Born in London in 1943, David Matthew&apos;s desire to compose did not manifest itself until he was sixteen, and for a time he and his younger brother Colin Matthews, also a composer, were each other&apos;s only teachers. The emergence of Gustav Mahler&apos;s music as regular pieces performed in the British repertoire in the early 1960s was a tremendous creative impetus for both of them; but though they have sometimes collaborated as arrangers (for instance in orchestrating seven early Mahler songs) and editors (in the published version of Deryck Cooke&apos;s &apos;performing version&apos; of the draft of Mahler&apos;s Tenth Symphony), as composers they have very much gone their separate ways.