William Mathias was born in Whitland, Wales, in 1934. A child prodigy, he was playing the piano at the age of three and composing small pieces at five. Mostly self-taught, William Mathias studied French, English and Philosophy at the University College of Wales. There, he composed a lot of music and set the essentials of his style and instrumental idiom, before heading to the Royal Academy of London, where he studied with Lennox Berkeley. He was elected a fellow in 1965 and was awarded the Bax Society Prize of the Harriet Cohen International Music Award in 1968. At the end of his life he acknowledged some of his earlier works when he rediscovered them.
William Mathias became Lecturer in Music at the University College of North Wales in 1959, where he stayed until 1968 when he took an appointment as Senior Lecturer in Music at the Edinburgh University. He returned to Wales a year later when his father died and resumed his position at the UCNW, becoming the Head of the Department of Music in the process. He had written some of his most characterful music by then, but in 1988 he retired early to focus on composition.
In 1958 William Mathias composed Divertimento for Strings, which enjoyed a wide and instantaneous success. He wrote his Sinfonietta in 1966 for the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra, which was premiered during the 1967 Schools Festival at Leicester De Monfort Hall and was included in the orchestra’s tour programme in Germany and Denmark. The Sinfonietta was recorded for the first time that same year under William Mathias’ direction.
His career developed rapidly; in the next decade his works were commissioned by many leading British festivals, such as the Three Choirs, Cheltenham and Aldeburgh. For a time William Mathias experimented with serialism but quickly returned to, and reinforced, his own stylistic identity. Although his general idiom, characterized by neo-classical structures, tonal harmony and celebratory, dancing rhythms, was unfashionable, he established himself as one of the brightest composers of his generation.
Central to William Mathias’ composition were his Welsh roots, embodied in works like St Teilo and Culhwh and Owen (1970 and 1971 respectively) and bringing vitality to Wales’ musical life. In 1972 he founded the North Wales International Music Festival in St Asaph, which he directed every year until his death twenty years later.
Since the 1970s his composition moved towards a richness of expression, notably in a series of orchestral scores that William Mathias described as "landscapes of the mind", composed of Laudi (1973), Vistas, Helios (both 1975), and Requiescat (1978).
William Mathias’ concern was that music should "praise" and indeed much of his music was composed for the Anglican choral tradition. He wrote his first anthems in the early 1960s, first for friends connected to Welsh cathedrals but rapidly gaining momentum in the whole English-speaking world.
In 1981 he wrote Let the people praise Thee, O God for the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales, which was broadcast to a television audience estimated at one billion people worldwide. At the express wish of the prince the anthem was within the reach of most good church choirs and it has since then become a popular addition to the repertoire.
William Mathias’ largest-scale works, like This Worldes Joie (1974), Lux Aeterna (1982) and World’s Fire (1989), intertwined the sacred and the secular, the dramatic and the contemplative. Other compositions of his include an opera, The Servants (1980), a masque, Jonah (1988) and two large-scale concertos, for organ (1984), and for violin (1991).
William Mathias was made CBE in 1985 and in 1988 he received an honorary doctorate from Westminster Choir College in Princeton. He was working on a new symphony for the Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra when he passed away in 1992.
William Mathias became Lecturer in Music at the University College of North Wales in 1959, where he stayed until 1968 when he took an appointment as Senior Lecturer in Music at the Edinburgh University. He returned to Wales a year later when his father died and resumed his position at the UCNW, becoming the Head of the Department of Music in the process. He had written some of his most characterful music by then, but in 1988 he retired early to focus on composition.
In 1958 William Mathias composed Divertimento for Strings, which enjoyed a wide and instantaneous success. He wrote his Sinfonietta in 1966 for the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra, which was premiered during the 1967 Schools Festival at Leicester De Monfort Hall and was included in the orchestra’s tour programme in Germany and Denmark. The Sinfonietta was recorded for the first time that same year under William Mathias’ direction.
His career developed rapidly; in the next decade his works were commissioned by many leading British festivals, such as the Three Choirs, Cheltenham and Aldeburgh. For a time William Mathias experimented with serialism but quickly returned to, and reinforced, his own stylistic identity. Although his general idiom, characterized by neo-classical structures, tonal harmony and celebratory, dancing rhythms, was unfashionable, he established himself as one of the brightest composers of his generation.
Central to William Mathias’ composition were his Welsh roots, embodied in works like St Teilo and Culhwh and Owen (1970 and 1971 respectively) and bringing vitality to Wales’ musical life. In 1972 he founded the North Wales International Music Festival in St Asaph, which he directed every year until his death twenty years later.
Since the 1970s his composition moved towards a richness of expression, notably in a series of orchestral scores that William Mathias described as "landscapes of the mind", composed of Laudi (1973), Vistas, Helios (both 1975), and Requiescat (1978).
William Mathias’ concern was that music should "praise" and indeed much of his music was composed for the Anglican choral tradition. He wrote his first anthems in the early 1960s, first for friends connected to Welsh cathedrals but rapidly gaining momentum in the whole English-speaking world.
In 1981 he wrote Let the people praise Thee, O God for the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales, which was broadcast to a television audience estimated at one billion people worldwide. At the express wish of the prince the anthem was within the reach of most good church choirs and it has since then become a popular addition to the repertoire.
William Mathias’ largest-scale works, like This Worldes Joie (1974), Lux Aeterna (1982) and World’s Fire (1989), intertwined the sacred and the secular, the dramatic and the contemplative. Other compositions of his include an opera, The Servants (1980), a masque, Jonah (1988) and two large-scale concertos, for organ (1984), and for violin (1991).
William Mathias was made CBE in 1985 and in 1988 he received an honorary doctorate from Westminster Choir College in Princeton. He was working on a new symphony for the Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra when he passed away in 1992.