Peter Maxwell Davies' Arrangements VII

-- Liner Notes from 'Renaissance & Baroque Realisations' --

Kinloch his Fantassie (1976)
(unconducted chamber performance)

This severity is certainly dispelled by the final work on the disc, in which William Kinloch's Fantasia is presented in an orchestration that reinforces its innate exuberance. -- Stephen Pruslin


Sir Peter Maxwell Davies is universally acknowledged as one of the foremost composers in the world today. As the New York Times has written, "today, Davies counts as Britain's leading composer. He has achieved that status through his prolific outpouring in nearly every medium, his vivid theatricality and a musical idiom that combines mediaeval mysticism, modernist rigor and a happy accessibility."

His protean and charismatic musical personality expresses itself in his 150 published works including the operas, Taverner and Resurrection, the full-length ballet, Salome, the orchestral works (the Violin Concerto and Trumpet Concerto, the four Symphonies and An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise), the chamber operas, The Lighthouse and The Martyrdom of St. Magnus, the music-theatre works such as Eight Songs for Mad King and Miss Donnithorne's Maggot, as well as the many works written for non-specialist children including the operas, Cinderella and The Two Fiddlers.

He founded The Fires of London and was its Artistic Director throughout its existence, 1967-87. He founded the St. Magnus Festival in the Orkney Islands and was its Artistic Director from 1977 to 1986. He is now President of the festival. He was knighted in the 1987 New Years Honours for his services to music. In 1988, he undertook an extensive tour of the United States and Canada with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, which included performances in San Francisco, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Kansas City, Chicago, Toronto, New York and Washington.

Sir Peter's Symphony No. 4 was premiered in the 1989 BBC Promenade Concerts. He has recently completed a new full-length ballet, Caroline Mathilde, for the Royal Danish Ballet, which was premiered in Copenhagen in March, 1991. Maxwell Davies's music has been recorded on numerous labels, including Decca, EMI, Philips, Deutsche Grammophon and CBS, and he has a special association with Unicorn-Kanchana.

THE FIRES OF LONDON
Throughout its twenty-year existence (1967-87) The Fires of London was regarded as one of the world's outstanding chamber ensembles. The group played all over the world, including every major international festival. The Fires' impact started from their celebrated staged performance of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, with Mary Thomas as soloist, conducted by the group's Artistic Director, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. This was followed by Davies's own Eight Songs for Mad King, Vesalii icones, Miss Donnithorne's Maggot and Le Jongleur de Notre Dame, which together virtually established the genre of music-theatre in the sixties and seventies, and continued with his chamber operas, The Martyrdom of St. Magnus and The Lighthouse, and the 'apocalyptic comedy' The No. 11 Bus.

But the legendary Fires virtuosity, teamwork and commitment also informed their performances of pure chamber music, beginning with the Schoenberg/Webern Kammersymphonie, Opus 9, continuing with Maxwell Davies's Hymn to St. Magnus, Ave Maris Stella and Image, Reflection, Shadow and branching out to Elliott Carter's Triple Duo , the flagship of a long list of works, by other composers of every generation, called into being by the Fires.

The ensemble's life-history ended on January 29,1987 with a sold-out Fires' Farewell/Twentieth Birthday Gala Concert in London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, since which time all of its members continue to enjoy varied and flourishing careers.

Peter Maxwell Davies' Arrangements VI

-- Liner Notes from 'Renaissance & Baroque Realisations' --

Three Early Scottish Motets
Si Quis Diligit Me
Our Father Whiche in Heaven Art
All Sons of Adam

RENAISSANCE AND BAROQUE REALISATIONS
Clearly, the assignment of Renaissance and Baroque pieces to a timbrally mixed ensemble of modern instruments can in no way be construed as 'authentic' - more importantly, these realisations were never intended as such. As the word 'realisation' suggests, Peter Maxwell Davies is interested in using the works concerned as a departure-point for his own very personal interpretations. While this may not appeal to the purist, such interpretations still very much inhabit the world of 'pure' music. Far from representing a philosophical platform from which to moralize at the prevalent authentic temper of the times; the realisatioins are audibly the extension of an enormous knowledge and love of early music, carried out in a spirit of colleagueship across the centuries. If anything, the current swing of the pendulum to the authentic 'far right' serves only to enhance the relevance of these versions as a refreshingly different view of the subject.

There is much humour here, also parody and irony both subtle and explicit. As is usual with Maxwell Davies, the presence of these qualities does not preclude the presence of a serious and relevant point underneath. Conversely, the real erudition that underlies many of these realisations is worn very lightly and does not obtrude into the sheer listening experience they represent.

The listener will readily recognize three different sorts of realisation within this collection. There are works in which the identity of the original is clearly maintained within the context of an orchestration or re-orchestration (Bach Preludes and Fugures, Purcell Fantasia upon a Ground, Dunstable Veni Sancte-Veni Creator, Transcription, Peebles/Heagy Si Quis Diligit Me). Then there are cases where the original undergoes an extensive character-transformation that partially or wholly disguises its identity (Purcell Fantasia upon One Note and Two Pavans, Dunstable Veni Sancte-Veni Creator, 'Commentary'). Finally, there is a group (in some cases overlapping the 'character-transformation' category) where a chemical amalgam is effected between Maxwell Davies's own harmonic style and the style of the original to the point where they become inextricable (Anon. All Sons of Adam, John Angus Our Father Whiche in Heaven Art).

Three Early Scottish Motets
These short works are published together with a fourth work, Psalm 124, under the title 'Four Instrumental Motets from Early Scottish Originals'. 'The first of them, Si Quis Diligit Me (1973) is a straightforward setting of a quietly confident work by David Peebles and Francy Heagy. The second, 'Our Father Whiche in Heaven Art' (1977, after John Angus) and the third, All Sons of Adam (1974, after an anonymous 16th-century original) both begin equally straightforwardly, but are then progressively overlaid or infiltrated from within by various processes which result in an eventual amalgamation with Maxwell Davies's own style. Taken together, the three pieces present a musical portrait of the cool severity of the Kirk of Scotland, a quality inherent in the original pieces.

Peter Maxwell Davies' Arrangements V

-- Liner Notes from 'Renaissance & Baroque Realisations' --


John DUNSTABLE Veni Sancte-Veni Creator Spiritus (1972)

The dual title refers not to the two completely distinct sections that comprise this work, but to the double-texted motet which the first section transcribes. This is set in a dark but brilliant orchestration that admirably suits the flamboyant severity of Dunstable's thought.

The second section is an independent piece that comments on the Dunstable in Maxwell Davies's own style. It begins by invoking eerie wisps and fragments, but grows into a climax of astonishing intensity before ending in a rapt echo of the Dunstable. The discrepancy between the work's size and its weight gives the impression that a very large piece is being looked at through the wrong end of a telescope, creating a fascinating perceptual distortion.

Peter Maxwell Davies' Arrangements IV

-- Liner Notes from 'Renaissance & Baroque Realisations' --

Tenebrae super Gesualdo (1972)

I ('Beats irregular')
Interlude
II (Moderato)
Interlude
III (Andante)
Interlude
IV (Slow)

This work consists of four meditations, in Maxwell Davies's own style, on Gesualdo's darkly chromatic Tenebrae. There are moments, when the violin, celesta and glockenspiel come into their own, that are shot through with light - but the predominantly dark instrumentation (alto flute, bass clarinet, with strings, harpsichord, chamber organ and marimba used mainly in their low registers) and the generally very soft dynamic level combine to create a shadowy and mysterious atmosphere that further reflects Gesualdo's title.

The meditations are separated by three interludes for voice and guitar which distill an essence of the Gesualdo original and which, taken together, set the text, 'Attendite et videte si est dolor similis sicut dolor meus' (Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow).

One might almost imagine a performance of the original Tenebrae in which the Maxwell Davies movements arose as commenting interludes. What is perhaps most fascinating about the work is that the relationship between the 'old' and the 'new' sections is reversed as in a photographic negative, so that the meditations are perceived as the 'originals' and the brief glimpses of Gesualdo as the 'commentary'.

Peter Maxwell Davies' Arrangements III

-- Liner Notes from 'Renaissance & Baroque Realisations' --

Johann Sebastian Bach
Prelude & Fugue in C-sharp minor
Prelude & Fugue in C-sharp major
Both from 'The 48' Book I
(unconducted chamber performances)

The C-sharp minor was realised in 1972 to precede a performance of the Schoenberg/Webern Kammersymphonie, Opus 9, whose home key is the relative E major. The C-sharp major came two years later as an 'advance companion-piece' to Maxwell Davies's own Ave Maris Stella (Unicorn-Kanchana UKCD 2038), which shares the same key-centre. Subsequently the Fires began to perform the two preludes and fugues as a unit.

The choice of these preludes and fugues is in part simply a sign of affection for them and partly a function of the original concert-pairings mentioned above - but it also relates to the particular resonance created by the keys of C-sharp major and minor when transferred from the keyboard, where they are already rare, to the instrumental combination used, and above all to the two stringed instruments.

The C-sharp minor prelude is notable for the frequent hocket-like division of melodic lines, particularly between the timbrally distinct flute and clarinet. In the fugue, the marimba takes its place as an absolutely equal voice in the texture.

Anyone who enjoys musical puzzles and detective-work will have a field-day with the Prelude and Fugue in C-sharp major. The orchestration of the prelude 'X-rays' the music to reveal cross-relationships with the fugue which are anywhere from implicit to non-existent in the original, while the fugue pokes fun at Webernesque Klangfarbenmelodie by segmenting the subject into three successive instrumental colours.

Peter Maxwell Davies' Arrangements II

-- Liner Notes from 'Renaissance & Baroque Realisations' --

HENRY PURCELL, Fantasia upon One Note (1973)
Maxwell Davies has described the Purcell original as 'emerging gradually out of a blue haze', and this apt image could be applied to the realisation as a whole in that it is fundamentally a delicate study in reality and illusion, with the original Fantasia gone through in 'dumb show; but seen from many different distances and angles. After reaching a climax in hillbilly style, the work dissolves back to the phosphorescent shimmer in which it began.

Intrinsic to the 'atmospheric lighting' of the work is its transposition from Purcell's F-major to the much more rarefied key of F-sharp, which is used as a colour-filter, under which a familiar musical object becomes insubstantial and remote. It is worth mentioning that the lower level of old pitch, which would rightly be invoked in an authentic context, is not relevant here, because Maxwell Davies is playing on the psychological connotations of 'familiar' and 'unfamiliar' keys as we know them throug present-day ears.

Peter Maxwell Davies' Arrangements

-- Liner Notes from 'Renaissance & Baroque Realisations' --

PETER MAXWELL DAVIES
(b. 1934)
Renaissance & Baroque Realisations
THE FIRES OF LONDON
SIR PETER MAXWELL DAVIES conductor
Mary Thomas, soprano
Philippa Davies, flutelpiccololalto flute
David Campbell, clarinets
Beverley Davison, violin/viola
Alexander Baillie, cello
Timothy Walker, guitar
Stephen Pmslin, pianolharpsichordicelestalhonky-tonklchambero rgan
Gregory Knowles, percussion
Recording Producer: Antony Hodgson
Recording Engineer: Geoffrey Barton
Recording Location: Walthamstow Assembly Hall, London
on 29 - 31 January 1980
Front cover Design: Karl Renner
Nos. 2 & 5 ublished by Chester Music Ltd.
All others pblished & Boosey & Hawkes MusicPublishers Ltd.

Henry Purcell: Fantasia and Two Pavans
Fantasia on a Ground
Pavan in A
Pavan in B-flat

PURCELL Fantasia and Two Pavans (1968)
1) The Fantasia, in Purcell's key of F-major, is presented in the boldest possible colours. Paradoxically, the boisterously updated orchestration (in particular the piccolo doubling at the twe1fth)creates an authentic dimension of its own: a superb impression of the shrill brilliance of a baroque organ.

2 & 3) In a volte-face from this simulated authenticity, the two pavans (in Purcell's keys of A and B-flat major, respectively) are resurrected as foxtrots. Whether or not one finds such treatment outrageous, there is no denying the virtuosity with which this bravura stylistic exercise is carried off, nor the sheer technical acumen that enables the composer to imbed every note of the Purcell originals within the foxtrots. And perhaps any sense of stylistic discomfort can be put to rest by Maxwell Davies's own commonsensical remark that, after all, one dead dance-form is merely being reinterpreted in terms of another.

Peter Maxwell Davies, "Psalm 124"

-- Liner Notes from L'Oiseau Lyre DSLO 12 --

The Fires of London
Peter Maxwell Davies, director
Mary Thomas, soprano
Judith Pearce, flute/alto flute
Alan Hacker, basset clarinet/bass clarinet/folk clarient
Duncan Druce, violin/viola
Jennifer Ward Clarke, baroque cello
Stephen Pruslin, piano/harpsichordlglockenspiel/drone
Gary Kettel, percussion
with Timothy Walker, guitar

Bosendorfer piano, Goble harpsichord

PETER MAXWELL DAVIES was born in Manchester in 1934. He now holds an international reputation as the leading British composer of his generation, with major works to his credit in every medium. His opera, Taverner, attracted enormous attention when it was first produced at the Royal Opera House. Covent Garden in 1972. Important recent performances include the orchestral works Worldes Blis and Stone Litany, the virtuoso chamber works, Hymn to Saint Magnus and Ave Maris Stella, and the music theater work, Miss Donnithorne's Maggot. Maxwell Davies is currently working on several major orchestral commissions, chamber works for the Fires, and is planning a second opera. He is in constant demand as a lecturer and teacher, but he now devotes himself principally to composition, on a remote Orkney island, and to his appearances with the Fires of London.

This work has three sections, linked by guitar solo recitatives. The first section uses the melody of Psalm 124 (after David Peebles), the second, a line of '0 God Abufe' (after John Fethy), and the third, an outline from 'All Sons of Adam' (after an anonymous sixteenth century motet). The work's formal shape is based on the chorale-prelude, and it in fact originated as an organ work, written for Elizabeth Bevan, organist at Stromness Church, Orkney. The 'originals' are again to be found in Kenneth Elliott's 'Early Scottish Music. 1500-1750'.

Peter Maxwell Davies, "Dark Angels"

Side One (1 7: 04)
PETER MAXWELL DAVIES
(b. 1934)
DARK ANGELS (1974)
for soprano & guitar
1. The Drowning Brothers (6:lO) -
2. Dark Aqgels (guitar solo) (252) -3. Dead Fires (7:49)
publ. Boosey & Hawkes. Inc. (ASCAP)

JAN DeGAETANI, mezzo-soprano
OSCAR GHIGLIA, guitar

engineering & musical supervision: Marc J. Aubort, Joanna Nickrenz
(Elite Recordings, Inc.)
mastering:Robert C. Ludwig (Masterdisk Corp.)
a Dolby-system recording

The valley where I live, in a remote island off the north coast of Scotland, since Viking times a.thriving crofting and fishing community, is now all but deserted. The islanders gradually left through the first half of this century, the contrasts between their own hard life and the comparatively easy life of the Scottish cities being too cruel. A few crofts were worked till quite recently, but there were ever fewer young people, and the final blow for the community was the drowning of the last two children - brothers -in the mid-'50s. They made a raft and sailed it on the burn where it widens before joining the sea, far away from all possibility of rescue. Their death was as a sign to the inhabitants remaining, who, with the exception of one farmer who is still there, left what they could only see as a doomed place, and the school, shop, crofts, byres, fell into disrepair, open to the birds and sheep.

The two poems I have set by George Mackay Brown concern these events; the first, "The Drowning Brothers." relates the circumstance which led to the final exodus, and the second. "Dead Fires," is a litany of the deserted crofts. The title of the guitar solo separating the two settings. "Dark Angels," which I gave to the whole work, refers to the silent hills brooding around the deserted valley. The work is imbued with the sound of the island, where, however, at one of the deserted crofts listed in "Dead Fires," the fire burns again in the hearth, and the ground is once more fertile. -- PETER MAXWELL DAVIES

Peter Maxwell Davies, born in Manchester, England, attended the Royal Manchester College of Music and Manchester University. Upon winning an Italian Government Scholarship in 1957. he studied with Goffredo Petrassi in Rome; from 1962 to 1964 he pursued further studies at Princeton University. He has received commissions from the BBC, the London Philharmonic, New Philharmonia, Scottish National, and English Chamber orchestras, as well as the City of Dortmund and Covent Garden. In 1967, Mr. Davies formed The Fires of London, a chamber ensemble devoted to 20th-century music, for which he has written some of his best-known pieces; the group has also commissioned and premiered works from other composers. In addition to his worldwide tours with The Fires of London. Mr. Davies lectures widely, and he has taught at the University of Adelaide. Australia (where he was Composer-in-Residence), and at the Dartington, Montepulciano, and Aspen music festivals. Since 1970, Mr. Davies has resided in the remote Orkney Islands.

Jan DeGaetani, born in Ohio, has been internationally acclaimed for her presentation of contemporary works, many of them written especially for her; she is equally noted for her work in early music. Miss DeGaetani has appeared with major symphony orchestras and in chamber recitals throughout the United States. Europe, and the Far East. Since 1971, she has taught at the Aspen Music School, and in 1973she joined the faculty of the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, as Professor of Voice. Miss DeGaetani has recorded for Acoustic Research, CRI. Columbia, Decca, Desto, Music Guild, Vanguard, Vox, and Nonesuch.

Oscar Ghiglia, born in Livorno. Italy, studied at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome and with Andres Segovia at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. Since winning First Prize at the International Guitar Competition in Santiago di Compostela, Spain, in 1963, Mr. Ghiglia has appeared in recital with major orchestras throughout the Western hemisphere, Australia, and the Far East. He has directed master classes and seminars in cities throughout the United States and has been Artist-in-Residence at the Aspen Music Festival since 1969. Mr. Ghiglia has recorded for EMI; this album marks his first appearance on Nonesuch.

Peter Maxwell Davies, "St. Thomas Wake"

-- Louisville Orchestra First Edition Records LS-770 --

St. Thomas Wake (1969)
by Peter Maxwell Davies
Born in Manchester, England, September 8, 1934.

The very titles of the works of Peter Maxwell Davies suggest a composer of daring imagination and restless experimentation. In 1969 alone, the same year in which St. Thomas Wake was premiered in Dortmund, Davies published Vesolii Icones, a chamber work featuring dancer and cellist in fourteen movements based on fourteen anatomical drawings by the sixteenth-centuy Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius; an instrumental motet entitled Eram Quasi Agnus; Solita for solo flute and music box; and the remarkable Eight Songs for a Mad King. The present work was commissioned by the City of Dortmund, a West German industrial town near the Ruhr, and premiered there by the composer and the City of Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestra on June 2, 1969. Subtitled "Foxtrot for Orchestra on a Pavan by John Bull," the audacious work features a main orchestra and a band with an "out-of-tune honky-tonk" piano. Among the instruments are a police whistle, empty piano, a large biscuit tin filled with pieces of glass, two hammers, a referee's whistle, and a large empty biscuit tin. All this may seem a bit removed from the work's original inspiration, a pavane by the English organist and composer John Bull (1562-1628), but the juxtaposition of the courtly dance so beloved of the English virginalists and the modern American ballroom step is curiously convincing, and the work earned this accolade from The Daily Telegraph: "The skill and the imagination shown in this montage of two pasts, one present and an ugly implied future rivals Stravinsky in his experiments with musical time."

Raised in Manchester and educated at the Royal Manchester College of Music and Manchester University, Peter Maxwell Davies is at forty-five at the very forefront of modern music composition. In 1957, he won an Italian Government Scholarship and studied in Rome with Goffredo Petrassi. A Harkness Fellowship in 1962 brought him to Princeton University where he studied with Roger Sessions. After his appointment as Composer in Residence at the University of Adelaide in Australia, Davies returned to England where he devotes himself to composing, conducting and lecturing. Davies has nearly fifty published works to his credit in virtually every medium from opem to piano solo. His 1957 work for seventeen wind instruments entitled St. Michael Sonata has been recorded by Jorge Mester and The Louisville Orchestra on First Edition Records LS-756.

Mr. Davies has kindly provided a detailed analysis of the present work:

This work is based on the St. Thomas Wake Pavan of John Bull, the 16-17th century English composer. This pre-existing material is "projected" through a progressive series of mathematical curves, which affect it as much, in visual terms, as would distorting mirrors of systematically varying degrees of convexity and concavity. At the outset, however, the Pavan is not given in its original form but appears already in the process of transformation into a slow foxtrot played by a small band seated apart from the orchestra. The orchestra immediately takes this up and, in "commenting" upon it, transforms it into a complex isorhythmic structure in which stylistic elements of the band are exaggerated. This "comment" leads to a slow dissolution from which the band takes up fragments of ideas in the process of disintegration and refashions these into a sequence of five foxtrots, each in a distinct style. Over the last of these dances, the orchestra starts a slow, declamatory reworking of its material, leading to a further fast "commentary" upon all five foxtrots. A final foxtrot from the band cuts across this, having the exact harmonic skeleton of the John Bull Pavan, which is now heard simultaneously from the harp in the orchestm in its original form. There is no attempt to integrate the styles of the band and the symphony orchestra - each goes its own way on its own terms. The use of the separate band is not meant to imply in any sense a kind of sinfonia concertante nor even a parodic element. The foxtrot band music exists as an object, and the orchestra music implies, if such a thing is possible, an attitude in purely musical terms towards this object. The use of a Renaissance pavan as the binding factor throughout is not gratuitous. The historical reality of the original may be destroyed in the process, refurbishing one dead dance form in terns of a more recent dance form which is just as dead. Moreover, thirties dance music was the first music I myself heard, therefore having personal, rather sentimental associations. Heard now, at a distance, it can perhaps become not only a comment on the political and moral climate of its time (because it completely ignored that irresponsible climate) but, by extension, on our own time as well. -- P.M.D.

Peter Maxwell Davies, " Miss Donnithrone's Maggot"

Peter Maxwell Davies, "Eight Songs for a Mad King"

Cosmic Determinism

Peter Maxwell Davies closed his April whingefest (which he quite accurately assessed as 'superfluous, though...in part of some interest') with a determinist argument that 'every moment we deal with this great music, we are privileged to participate in cosmic harmony'. To save you 6,000 words or so, by 'this great music', he does not have in mind The Stooges or Chamillionaire.

But, taking this cosmic model, of which we've always been fond (what's the Earth supposed to be humming, a big C#?), at its face, what comes to mind is Schoenberg's version. He argued that our ears would evolve to a point where we heard what he heard: that harmonies of seconds and clusters are not dissonant at all but derived from the overtone series.



After all, the fourth used to be considered a dissonance, no? And we evolved from there to be able to deal with triads, sevenths, and ninths (Oh My!). Clearly, according to Schoenberg, we'll work our way up the God-given harmonic series to a point where even the most batshit-looking harmony strikes us as a consonance.

There's a beautiful logic to that argument, and to marry the two, it seems to us that if you're going to buy into Davies' elitism-for-the-sake-of-populism argument, you'd want to at least get pop music in on the ground floor. For God's sake, give them the first octave at least, or up through the triad, even. Instead of shutting popular music out of the 'cosmic harmony' entirely, it seems that he'd strengthen his argument by giving it rank with the lower, more thunderously obvious harmonics, and cling to Schoenberg's notion that higher brows hear higher tones.

We don't particularly care one way or the other. We tend to think that humans aren't bound to any system in particular, given a chance. Davies is an exceptionally brilliant man and a terribly underperformed composer, and it's quite nice to see his name popping up all over the blogoshpere.