Robin Newton:

>I personally feel undecided about adding to someone else's work.  If a
>work is unfinished, and without a completion we would be without it, then
>it seems a worthwhile, though inevitably fraught and flawed, task.  Adding
>to a finished work seems to me more of a curious exercise.  I am sure it
>could be fascinating, particularly in the ways one solves such problems as
>style and drama. ...

It could also be something like this.  Matthews got a commission for such a
work.

On the other hand, Matthews has spent many years working on "performing
editions" of Holst's music (often under the direction of or in
collaboration with Holst's composer-daughter, Imogen).  Perhaps it's a
matter of wanting to try on a musical mask - writing one's own bit of
Holst.  We accept such things as humor (vide PDQ Bach).  Why not see what
happens when we take it seriously?

I'm interested in giving such a work a hearing, at any rate.

Steve Schwartz