic lines, tinkling percussion, that characteristic shimmer. A flute melody at the opening possesses real poetry, though an oboe restatement later gets interrupted (rather rudely) by bassoon introducing the "finale".
This "Allegro" moderato "finale" moves as another nervous "rondo", music of considerable energy that somehow arrives at a subdued, questioning conclusion. No triumphalism here either. The symphony ends not with answers but with unresolved tensions, which strikes me as both dramatically right and historically notable—music from the mid-1970s GDR that refuses easy affirmation.
Matthus conducts with evident understanding of his own intentions, and the Komische Oper orchestra plays with conviction. Schwab’s cello tone shows its age in the album—there’s a certain wiriness in the upper register—but his musical intelligence never wavers. He understands this music’s essential character: warmly expressive but never sentimental, deeply human without romantic inflation.
Both works belong to what we might call twentieth-century mainstream symphonism, and that’s not meant dismissively. Matthus writes in an idiom that communicates directly while maintaining compositional rigor. The music is honest, uncompromising in its refusal of false comfort, yet genuinely communicative. These are qualities worth celebrating.
The performances serve the music well, even if the sonic picture could be more transparent. Cellists looking for repertoire that combines expressive depth with technical demand would do well to investigate the concerto. And anyone interested in how composers navigated artistic integrity behind the Iron Curtain will find both works revealing. This is music that deserves wider hearing—not as historical curiosity but as living art.
