Peter Maxwell Davies ST. THOMAS WAKE Foxtrot for Orchestra Richard
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Side 1 (2Q57) beloved of the English virginalists and the in a distinct style. Over the last of these dances, the lovelorn, and must surely be the only com- Peter Maxwell Davies modem American ballroom step is curiously the orchestra starts a slow, declamatory rework- poser to have been made an honom ry member ST. THOMAS WAKE convincing, and the work earned this accolade ing of its material, leading to a further fast of the Paris police force for his study of glan- Foxtrot for Orchestra from The Daily Telegraph: "The skill and the "commentary" upon all five foxtrots. A final dular disturbances in criminals! Richard Duffallo, conductor imagination shown in this montage of two pasts, foxtrot from the band cuts across this, having Hollywood offered Antheil the security to one present and an ugly implied future rivals the exact harmonic skeleton of the John Bull continue serious composition, and his music Side 2 (2200) Stravinsky in his experiments with musical Pavan, which is now heard simultaneously from after his move there in 1936 seems to blend his George Antheil time." the harp in the orchestm in its original form. personal modernism with a more moderate ac- SYMPHONY NO. S There is no attempt to integrate the styles of cessible style. The Fifth Symphony, subtitled (1)829 the band and the symphony orchestra - each "Joyous," represents in addition a marked de- . (2) 654 Raised in Manchester and educated at the goes its own way on its own terms. The use of parture from the pessimism and pathos of the (3)630 Royal Manchester College of Music and Man- the separate band is not meant to imply in any Third (1942) and Fourth (1944), written in the chester University, Peter Maxwell Davies is at sense a kind of sinfonia concertante nor even a midst of World War 11. Yet the symphony was Richard Duffallo, conductor forty-five at the very forefront of modern music parodic element. The foxtrot band music exists doubtless inspired by the overture to the most composition. In 1957, he won an Italian as an object, and the orchestra music implies, if famous opem of Antheil's early "enfant teni- Government Scholarship and studied in Rome such a thing is possible, an attitude in purely blew period, Tmnsatlantic. This work, inciden- with Goffredo Petmssi. A Harkness Fellowship musical terms towards this object. The use of a tally, has the distinction of being the first Ameri- St. Thomas Wake (1969) in 1962 brought him to Princeton University Renaissance pavan as the binding factor can opera to be produced by a foreign opem by Peter Maxwell Davies where he studied with Roger Sessions. After his throughout is not gmtuitous. The historical real- house (Frankfurt, May 25, 1930). The Fifth Born in Manchester, England, September 8, appointment as Composer in Residence at the ity of the original may be destroyed in the proc- Symphony was commissioned by Eugene Or- 1934. University of Adelaide in Australia, Davies re- ess, refurbishing one dead dance form in terns mandy in the summer of 1947 and completed turned to England where he devotes himself to of a more recent dance form which is just as that fall. The three-movement piece was first The very titles of the works of Peter Maxwell composing, conducting and lecturing. Davies dead. Moreover, thirties dance music was the performed by Ormandy and The Philadelphia Davies suggest a composer of daring irnagina- has nearly fifty published works to his credit in first music I myself heard, therefore having per- Orchestra on December 31, 1948, to high criti- ' tion and restless experimentation. In 1969 virtually every medium from opem to piano sonal, rather sentimental associations. Heard cal praise. Another success soon followed in alone, the same year in which St. Thomas solo. His 1957 work for seventeen wind instru- now, at a distance, it can perhaps become not Paris: as well as its radio premiere by William Wake was premiered in Dortmund, Davies pub- ments entitled St. Michael Sonata has been re- only a comment on the political and moral cli- Steinberg and the San Francisco Symphony. It lished Vesolii Icones, a chamber work featuring corded by Jorge Mester and The Louisville Or- mate of its time (because it completely ignored was chosen in 1950 as the official Closing work dancer and cellist in fourteen movements based chestra on First Edition Records LS-756. that irresponsible climate) but, by extension, on of the midsummer conference of the National on fourteen anatomical drawings by the six- Mr. Davies has kindly provided a detailed our own time as well. Music Teachers Association, and published in teenth-centuy Flemish anatomist Andreas Ves- ana7ysis of the present work: P.M.D. the same year by Leeds Music Corporation. alius; an instrumental motet entitled Emm Quasi This work is based on the St. Thomas Wake George Antheil died in New York on Feb- Agnus; Solita for solo flute and music box; and Paoan of John Bull, the 16-17th century English Symphony No. 5 (1947) ruary 12, 1959. Three years earlier, The Louis- the remarkable Eight Songs for a Mad King. composer. This pre-existing material is "pro- by George Antheil ville Orchestra commissioned and recorded his The present work was commissioned by the jected" through a progressive series of mathe- one-act opera The Wish, still available on First City of Dortmund, a West German industrial matical curves, which affect it as much, in visual The "bad boy" of American music, as it Edition Records 564. town near the Ruhr, and premiered there by the terms, as would distorting mirrors of systemati- turned out, was nothing of the kind. The early composer and the City of Dortmund Phil- cally vaying degrees of convexity and concav- works of George Antheil caused a sensation on harmonic Orchestra on June 2, 1969. Subtitled ity. At the outset, however, the Pavan is not two continents because of their highly dissonant "Foxtrot for Orchestra on a Pavan by John given in its original form but appears already in harmonies and outlandish concepts. The fa- Notes by Marshall A. Portnoy Bull," the audacious work features a main or- the process of transformation into a slow foxtrot mous Ballet Mecanique, brought to Camegie Cover art @ Judith Lerner 1980 chestra and a band with an "out-of-tune played by a small band seated apart from the Hall in 1927, featured eight pianos, electric orchestm. The orchestra immediately takes this THE LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA honky-tonk" piano. Among the instruments are bells, a player-piano and airplane propellers. 333 West Broadway a police whistle, empty piano, a large biscuit tin up and, in "commenting" upon it, transforms it Born in Trenton, New Jersey, on July 8, 1900, Louisville, Kentucky 40202 filled with pieces of glass, two hammers, a re- into a complex isorhythmic structure in which Antheil studied at the Philadelphia Conserva- feree's whistle, and a large empty biscuit tin. All stylistic elements of the band are exaggerated. toy and later with Ernest Bloch. There was little Jack M. Firestone, General Manager this may seem a bit removed from the work's This "comment" leads to a slow dissolution in his training to prepare his audiences for his Andrew Kazdin, Producer original inspiration, a pavane by the English or- from which the band takes up fragments of highly inventive flair, and sometimes there were 'ganist and composer John Bull (1562-1628). ideas in the process of disintegration and refash- no audiences. In the thirties, the resourceful An- @ 1980 Louisville Orchestra First but the juxtaposition of the courtly dance so ions these into a sequence of five foxtrots, each theil made a living uniting newspaper advice to Edition Records 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 Ihe 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 con- cern theseevents; 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 is- land, 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 Side One (17: 04) Peter Maxwell Davies, born in Manchester, England, attended them written especially for her; she is equally noted for her work PETER MAXWELL DAVIES the Royal Manchester College of Music and Manchester Univer- in early music. Miss DeGaetani has appeared with major sym- sity.