“Heritage” program note
1915
Matthew Hindson (b. 1968)
Matthew Hindson was born in Wollongong in 1968. Hindson is one of the most-performed and most-commissioned composers in the world, and a leading Australian composer of his generation. He has been commissioned to write for orchestras and ballet companies across the world, and is currently the Deputy Dean and Associate Dean (Education) at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. In 2006 Matthew was made a member of the Order of Australia (AM) for his contributions to music education and composition.
‘I was contemplating what sort of life a young person would have in 1915 as compared to 2015. Imagining the terror experienced by being in a time of war and brutal savagery. Most of us today have zero comprehension of what they must have gone through! And not just that, but the heartbreak and grief so many families would have experienced when they received “the letter”, notifying of the death of a son, brother, uncle, cousin etc.’ Matthew Hindson
The work 1915 was originally the first movement of Song and Dance written by Matthew Hindson in 2006, for string orchestra. The original work explores the differences of lifestyle and life experiences between young adults during the time of the first world war – young men fighting and dying on the battlefields, young women as housewives, married and possibly with children, waiting at home – and young adults today, typically “single, juggling a frenetic career and social life, surrounded by information and technological advancements.”
This piano trio version of the first movement, entitled 1915, was especially arranged for the Benaud Trio in 2015. It opens with brief, sighing gestures in the cello, with the violin and piano joining in the fourth bar, and the texture features poignant, gentle, harmonic dissonances opening out into an introspective, requiem-like waltz. The piece builds in intensity towards a climax which dissolves into a distant A major chord. It recommences with a single haunting line, opening into the themes as described earlier, and concludes with a theme that could be described as hope, or the breaking of new dawn. The prologue is a distant “trumpet call” in harmonics in the violin, over timeless oscillations in C major in the cello and piano.
Matthew Hindson
To purchase a copy of the score for 1915, visit the Australian Music Centre.
To visit Matthew Hindson’s website, click here.
Page background image: Reliefs at Dawn, by Christopher R. W. Nevinson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.