Len Worthington-Smith

Keith Mattison – Influencing my life

For me, Keith has been one of those people ever present in my life. He is a person who I could as likely bump into in the Long room at Newlands enjoying cricket, the City Hall at a concert or Forries or Perseverance Tavern with his eyes twinkling over the rim of a beer.

My most common association with Keith is through music, and goes back to the late ‘70s. At the time I was fortunate enough to be given opportunities to sing as a treble soloist and worked with Keith quite a bit, often with the Philharmonia Choir. Around this time I was considering starting to play the horn and innocently asked Keith why it was considered difficult. He immediately went into the complexities of the instrument with me, explaining about the closeness of the harmonics and the vagaries of its pitch and range. If I’d been a bit less impulsive myself, I’d have taken his advice and left the thing well alone! What this illustrated though is Keith’s keen interest in almost anything. Years later and freshly off an engineering degree we were discussing something about fluids and the motion of hulls through water and some of the mathematical relationships. “Ah, that’s one of those bad formulae isn’t it?” he remarked, unconvincingly trying to appear uncertain. I realized right then to tread with great care as Keith had spotted an empirical formula, one derived through being fitted to collected data rather than theoretically. I was stunned at where his logic could take him outside of his own field and at his constantly enquiring mind.

Apart from his astonishing intellect, diversity of interest and of course musical brilliance, Keith is unfailingly generous. On a few occasions I have had to ask Keith to help me out. Invariably some musically undiscerning friend will ask one to help at a wedding. One gets there to find a charming location but no consideration given to where musicians are to sit or what they might play. Along would come Keith with a keyboard in his boot, a collection of possibilities and a willingness to play anything in any key. He gives of his time generously and unhesitatingly always.

On one occasion our long serving maid announced that her church choir were to take part in a national competition and they needed help as the prescribed work was proving challenging. Keith of course agreed immediately to take part. A 30 odd strong choir (only about three magnificent men) met with my father, Humphrey and Keith in our lounge with parts to a chorus from Mendlessohn’s Elijah “Then did Elijah the prophet break forth”. They were to perform unaccompanied. The parts were in tonic sol fa (the do- re- me system) notation and extremely difficult to read. Keith reveled in unraveling the code and training the choir, dividing the sections with my dad and helping them to pick out notes and entries within their method of pitching. To all our delight, the choir went on to win and the trophies were brought back to Rondebosch from Nyanga in an emotional procession.

Choirs are a big association with Keith for me. He worked with both the Symphony choir and the Philharmonia. He put together an ad-hoc group called “Cape Contemporary Choir” which he called “C-cubed”, ever the scientist. My brother Rob, dad and I were fortunate to take part and Keith always chose interesting and challenging repertoire. We performed Rutter and Britten and of course, always something of his beloved Bernstein. Nothing was beyond Keith in terms of difficulty with his only frustration being the furrowed brows and doubts shown by the choristers. His belief was absolute and although we looked for the edge, we never fell off it.

His 70^th birthday concert will be for me a cherished memory. He played the Shostakovich 2^nd piano Concerto, a Claude Bolling Jazz Trio suite, the final movement of the Saint Saens Organ symphony and conducted a chamber choir in Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. What a night, what an achievement and what a privilege for me to have shared a stage singing and then playing (the despised horn) in a top orchestra with Keith as soloist and Bernhard Gueller conducting. Bill Holland conducted the Bolling. Who else could bring that together ?

Back to my early recollections and the Philharmonia. Keith was landed with the task of preparing the choir for Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. Within this work are complex passages in contrasting times. Here the genius for which I will always remember Keith was displayed and that is his rhythm. My abiding memory is Keith jamming on the piano in 7 beats in a bar with a choir of (generously) middle aged amateurs weaving to his beat while he demonstrated the concept. In the same work the treble soloist sings a tricky ascending progression which settles down to establish the key for the choir to enter unaccompanied. This is fraught with potential disaster with an inexperienced soloist and amateur choir. Keith knew exactly how to place in our minds what had to be done and show us the confidence of a man with no limits.

I asked Keith back then how to approach triplets, which is a series of three notes played or sung in the time normally allowed for two. I always fond myself cramming them together clumsily. “Ah, the secret is never to rush them. Take your time. See them as three notes in the time of four shorter ones.” It was vintage Keith and I’ve luxuriated in triplets since. Keith Mattison, always laid back with time to spare and time to give.

With thanks and affection

Len Worthington-Smith