Peter Maxwell Davies: Four Lessons for Two Keyboards: Piano Duet

SKU: HL.14021035

ISBN 9780711998001. Lyrics by George Mackay Brown.

A haunting setting of four elegies from the writing of George Mackay Brown, composed by Peter Maxwell Davies. Completed in 1998, this powerful and unsettling work is based upon four short verses that explore the more sinister, tragic and even supernatural qualities of the oceans and tides. Composed for soloists, mixed chorus and Orchestra, the work was commissioned by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra to celebrate its 25th anniversary. The work was first performed in December 1998 at Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, conducted by the composer. The vocal score is available using product code CH61504.

SKU: HL.14021017

ISBN 9780711984677. 5.5x7.5x0.082 inches.

This work was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It was first performed on 2nd May 2000 at the Barbican Centre, London, conducted by Peter Maxwell Davies. Duration c.23 minutes. Peter Maxwell Davies: The horn writing is extremely virtuoso throughout - not least in exploring the full range of the horn, from the deepest notes in the bass, normally exclusive to an orchestral fourth horn player, to the highest, most exposed sostenuto of a first horn soloist, presenting here challenges of embouchure and sheer stamina I should think fairly unprecedented. Solo part and piano reduction on sale (CH61758), Conductor's score and orchestral parts available for hire.

SKU: HL.14020963

9.0x12.0x0.5 inches.

Peter Maxwell Davies' 1979 work for mezzo-soprano, baritone and orchestra, commissioned by the Philharmonia Orchestra, who gave the first performance in May 1992 at the Royal Festival Hall, with Simon Rattle conducting. The 'Black Pentecost' is the coming of uranium mining, which was a threat to Orkney when the work was written. The text tells of the destruction of old ways of life, the eclipse of the human by the technological. Davies sets it as a gripping dramatic cantata which is also a four-movement symphony, with the songs for imperious baritone and lyrical mezzo-soprano linked by orchestral transitions. The work is a lament, and at the same time a fiercely argued protest. Score. Duration c. 40mins.

SKU: HL.14008386

ISBN 9780711927797. UPC: 884088447434. 7.0x10.0x0.051 inches.

Peter Maxwell Davies' 1990 work for unaccompanied SATB choir, written for the BBC singers. Words by George Mackay Brown. 'Written for the BBC Singers, this piece requires a high level of choral expertise in its rhythms, intricate textures (though nearly always in four parts), wide-ranging vocal lines and characteristically dark but luminous harmony, impregnated with tritones and seconds. Not for the first time, Davies and George Mackay Brow follow the Stations of the Cross, though the fourteen sections are joined into a continuous slow-fast-slow musical movement, and the references to the events of Holy Week are oblique. Vocal score with piano accompaniment for rehearsal purposes.

SKU: HL.14008374

ISBN 9781846096150. UPC: 884088435202. 8.25x11.75x0.105 inches.

The Full Score for Peter Maxwell Davies' fourth in a series of ten string quartets commissioned by the Naxos Recording company, first performed by the Maggini Quartet on 20th August 2004 at the Chapel of the Royal Palace, Oslo, Norway, as part of the Olso Chamber Music Festival. Composer Note: The fourth Naxos quartet was written in January and February of 2004, with the intention of producing something lighter and much less fierce than its predecessor, an unpremeditated and spontaneous reaction to the illegal invasion of Iraq. I returned to the well-known Brueghel picture of children's games (1560, now in Vienna), which had been the inspiration for my sixth Strathclyde Concerto, for flute and orchestra. These illustrations liberated my musical imagination, but I feel it would limit the listener's perception to be too specific about which game relates to exactly which section of the work. Suffice it to say that there is vigorous play - leap-frog, bind the devil with a cord, truss, wrestling - alongside quieter pastimes - masks, guess whom I shall choose, courting, odds and evens. The single movement juxtaposes these activities as abruptly and intimately as they occur in Brueghel. Rather as the eye is taken into different perspectives and proportions of scale within the picture, taking liberties which would never be present in, for instance, Brunelleschi architectural drawings, so here, with a constant sequence of transformation processes, I have distorted the neat, precise implications of modal progression, expressed in the unison opening phrase (from F to B through A sharp/B flat), so that the ear is led, en route, into the sound equivalents of strange passageways and closed rooms: sicut exposition ludus. As work on the quartet progressed I became aware that I was reading into, and behind the games, adult motives and implications, concerning aggression and war, with their consequences. It was impossible to escape into innocent childhood fantasy. The nature of the F to B progression underlying the whole construction derives from a passage in the development of the first movement of Mahler's Third Symphony, and the opening of Schoenberg's Second String Quartet. However, unlike in these models, here a real - if temporary - sense of resolution occurs at the close of the quartet: as when the curtain falls on the reconciled Count and Countess in 'Figaro' one wonders how long the F/B truce will hold, and games break out again. The quartet is dedicated to Giuseppe Rebecchini, Roman architect, and friend since the nineteen-fifties.

SKU: HL.14008416

9.0x12.0x0.132 inches.

This essentially contemplative work in four movements is based on a plainsong fragment from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, traditionally sung on Maundy Thursday in the ceremonies spiralling down to the sacrifice of Christ on Good Friday. First performed in June 1982 by Richard Hughes, to whom the work is dedicated.

SKU: HL.49016999

ISBN 9790220130588. 8.25x11.75x0.055 inches. English.

Appointed Master of the Queen's Music in 2004, Max, as he is fondly known, has now written four Christmas Carols for Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh. At just under four minutes in length this traditional-style carol uses the words of long standing friend George Mackay Brown's poem 'Hamnavoe Women and the Warbeth Bell'. It’s not the first time Max has chosen to use texts by the poet who, like Max, lived on the Orkney Islands.

SKU: HL.49002735

ISBN 9790220109232. UPC: 073999652543. 8.25x11.75x0.011 inches. English.