Kenneth Shenton writes:
GRAHAM MATTHEWS gave a lifetime of service to sacred music, notably almost 25 years as Organist of Sheffield Cathedral. He began his career during the 1950s at Winchester Cathedral, and, while at Sheffield, he also served as City Organist. Latterly, for more than two decades, as a Brother of the Charterhouse, he fulfilled the ancient office of organist with no less distinction.
Born in south London on 17 October 1935, Graham Hedley Matthews was the son of a Battersea antique dealer. He won a county scholarship in 1954 to the Royal Academy of Music, where his organ teachers were Douglas Hopkins and C. H. Trevor. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists in 1961, and the next year won the College’s coveted John Brook Prize for choir training.
Having completed his National Service, and armed with a B.Mus. degree from the University of London, Matthews began his career as Sub-Organist of Winchester Cathedral in 1958. He also taught at the Pilgrims’ School and Winchester College. For part of 1962, he took charge of the cathedral’s music.
In 1967, Matthews succeeded Reginald Tustin Baker as Organist of Sheffield Cathedral. There, he directed a choir whose resources he came to use with much imagination and skill. His arrival proved propitious, coming as it did soon after the initial completion in 1966 of a neo-Baroque cathedral organ by N. P. Mander & Sons. Three years later, Matthews was able to complete the scheme by designing a new nave section. It provided a most colourful palette.
Matthews had been involved with the Southern Cathedrals Festival while in Winchester, and so he set in train a West Riding Cathedrals Festival involving the choral foundations of Bradford, Sheffield, and Wakefield. For the 1974 event, Matthews commissioned a setting of the Te Deum from Herbert Howells.
As an organist, Matthews particularly rejoiced in 19th- and early 20th-century repertoire. As his recordings demonstrate, his sense of rhythm was more than matched by a love of colour, all ably underpinned by a natural technique. He had been bequeathed a series of manuscripts by Tustin Baker’s widow, in which he found an annotated copy of a hitherto unknown Organ Sonata by Howells. It had been written in 1911 as part of the portfolio presented to C. V. Stanford, when Howells sought a scholarship at the Royal College of Music. With Robin Wells, Matthews helped to prepare the substantial three-movement work for publication before committing it to disc in 1988.
As City Organist of Sheffield, Matthews played an important part within the wider cultural community. In addition, his lecture recitals for the University’s Department of Continuing Education attracted a wide following and led to his organising annual visits to Holland to study Dutch instruments. In 1985, he was a keynote contributor to the International Bach Congress in Groningen. He also served as President of the Sheffield and District Organists’ and Choirmasters’ Association, contributed to the Organists’ Review, and was a popular music-festival adjudicator. He also took extensive tours as an examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music.
Graham Matthews died on 18 February, aged 88.
