Orchestra (Score)
SKU:
HL.14008392
Caroline Mathilde Act
I (Concert Suite).
Composed by Sir Peter
Maxwell Davies. Music
Sales America. 20th
Century. Book
[Softcover]. Composed
1999. 74 pages. Chester
Music #CH60949. Published
by Chester Music
(HL.14008392).
ISBN
9780711936942.
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
ballet portrays 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 her two
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
movable pedestals. 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, the first
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.
Ray Davies
