Denis Matthews was an English pianist and musicologist.

Denis James Matthews was born in Coventry

Coventry

Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...

, the son of a motor salesman. He attended Arnold Lodge School

Arnold Lodge School

Arnold Lodge School is a co-educational independent school in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England, founded in 1864.The school has approximately 280 day pupils, ranging from kindergarten, aged three, to GCSE pupils aged sixteen...

, Leamington Spa

Leamington Spa

Royal Leamington Spa, commonly known as Leamington Spa or Leamington or Leam to locals, is a spa town in central Warwickshire, England. Formerly known as Leamington Priors, its expansion began following the popularisation of the medicinal qualities of its water by Dr Kerr in 1784, and by Dr Lambe...

, from 1927 to 1932 and Warwick School

Warwick School

Warwick School is an independent school with boarding facilities for boys in Warwick, England, and is reputed to be the third-oldest surviving school in the country after King's School, Canterbury and St Peter's School, York; and the oldest boy's school in England...

 from October 1932 to the summer of 1936, when he left to study at the Royal Academy of Music

Royal Academy of Music

The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...

. While there, he lodged with Harold Craxton

Harold Craxton

Thomas Harold Hunt Craxton, OBE was an English pianist and composer.Craxton studied piano at the Tobias Matthay Pianoforte School and made a name for himself early in his career as an accompanist with performers such as Dame Nellie Melba, Dame Clara Butt, Lionel Tertis and John McCormack.In 1919...

 and his wife Essie in St John's Wood

St John's Wood

St John's Wood is a district of north-west London, England, in the City of Westminster, and at the north-west end of Regent's Park. It is approximately 2.5 miles north-west of Charing Cross. Once part of the Great Middlesex Forest, it was later owned by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem...

. He made his professional début in 1939 before joining up in 1940 and serving with the RAF

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

 until 1946.

Resuming his professional career after the war, he toured extensively as a concert pianist and formed successful partnerships with the Griller Quartet

Griller Quartet

The Griller String Quartet was a British musical ensemble particularly active from 1931 to c.1961 or 1963, when they disbanded. The quartet was in residence at the University of California at Berkeley from 1949 to 1961...

 and the Amadeus Quartet

Amadeus Quartet

The Amadeus Quartet was a world famous string quartet founded in 1947.Because of their Jewish origin, violinists Norbert Brainin, Siegmund Nissel and Peter Schidlof were driven out of Vienna after Hitler's Anschluss of 1938...

. His particular liking was for the music of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, and his edition of the Mozart piano sonatas, prepared with Stanley Sadie

Stanley Sadie

Stanley Sadie CBE was a leading British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Sadie was educated at St Paul's School,...

, became widely used. He also produced many recordings, especially of modern British piano music.

His autobiography, In Pursuit of Music, appeared in 1966. Between 1971 and 1984 he was Professor of Music at Newcastle University, and in 1985 he published a study of Beethoven in the Dent "Master Musicians" series. His short book (published by the BBC) on Beethoven's piano sonatas is particularly valuable.

In the few years before his death, he and his third wife, Beryl Chempin, taught at the Birmingham School of Music. Denis Matthews committed suicide on 25 December 1988.

Books

• Denis Matthews: Arturo Toscanini
  Arturo Toscanini
  Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
  
  . New York: Hippocrene, 1982. ISBN 0-88254-657-0 (includes discography)