Editing Tobias Matthay (section)

==Compositions==
Matthay's larger scale compositions and virtuoso piano works were all written between the 1870s and 1890s before he focused instead on piano technique and teaching. They include two symphonies, some concert overtures and several piano concertante works. They were all forgotten for many years, resurfacing at a [[Sotheby's]] manuscript auction on 30 November 2006, won by the Royal Academy of Music.<ref>[http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2006/music-and-continental-manuscripts-l06409/lot.88.html ''Music and Continental Manuscripts'', Sotheby's Catalogue, 2006]</ref><ref>[https://www.ram.ac.uk/museum/collections/collections-highlights/performers-collections-and-archives/tobias-matthay-collection Tobias Matthay Collection, Royal Academy of Music]</ref>

Only the symphonic overture ''In May'' (1883) and the one movement Concert Piece in A minor for piano and orchestra (begun about 1883 and revised till about 1908) gained much contemporary attention. The Concert Piece became his most popular large scale work, although its London premiere at the [[The Proms|Proms]] had to wait 25 years before its first performance, on 28 August 1909. The soloist was York Bowen. It was then performed at the Proms by Vivian Langrish in 1914, in 1919, and 1920 and again in 1925 by Matthay's student Betty Humby (who later became [[Betty Humby Beecham]] after she married [[Thomas Beecham]]).<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/events/works/20c726f4-2f4f-4b66-81ad-80b281924db4 BBC Proms Performance Archive]</ref> Myra Hess also performed it under Matthay's baton at [[Queen's Hall]] on 18 July 1922 in the presence of the King and Queen for the Royal Academy of Music Centennial Celebration.

Matthay also wrote chamber music (most notably the Piano Quartet, op.20 of 1882), a small number of songs, and a great deal of piano music.<ref>[https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000018096?rskey=l3MDy6&result=1 Dawes, Frank.'Matthay, Tobias ( Augustus )' in ''Grove Music Online'', 2001']</ref> His ''31 Variations and Derivations on an Original Theme'' for piano, written in 1891 and revised till 1918, was one of his last important early period works. Showing the influence of both [[Franz Liszt|Liszt]] and [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]], it was considered harmonically daring when first composed. The work is in two parts, the second growing increasingly complex.<ref>[https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/page/5bc135231d7e46b5919b07d2225ba4c2 ''Radio Times'' Issue 604, 28 April, 1935, p 28]</ref>

During and after the First World War Matthay returned to piano composition, but abandoned his previously complex style in favour of short character pieces closer in spirit to [[Robert Schumann|Schumann]]'s pieces for children. In 1933 he recorded some of these, including ''Twilight Hills'' and ''Wind Sprites'' from the 1919 suite ''On Surrey Hills'', op.30,<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0JeyK_neH4 Tobias Matthay plays Matthay "On Surrey Hills", Op. 30]</ref> as well as the older Prelude and the highly demanding "Bravura" from ''Studies in the Form of a Suite (1887).''<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgYWRtUzFV4 Tobias Matthay plays Matthay Prelude and Arpeggio Op. 16]'', Columbia DX444, 1933</ref><ref>Recordings, Pianosage.net</ref>

A nearly complete collection of the published piano works is held at the International Piano Archives at the [[University of Maryland]]. It was donated by the late James Matthew Holloway from papers originally in the possession of the pianist and favourite Mathay student Denise Lassimonne (1903–1994), whom Matthay took in after the death of her father, later naming her his ward and heir<ref>[https://www.forte-piano-pianissimo.com/Denise-Lassimonne.html Denise Lassimonne]</ref> Many of the scores contain corrections, editorial markings and comments by Matthay himself.<ref>[https://www.lib.umd.edu/ipam/collections/tobias-matthay Tobias Matthay Collection at IPAM</]</ref>