Ovid's Metamorphoses has inspired musicians from Jacopo Peri - who took one section as the basis for the first opera ever written - to Richard Strauss, whose late works allude to it repeatedly. Colin Matthews is the latest composer to add his name to the list, though his Renewal, first performed in 1996 and now revived by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Davis, approaches the book from a different perspective. Instead of extracting one or more myths from Ovid's compendium, Matthews examines the work's underlying philosophy with its assertion that "All things change, though nothing dies."
Cast as a colossal symphony, Renewal is also Ovidian in that it effects both the collation and metamorphosis of two of Matthews's pre-existing works. Broken Symmetry, written in 1992, is included unchanged as the scherzo. Threnody, the first of Renewal's two slow movements, subjects Memorial, dating from the same year, to gradual transformation, taking it into territory far removed from the original piece. The outer sections - the opening Intrada, and a choral finale quoting from Ovid's text - are new, though they refer to the two pieces at the work's centre.
Daunting in both scale and scope, Renewal demands attention and commands respect, though as a totality it curiously splits itself in two, with its first half notably lacking fire. Neither the Intrada, with its ceremonial trumpets and drums, nor the heaving strings of the Threnody prepare you for the power and beauty of what follows. Broken Symmetry, with its pulverising orchestral writing, suggests both the convulsions of nature and some hideous technological catastrophe. The finale asserts spiritual calm: the unfurling choral lines gradually coalesce into the rapt contemplation of a vast chain of being slowly renewing itself. The BBCSO and Davis perform it with tremendous dexterity and unflagging energy.
Stravinsky's Fireworks and Sibelius's Violin Concerto preceded it. Stravinsky's flamboyant orchestral vignette, dating from 1908, is another example of musical metamorphosis, as a theme from Dukas's The Sorcerer's Apprentice is examined and transformed in its turn. The soloist in the Sibelius was Joshua Bell, strong on beauty of tone and lyricism, less commanding when it came to the work's drama. Davis, following his approach, surrounded him with a series of grandly romantic orchestral gestures with the result that the Concerto's structural tautness slipped from view in the process.
