Turning Point

Colin Matthews’s Turning Point (2006) represents a bold stylistic breakthrough for its composer. Out of a whirring, motoric scherzo comes a jolting sea change: an austere, glacial string chorale of searing intensity that, with gritty resilience, gradually comes to overwhelm everything else. Commissioned by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, this 25-minute journey from complex momentum to expressive simplicity displays all the ingenious craft we have come to expect from Matthews, together with a new-found emotional directness.