Journalist Matthew Rye has died at the age of 60 in Madeira.

The Opera Magazine said, “deeply saddened to hear of the sudden death yesterday of our colleague Matthew Rye, aged 60, in Madeira. A valued contributor to our pages – several of his reviews are in our new issue – he was liked and respected for his writing and editorial work across many publications.”

Rye studied music at Oxford and worked in music journalism for 30 years as a writer, critic, and editor. He wrote numerous program notes as well as booklet notes. Among other magazines, he wrote for were Daily Telegraph critic, BBC Music Magazine, The Strad, The Wagner Journal and Opera, and blogs at ferneklang.blogspot.co.uk.

He was also the General Editor of 1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die and the author of a new series of eBooks, Masterpieces of Music.

Bachtrack also remembered Rye and said, “He was the loveliest of men, very supportive and inordinately grateful for the opportunities we gave him to review. He never used his undoubted seniority as a writer to expect plum commissions. One of my final email exchanges with him was in response to my Christmas greeting message, where he thanked us for ‘gifting [him] such a rich panoply of musical treats this year.’ It was us that should have been thanking him. A humble, gentle, brilliant man. RIP.”