MAXWELL DAVIES, PETER  

A fellow student of Birtwistle, Alexander Goehr and the pianist and composer John Ogdon in Manchester, the English composer Peter Maxwell Davies went on to study in Italy with Petrassi. This was followed by a short but influential period teaching at a school in England, and he later studied with Roger Sessions and others at Princeton. He made an innovative addition to the theatrical dimension of music, developing the idea behind Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire; and since the early 1970s, when he moved to the remoteness of the Orkneys, he has developed a less experimental musical language, also writing works associated with the community in which he finds himself. He was knighted in 1987 and appointed Master of the Queen’s Music in 2004.

Music Theatre

With the Pierrot Players and later with the ensemble that grew from it, The Fires of London, Maxwell Davies created a series of works in which the dramatic and musical were combined. These, notably, included Eight Songs for a Mad King, Vesalii icones and Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot. His opera Taverner, based on alleged incidents in that composer’s life, was staged in London in 1972. Other stage works include the opera The Doctor of Myddfai, the collaborative comic opera Der heisse Ofen, and the chamber operas The Martyrdom of St Magnus and The Lighthouse.

Orchestral Music

Orchestral music by Maxwell Davies includes symphonies and his 10 Strathclyde Concertos for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, with a wide variety of works ranging from his early Fantasias on an In Nomine of John Taverner to pieces that reflect the Orkneys, including the popular An Orkney Wedding with Sunrise.

Instrumental and Chamber Music

A wide variety of instrumental and chamber music ranges from his impressive early organ piece Fantasia on O magnum mysterium to the recent Naxos Quartets, commissioned by Naxos.

Released in September 2009: 5-CD Box Set of MAXWELL DAVIES Naxos Quartets Nos. 1–10 [Naxos 8.505225]

Interview with Peter Maxwell Davies