Davies, Peter Maxwell

[Mandryka]

Really impressed by the 7th Naxos Quartet at the moment - and the 10th. I'm wondering if this cycle isn't as enjoyable as any!

[Serial_Apologist]

Really impressed by the 7th Naxos Quartet at the moment - and the 10th. I'm wondering if this cycle isn't as enjoyable as any!

I get more from the quartets (and the Strathclyde concertos) than from the symphonies, which I respect but tend to find musically rather indigestible.

Thanks for starting this thread about PMD, Mandryka.

[smittims]

One thing that's always struck me about Max is his interest in composing, the art of structure. He never went in for lordly ideas about divine inspiration or the creator as hero. I think this makes his music very human , stemming from his own humanitarian beliefs. He's much missed in today's world.

[Pulcinella]

I get more from the quartets (and the Strathclyde concertos) than from the symphonies, which I respect but tend to find musically rather indigestible.

Thanks for starting this thread about PMD, Mandryka.

And from me, though it's caused a rethink.
My CD collection (filed alphabetically for the most part) has him under M, but I see that Presto, like you, uses D as his surname initial.
Some shuffling along the shelves needed later.

[Serial_Apologist]

One thing that's always struck me about Max is his interest in composing, the art of structure. He never went in for lordly ideas about divine inspiration or the creator as hero. I think this makes his music very human , stemming from his own humanitarian beliefs. He's much missed in today's world.

I think, too, that having fully taken on board the semiotics of modernism from having experienced an urban upbringing, those insights from what one might call a post-Darwinian understanding coupled with his self-acceptance with being gay were firmly implanted in the works inspired by his long sojourn in Orkney. It wouldn't have been for me - there again I'm not gay as it happens - and I have the good fortune of having made my home in a place that doesn't let one forget that we're all deep down part of nature.

[smittims]

Yes, people ,who knew Max said that he seemed to come from nowhere; he was what he did and revealed nothing more. Maybe coming from Salford (or Swinton) he felt a need for that . I think Pierre Boulez wanted to be like that too (though he didn't come from Salford but small-town provincial France ) , but didn't acknowledge the past as Max did. I always felt Pierre had a chip on his shoulder, but that Max was refreshingly free of that.

I don't intend this as a comment on the value of their music. .

[oliver sudden]

Davies was indeed his surname but since Peter Davies wasn’t so distinctive, as names go, he used his middle name as well. This has caused a bit of confusion here and there over the years. I have one Boosey and Hawkes score which has P. Maxwell Davies on the spine.

By a strange coincidence I was thinking of Max a couple of days ago as we had a bottle of Eight Songs Shiraz over dinner…

[Serial_Apologist]

Davies was indeed his surname but since Peter Davies wasn’t so distinctive, as names go, he used his middle name as well. This has caused a bit of confusion here and there over the years. I have one Boosey and Hawkes score which has P. Maxwell Davies on the spine.

By a strange coincidence I was thinking of Max a couple of days ago as we had a bottle of Eight Songs Shiraz over dinner…

I hadn't known that about PMD's surname not including the Maxwell, to thanks for this - it's never too late to learn, however I do not intend altering my index cards to correct the error!

[Pulcinella]

I hadn't known that about PMD's surname not including the Maxwell, to thanks for this - it's never too late to learn, however I do not intend altering my index cards to correct the error!

It only involved shifting 5 CDs, so easily done.
But now they look a bit odd in the Ds, as the spine on one says MAX: THE MUSIC OF PETER MAXWELL DAVIES.

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes, people ,who knew Max said that he seemed to come from nowhere; he was what he did and revealed nothing more. Maybe coming from Salford (or Swinton) he felt a need for that . I think Pierre Boulez wanted to be like that too (though he didn't come from Salford but small-town provincial France ) , but didn't acknowledge the past as Max did. I always felt Pierre had a chip on his shoulder, but that Max was refreshingly free of that.

I don't intend this as a comment on the value of their music. .

O course not - and several thoughts now lead me to question the significance of these apparent contradictions between artists' work and their place of upbringing. Thinking about Elgar and Vaughan Williams, we learn that the former, whose music most characteristically* seems almost to epitomise urbanity and associations with citadels of power, actually loathed London and couldn't wait to escape back to his Gloucestershire rural idyll, whereas the latter, prime among the English school dobbed (I mean dubbed!) pastoral, is said to have loved London.

*Most characteristically as a result of the implanted image that renders many patriotic Britishers prone to only seeing him in that particular light.

[smittims]

Indeed, and the more one looks the more apparent contradictions one finds. I was struck by the different settings of Whitman's poem Joy, Shipmate, Joy! by Vaughan Williams and Delius. VW, the victorian public schoolboy (Charterhouse andTrinity Colege Cambridge) gives us a wild, leaping , open-air version. Delius, who hardly went to school at all, writes a setting which, if sung by schoolboy choir to piano accompaniment (quite possible, it's a simple homophonic piece) sounds like a public-school song.

Returning to Max, I don't think he revised his music much if at all once it was completed, whereas Boulez was an inveterate re-writer who left several officially-incomplete works. Elgar and VW differed from each other in this respect too .

[Mandryka]

I get more from the quartets (and the Strathclyde concertos) than from the symphonies, which I respect but tend to find musically rather indigestible.

Thanks for starting this thread about PMD, Mandryka.

Yes, indigestible is the word. Etouffe-chrétien. I just noticed that Pappano has recorded the 10th symphony, which has something to do with Borromini like the magnificent 7th quartet. I also have a recording by Edward Downes of the 3rd.

https://static.qobuz.com/goodies/58/000114485.pdf

[oliver sudden]

I get the most from the late 1960s explosion of music-theatre things. I’ve performed Eight Songs for a Mad King quite a bit, as well as Hymnos and Ave Maris Stella. (The latter two on clarinet, the Eight Songs on clarinet at first but more often as the singer.) Max came to the first performance I did of Eight Songs as a singer (no pressure…)—it was just after the premiere of the 10th and he was of course conscious of being on borrowed time by this point (I’m obviously very lucky to have met him at all). He did a little presentation on his music at the Basel Hochschule where it was clear he had as much affection for things like Farewell to Stromness and the Sanday fiddle tunes as for the big headline pieces.

[Mandryka]

I get the most from the late 1960s explosion of music-theatre things. I’ve performed Eight Songs for a Mad King quite a bit, as well as Hymnos and Ave Maris Stella. (The latter two on clarinet, the Eight Songs on clarinet at first but more often as the singer.) Max came to the first performance I did of Eight Songs as a singer (no pressure…)—it was just after the premiere of the 10th and he was of course conscious of being on borrowed time by this point (I’m obviously very lucky to have met him at all). He did a little presentation on his music at the Basel Hochschule where it was clear he had as much affection for things like Farewell to Stromness and the Sanday fiddle tunes as for the big headline pieces.

This? If it is you it looks like you got into it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRDsu7S3iGg

[oliver sudden]

That is I. Yes, you sort of have to get into it if you’re going to do it at all…

I asked Max for his advice on violin-smashing. He said “do it with love”.