Peter Maxwell Davies: Six Songs For St Andrew's: Voice: Mixed Songbook

SKU: HL.14008420

9.0x12.0x0.489 inches.

There are seven songs and an instrumental interlude, making all together an entertainment that provides opportunity for very simple stage action and dancing: nothing at all elaborate is needed in the way of scenery and costumes. The voices are in unison throughout, and their part is always doubled by instruments, which should make it relatively easy for quite young children to learn their way into Davies's delightful tunes. The references to Hoy are incidental, and could possibly be adapted to suit the locality of a particular performance. In any event, most of these tall stories and rhymes will appeal to children everywhere. Set of instrumental parts (8 descant recorder parts, 4 tuned percussion parts and 4 unpitched percussion parts).

SKU: HL.14020986

ISBN 9780711960961. UPC: 884088442330. 9.0x12.0x0.071 inches.

Peter Maxwell Davies wrote this set of six short pieces in 1993 as a gift for a friend (a double bass player and composer from the BBC Philharmonic)who was celebrating the birth of his daughter. Despite the reason for writing them being most 'occasional', these pieces are certainly not lacking in musical substance as one might expect an 'occasional' piece to be. These pieces are ideal works for young performers to introduce them to playing modern music or even as an introduction to the broad range of Maxwell Davies's work.

SKU: HL.14024584

UPC: 884088815264. 11.0x8.5x0.044 inches.

Peter Maxwell Davies wrote this set of six short pieces in 1993 as a gift for a friend (a double bass player and composer from the BBC Philharmonic) who was celebrating the birth of his daughter. Despite the reason for writing them being most 'occasional', these pieces are certainly not lacking in musical substance as one might expect an 'occasional' piece to be. These pieces are ideal works for young performers to introduce them to playing modern music or even as an introduction to the broad range of Maxwell Davies's work. This is a special item which is made to order. Please e-mail our Mail Order Department for further information.

SKU: HL.14008422

9.0x12.0x0.776 inches.

There are seven songs and an instrumental interlude, making all together an entertainment that provides opportunity for very simple stage action and dancing: nothing at all elaborate is needed in the way of scenery and costumes. The voices are in unison throughout, and their part is always doubled by instruments, which should make it relatively easy for quite young children to learn their way into Davies's delightful tunes. The references to Hoy are incidental, and could possibly be adapted to suit the locality of a particular performance. In any event, most of these tall stories and rhymes will appeal to children everywhere. Set of 20 chorus parts.

SKU: HL.14021004

ISBN 9780711941830.

Pete r Maxwell Davies. A superb cycle of 7 songs depicting the hero/heroine's stay on Grandma's farm somewhere in the Orkneys one summer. The songs tell of the farm chores, nature and ghosts and are arranged for unison voices, piano, recorders and pitched or unpitched percussion. The songs can be used individually to link in with topic work or performed as an attractive concert item. 18 mins.

SKU: HL.14008415

UPC: 884088808242. 8.5x11.0x0.261 inches.

This work, written by Maxwell Davies in 1983 for chamber orchestra, was commissioned to celebrate the quartercentenary of Edinburgh University. The first performance was given by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Edward Harper in October 1983. Duration c. 29mins. This work was thought through in outline following a visit to the ruined pre-Reformation church of Hoy in Orkney, on a fine Spring afternoon after Maxwell Davies had played the harmonium for the tiny congregation in its large bleak Victorian replacement. The old church was surrounded by the graves of centuries, the more recent ones with familiar names, largely of people who lived in houses now ruinous - crofters, fishermen, clerics, sea-captains. Next to it stood the chief farmhouse, the Bu, going back to Viking times. He thought of the lives and deaths encompassed there, expressed through hundreds of years of music in the church, and in the big barn of the farm. The plainsongs 'Dies Irae' and 'Victimae Paschali Laudes' are used throughout the work - the first concerning the Day of Judgement, from the Mass for the Dead, the second particular to Easter Sunday and the Resurrection. These are subject to constant transformation - the intervallic contour slowly changes from one into the other, and their notes are made to dance through Renaissance astrological 'magic square' patterns. The orchestra consists of double woodwind, two horns, two trumpets and strings.

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.14008397

Lyrics by Charles Dibdin.

When Haydn was not around, there was always Charles Dibdin (1740-1814) who regaled London with his songs at the same period. Davies's arrangement of four of them makes an amused but also affectionate picture of the man. The vocal lines are essentially unchanged, but the accompaniment is sometimes teased towards new metres and harmonies. Score. Duration c. 16 mins.

SKU: HL.14020975

UPC: 884088860066. 8.75x8.25 inches.

Chamber opera in a prologue and one act. A ghost story telling of the mysterious disappearance of three lighthouse keepers in the Hebrides. This is a mystery story in the form of a chamber opera. The prologue is set as a court of enquiry into the unexplained disappearance of the three keepers from a lighthouse. Questions are posed by a solo horn, which may sound from among the audience, and three officers give answer. Gradually, they move from straight testimony into fantastical imaginings of evil during a 'flashback' to the lighthouse; but then we snap back to the courtroom. In the main act the three singers become the vanished keepers. They have been together for months, long enough to be fully aware of each other's weaknesses; petty bickerings suggest a relationship which is stable, but liable to become highly unstable at any moment. They sing songs to reduce the tension, Blazes beginning with a rough ballad of street violence, accompanied by violin and banjo. Sandy's song, with cello and out-of-tune upright piano, is a thinly disguised description of sexual bliss, and Arthur's with brass and clarinet, is a tub-thumping hymn. But the songs serve only to resurrect in their minds ghosts from the past, and as the fog descends each of the keepers becomes convinced that he is being claimed by the Beast. They prepare to meet its dazzling eyes, which become the lights of the relief vessel, and the three men reappear as officers, met at the lighthouse only by an infestation of rats. They leave, and at the end the last hours of Blazes, Sandy and Arthur begin to play over again. Libretto only. Duration c. 1h 25mins.

SKU: HL.14020989

ISBN 9780711952027. 9.0x12.0x0.433 inches.

The solo group consists of a sextet of the woodwind instruments which are normally doubled with more regular members of the orchestra: these six strangers, now brought to the fore, are piccolo, alto flute, cor anglais, clarinet in Eb, bass clarinet in Bb and contrabassoon. They make a motley group, diverse in colour as in register, and one of the tasks of the piece sets itself is to have them blend and cohere, both together as an ensemble and in partnership with the string orchestra (which itself is used with unusual variety and subtlety). Another evident task of the work is to provide fine solos for each member of the woodwind sextet: bright dances for the piccolo, recitatives for the alto flute, a stoical song from the contrabassoon in the extreme bass. The work is cast as a single movement, which begins in the composer's first-movement style of rapid regeneration. This is interrupted by slow interventions, including one for divided strings which gives rise to a sextuple cadenza for the soloists. Out of this comes a slow movement, or sequence of short slow movements, followed by a dancing finale with its own slow episodes. Altogether this is music of songs and dances, heavily tinged with Scottish rhythms and tonalities: one might think of a magic bagpipe, having six chanters and a drone of variegated string texture.

SKU: HL.14020993

ISBN 9780711952010. 5.5x8.5x0.222 inches.

The solo group consists of a sextet of the woodwind instruments which are normally doubled with more regular members of the orchestra: these six strangers, now brought to the fore, are piccolo and alto flute, cor anglais, Eb and bass clarinets and contrabassoon. They make a motley group, diverse in colour as in register, and one of the tasks of the piece sets itself is to have them blend and cohere, both together as an ensemble and in partnership with the string orchestra (which itself is used with unusual variety and subtlety). Another evident task of the work is to provide fine solos for each member of the woodwind sextet: bright dances for the piccolo, recitatives for the alto flute, a stoical song from the contrabassoon in the extreme bass. The work is cast as a single movement, which begins in the composer's first-movement style of rapid regeneration. This is interrupted by slow interventions, including one for divided strings which gives rise to a sextuple cadenza for the soloists. Out of this comes a slow movement, or sequence of short slow movements, followed by a dancing finale with its own slow episodes. Altogether this is music of songs and dances, heavily tinged with Scottish rhythms and tonalities: one might think of a magic bagpipe, having six chanters and a drone of variegated string texture. This work for woodwind instruments and string orchestra was commissioned by the Strathclyde Regional Council and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. It is the ninth of ten concerti to be written for principal players of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. The first performance was given in February 1995 by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, conducted by the composer.

SKU: HL.14067609

SKU: HL.14020961

ISBN 9780711953208.

Pete r Maxwell Davies. A humorous version of the Orkney folk tale of an islander kidnapping a Selkie wife - a creature who is a seal in the sea and a woman on the land. Things go hilariously wrong, with the Selkie wife escaping to the seas and Mansie, an islander, facing a most uncongenial alliance with his cousin and housekeeper, Miss Trowie-Tattibogle. There are many opportunities for playing instruments, acting and dance and songs include 'Keep Her Nose To The Wave!', 'Now I Make You Man And Wife' and 'So Let's All Celebrate With Joy'. Parts: Instrumental parts available on special order. 25mins.