From a review of "Sages of Chelm"

This is remarkably beautiful music! The orchestrations are superb, 
the music elegantly crafted. The Sages of Chelm is based on Hebrew 
and Yiddish folklore and melodies, presented in a late Romantic 
idiom --- and, amazingly enough, this metamorphosis not only works 
but comes alive with great vitality! The listener need not even 
know the meaning of the Yiddish movement titles or recognize the 
melodies: this beautiful work stands on its own as "abstract" music.

-- Terry Winter Owens, composer




From a review of "Kabala"
 
This is an amazing and spellbinding--at times frightening in its 
primordial directness, at times utterly disarming in its magical 
grace and wit--celebration of Jewish rites created by a highly 
gifted composer who is profoundly in touch with his roots, and 
who has the compositional wherewithal to universalize them in 
often surprising and always resourceful ways.

-- Fanfare Magazine: William Zagorski

From a review of "Sages of Chelm"

Part Till Eulenspiegel, part, Kurt Weill, and part Peter Schickele, 
the three symphonic poems that make up Sages of Chelm by American 
composer Matthew H. Fields are inviting and eager to please, but 
not formulaic. They move from idea to idea, often rhythmically 
vital and usually involving. It's not a deep work, but neither 
is it trifling. I'd love to see what a composer this full of ideas 
does with symphonic or concertante form."

--Jim Moskowitz