Matthew Manning interview, copyright Victoria Mary Clarke, 2003

Matthew Manning plays the oboe like an angel.  Such sweet sounds can only come from a heavenly source.  He is a principal soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra and has made over fifty CDs with a variety of musicians, from Michael Flatley to Liam O Flynn.  He’s also recorded fifty film scores, including the title track for ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’.  His talent is immense and immeasurable.  But what God gives, He sometimes takes away again, for reasons that we humans know nothing about.  And He is threatening to take away Matthew Mannings unquestionable gift.  Because Matthew has been hit by a condition called Post Viral Arthritis.  An inflammation of the joints, a painful swelling which, if it spreads to his hands, would make it impossible to play the oboe.
Matthew comes from London and lives in Wicklow with his wife and two children. He came here twenty years ago, originally intending only to visit some friends.  But he saw his job advertised, principal oboist in the RTE Symphony Orchestra.
‘ It’s a precarious business, so if you get a job, you take it,’ he tells me over tea at the National Concert Hall where he is rehearsing.
“  I was one of the last ones to get a pension!’ 
Which he may well, be needing, sooner than he thought, if he can not play the oboe.  It is a possibility that he will deal with, if it arises, he says.  He might be able to teach, if he cannot play.  But playing is all he has known, for quite some time.
‘I started playing the oboe at the age of twelve, I had been playing the recorder and singing in the choir and they needed an oboe in the school orchestra so they handed me one and asked me to try it and I’ve never looked back.  I decided to be a professional musician when I was seventeen and it seemed to be what I was best at.’
          There is  a lot of competition, for jobs are scarce in the world of classical music.  Whether you get the job is a mixture of luck and whether they like you or not, Matthew says.  He has no idea why he was picked, out of a selection of two hundred applicants, but he’s kept the job for twenty years, he’s now forty two.  He met his wife, who is also a musician, while playing in the orchestra and they have two children. 
Matthew has had a chance to play all sorts of wonderful music, with the best of musicians. But he had never made a solo recording.  Getting ill was a catalyst that would change that.  There had been a project at the back if his mind, for quite some time, but he had been putting it off and putting it off until it came about that he found himself in hospital, suddenly and unexpectedly.
‘This CD is a testament to my mortality!’ Matthew tells me.  ‘And it’s about time I did something for myself.  I’ve done so much work for other people, I wanted to leave behind something that I had done for me.’
Did he think he might die?
‘Well the doctor said that it was a good thing I saw him when I did because if I hadn’t there was a chance I might have died.  If I hadn’t done anything about it, Septicaemia could have set in.’
The virus attacked completely out of the blue. It began as a flu.
‘Picked up from my daughter, the way you do from children.  And I took antibiotics which didn’t work and it became an ear infection, which didn’t really respond to antibiotics, but it went away and I went back to work.
And then one day I came home because I had an ache in my leg, which started like an electric shock, all the way up my leg.  I had to be carried to bed and the doctor came around and gave me a big injection.’
What did he say was wrong with you?  I asked.
‘Lower back pain.  I thought it might be Sciatica.  But when I was back on my feet, my knees started to swell up.  And that got worse and worse and worse and I took stronger and stronger antibiotics and anti-inflammatories and eventually I was in the most excruciating pain and the synovial sac had ruptured in my knee, which proceeded to turn into an infection and I ended up in hospital, flat on my back, where they starved me for twenty four hours.  I began to feel pretty miserable, as you can imagine!’
There was plenty of time to consider the idea of a solo recording, because within a week of being released from hospital, Matthew was back in, with exactly the same symptoms in the other leg.  This is, apparently quite common with post-viral arthritis.  The body’s immune system begins to attack any or all of the joints.  The possibility that his hands would be next meant there was no time to wait around.  Having been told that there was no actual cure, but that the symptoms could be managed with immuno-suppressants and anti-inflammatories, Matthew wasted no time in getting into the studio with his producer. As soon as he was well enough to, he recorded ‘Silver River’ a solo album on which he plays the music of Michael Mc Glynn, the internationally famous composer, arranger and director of Anuna. The result is a beautiful CD, featuring new arrangements of ‘The Lark in the Clear Air’ and ‘The Meeting of the Waters’ and it has been released in time for Christmas.  Matthew says that he is very pleased with the CD and delighted to have recorded it, even if the impetus came from the fear that he would not live to do it.
‘I’m still worried that the arthritis might attack my fingers, but it seems to have stayed in my knees so far,’ he says.  ‘It’s been an excruciating experience.  But I’m also aware that I wouldn’t have recorded ‘Silver River’ if it hadn’t happened!” 
          He has no idea what to expect, for the future.  He’s going to try acupuncture, although he doesn’t expect to be cured.  He’s simply hoping for the best.  Sometimes, he says, you get very clear messages about what to do with your life.  A few years ago, when he was living in Blackrock, his eighteen month old daughter wandered out into the busy road in front of the house.  She was narrowly saved from being knocked down by a truck driver, who picked her up and carried her home.  That was a signal to move to Wicklow,  Matthew decided, away from busy roads.  The recent illness was a signal to record ‘Silver River’.  Matthew doesn’t know what will happen next, but he’s going to pay attention to whatever signals are presented.
‘Silver River’ is out now on Silver Records.