PETER MAXWELL DAVIES  

Universally acknowledged as one of the foremost composers of our time, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies made a significant contribution to musical history through his wide-ranging and prolific output. He lived in the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland, where he wrote most of his music. In a work list spanning more than five decades, he wrote across a broad range of styles, yet his music always communicates directly and powerfully, whether in his profoundly argued symphonic works, his music-theatre works or witty light orchestral works. Maxwell Davies’ major dramatic works include two full-length ballets, music-theatre works Eight Songs for a Mad King and Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot, and operas including Resurrection, The Lighthouse, The Doctor of Myddfai, Taverner and Kommilitonen! (Young Blood!). His huge output of orchestral work comprises numerous symphonies and concerti, and light orchestral works such as An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise and Mavis in Las Vegas (8.572348). His substantial chamber and instrumental catalogue includes the landmark cycle of ten string quartets, the Naxos Quartets (8.505225), described in the Financial Times as “one of the most impressive musical statements of our time”. Maxwell Davies held the position of composer/conductor with both the Royal Philharmonic and BBC Philharmonic Orchestras. He guest-conducted orchestras including the Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Russian National Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic and Philharmonia Orchestra. He retained close links with the St Magnus Festival, Orkney’s annual arts festival which he founded in 1977, was composer laureate of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and was Visiting Professor at London’s Royal Academy of Music and Christchurch University Canterbury. Maxwell Davies was knighted in 1987 and was appointed Master of the Queen’s Music from 2004–2014, in which rôle he sought to raise the profile of music in Great Britain, as well as writing many works for Her Majesty the Queen and for royal occasions. Sir Peter Maxwell Davies died on 14 March 2016 at the age of 81.

Watch: Recording the Naxos Quartets of Peter Maxwell Davies

On Wings of Song: Peter Maxwell Davies talks to Jeremy Siepmann