[{"text_idx": "#000014", "text": "It is hard to believe that, had he lived, William Mathias would have been eighty this month. Those who knew him will remember his 'tempo ritmico' personality, his real interest in people and his unashamed musical brilliance."}, {"text_idx": "#000017", "text": "Cardiff's New Theatre on 15 September 1980 was an important landmark in Welsh music history and the opera includes some fine, typically incisive rhythmic Mathias writing (reminiscent in places of his Elegy for a Prince) and it leaves one wondering what might have happened had Mathias followed the lead of his contemporary Alun Hoddinott in composing more for the stage."}]