Peter Maxwell Davies

This work was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It was first performed on 2nd May 2000 at the Barbican Centre London conducted by Peter Maxwell Davies. Duration c.23 minutes. Peter Maxwell Davies: The hornwriting is extremely virtuoso throughout not least in exploring the full range of the horn from the deepest notes in the bass normally exclusive to an orchestral fourth horn player to the highest most exposed sostenuto of afirst horn soloist presenting here challenges of embouchure and sheer stamina I should think fairly unprecedented.Solo part and piano reduction on sale (CH61758) Conductor's score and orchestral parts available for hire.

This work written by Maxwell Davies in 1983 for chamber orchestra was commissioned to celebrate the quartercentenary of Edinburgh University. The first performance was given by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by EdwardHarper in October 1983. Duration c. 29mins.This work was thought through in outline following a visit to the ruined pre-Reformation church of Hoy in Orkney on a fine Spring afternoon after Maxwell Davies had played theharmonium for the tiny congregation in its large bleak Victorian replacement. The old church was surrounded by the graves of centuries the more recent ones with familiar names largely of people who lived in houses now ruinous crofters fishermen clerics sea-captains. Next to it stood the chief farmhouse the Bu going back to Viking times. He thought of the lives and deaths encompassed there expressed through hundreds of years of music in thechurch and in the big barn of the farm.The plainsongs ‘Dies Irae’ and ‘Victimae Paschali Laudes’ are used throughout the work the first concerning the Day of Judgement from the Mass for the Dead the second particular toEaster Sunday and the Resurrection. These are subject to constant transformation the intervallic contour slowly changes from one into the other and their notes are made to dance through Renaissance astrological ‘magic square’patterns.The orchestra consists of double woodwind two horns two trumpets and strings.

Miniature Score.This work was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It was first performed on 13th May 1998 London. This piece is based on a genuine old tune 'Maxwell's Strathspey' which the composer found inan 1824 collection of Scottish melodies and which unfolds at the start of the piece on solo cello. Variations and a bold up-tempo to the quick dance we know as a reel ultimately yield to the magic that has been promised right atthe start: the northern lights take over at the end of the piece. Its inspiration comes from a walk to a community event in Hoy Hall during which Davies saw the lights in the sky pulsing in and out of time with the sounds comingfrom the hall. Duration 12 minutes. Conductor's score and orchestral parts are available on hire.

Spinning Jenny is a portrait of Leigh Lancashire circa 1948 and one of a series of occasional pieces inspired by Davies' youth in Salford. Spinning Jenny Street was a noisy hazardous street clangerous with industry andactivity when davies was at Grammar school in 1945. A modest work but one which reflects many aspects of the place period and people it was inspired by. Commissioned by the BBC it was first performed on 21st July 199 as partof the BBC promenade concert at the Royal Albert Hall by the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Davies himself. This is the miniature format of the full orchestral score..

In 1971 Davies adapted the original Sandy Wilson music and wrote some of his own for Ken Russell's film of The Boy Friend. The music like the film goes way over the top in reviving the style of the 1930s and the suiteincludes careful and wickedly acute notations of period conventions; swoops sickly vibratos toy percussion instruments and the rest. Arrangements of the songs with piano links are followed by a fantasy in which the heroinedreams up dances by Davies himself.

Orchestral work for school orchestraA short tone-poem which will let a school orchestra glow. Characteristically Davies finds ways to engage and stretch young players while staying within the bounds of what is practical forthem. And as so often the result is a piece in which he thinks youthfully. This is vividly dramatic music. Score. Duration c. 7mins.

Caroline Mathilde Act I (Concert Suite)-The story centres on the English princess Caroline Mathilde (1751-1775) sister of George III who at the age of 15 was sent to Denmark to marry the 17-year-old eccentric and schizophrenic Danish King Christian VII. The balletportrays her unhappy marriage the King's growing madness and her fatal love-affair with Struensee the King's influential physician which leads to their arrest his execution and her exile at the age of 20 separated from hertwo young children. In keeping with the period and perhaps also with the traditions of Romantic ballet the music is relatively simple in harmony and form and most of the action is conveyed in set-piece dances. The suite which consists essentially of the second half of Act I begins with one of these a bristling interplay of wind and string ensembles in D major portraying in the ballet a curious nuptial game with the king and princess on movablepedestals. The slow music that follows has to do with the king's healing by Dr. Struensee and the new queen's unquiet reverie (oboe and cor anglais solos). Then the suite like the act is capped by a pair of pas-de-deux thefirst savage and bizarre for the royal couple the second rich and passionate for the queen and the miracle-working doctor.Score (miniature). Duration c. 25mins.

The solo group consists of a sextet of the woodwind instruments which are normally doubled with more regular members of the orchestra: these six strangers now brought to the fore are piccolo alto flute cor anglais clarinet inEb bass clarinet in Bb and contrabassoon. They make a motley group diverse in colour as in register and one of the tasks of the piece sets itself is to have them blend and cohere both together as an ensemble and in partnershipwith the string orchestra (which itself is used with unusual variety and subtlety). Another evident task of the work is to provide fine solos for each member of the woodwind sextet: bright dances for the piccolo recitativesfor the alto flute a stoical song from the contrabassoon in the extreme bass. The work is cast as a single movement which begins in the composer's first-movement style of rapid regeneration. This is interrupted by slowinterventions including one for divided strings which gives rise to a sextuple cadenza for the soloists. Out of this comes a slow movement or sequence of short slow movements followed by a dancing finale with its own slowepisodes. Altogether this is music of songs and dances heavily tinged with Scottish rhythms and tonalities: one might think of a magic bagpipe having six chanters and a drone of variegated string texture.

This work was commissioned by the City of Darmstadt for the Darmstadt State Theatre. It was first performed in September 1988 at the Staatstheater Darmstadt. Written for full orchestra with large percussion section marchingband pop group and electronic vocal quartet. Duration c. 75mins.

This concert overture is a portrait of the Hoy island postman: a rumbustuous yarn-spinning character to judge by the music.Commissioned by the Scottish Postal Board and dedicated to the Board's Chairman Ian Barr inrecognition of his work on behalf of the St. Magnus festival Orkney. First performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1986. Written for full symphony orchestra. Score (miniature). Duration c. 9mins.