Peter Maxwell Davies: Concerto Piccolo: Piccolo: Score

SKU: HL.14008396

ISBN 9780711921337. 8.5x12.0x0.533 inches.

This work was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to celebrate its 40th birthday. The first performance took place in June 1986 at St. Magnus' Cathedral, Kirkwall, as part of the tenth St. Magnus Festival. Written for and first performed by Isaac Stern, Davies's Violin Concerto brings together two streams in his music: symphonism and folk-fiddling. In its strongly developed substance, it asks to be measured in the company of Beethoven, Brahms and Sibelius, while there is also, particularly in the middle movement, a strong element of the Scots lament. The orchestra is generally muted in colour, though there is a dramatic role for the timpanist. There are three movements, played without a break - this is only one of many connections with the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. Duration c. 30mins.

SKU: HL.14021013

ISBN 9780711921320.

This work was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to celebrate its 40th birthday, and was written for Isaac Stern. The first performance took place in June 1986 at St. Magnus' Cathedral, Kirkwall, as part of the tenth St. Magnus Festival. It was given by Isaac Stern and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Andre Previn. This book contains the solo violin part and a piano reduction of the orchestral score.

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.14020990

ISBN 9780711923904. 5.5x7.5x0.283 inches.

If Davies's Cello Concerto has already evoked comparisons with Elgar's, that is perhaps an indication not only of its wealth of solo melody (there is hardly a page where the cello is not singing, or if not that, then dancing), and of its predominantly slow tempos, but also of its musical stature. This second Strathclyde concerto is a virtuoso piece for the entire ensemble, which is used almost throughout as a clutch of soloists rather than as a tutti block. The general tone is one of passionate but interior dialogue, especially in the opening Moderato and the slow movement; and though the finale is more extrovert, the work ends back in quietness and rumination.

SKU: HL.14020992

ISBN 9780711936805. 9.0x12.0x0.185 inches.

Unusually for him, Davies starts his Bassoon Concerto not with slow music but with speed and brilliance: the opening is a Presto, initiated by the strings, and only at the entry of the soloist does the tempo relax to that of a real introduction. Out of this grow a big dancing Allegro. The slow movement begins and ends with a simple song, around fantastical ornamentation from the soloist. The finale is again a recitative and dance, with a slow coda. The whole work is an immense show of stamina, poetry and athleticism for the bassoon, set against an orchestra coloured by low wind (alto flute, clarinet in A, bass clarinet, contrabassoon, horns). Bassoon part with piano reduction of the orchestral score.

SKU: HL.14008367

ISBN 9780711975422. 8.25x11.75x0.105 inches.

Piccolo and Piano Reduction. This work was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It was first performed on 23 April 1997, by Stewart McIlwham and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by the composer. The three movements should be played without a break. The piccolo may have obvious limitations as a solo instrument, but Davies is not one to shirk a challenge. What he does is to play with the stereotypical modes of the instrument, so that the military pipe and drum effect is hinted at near the beginning of the third movement, while the jaunty manner is recalled at the close of the first, but as through a veil. A potentially comic partnership with the bass clarinet is also dignified when the two instruments engage in meditative dialogue in the second movement. Duration c. 15 minutes. Study Score on sale. Conductor's score and orchestral parts are available on hire.

SKU: HL.14008366

ISBN 9780711975415. 5.5x7.5x0.164 inches.

Orchestral study score. This work was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It was first performed on 23 April 1997, by Stewart McIlwham and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by the composer. The three movements should be played without a break. The piccolo may have obvious limitations as a solo instrument, but Davies is not one to shirk a challenge. What he does is to play with the stereotypical modes of the instrument, so that the military pipe and drum effect is hinted at near the beginning of the third movement, while the jaunty manner is recalled at the close of the first, but as through a veil. A potentially comic partnership with the bass clarinet is also dignified when the two instruments engage in meditative dialogue in the second movement. Solo part and piano reduction on sale. Conductor's score and orchestral parts are available on hire.

SKU: HL.14021032

ISBN 9780711985605. 5.5x7.5x0.432 inches.

This work was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It was first performed on 7th November 1997 at the Royal Conference Hall, Nottingham, by Kathryn Stott and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the composer.

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.14021031

ISBN 9780711985612.

This work was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It was first performed on 7th November 1997 at the Royal Conference Hall, Nottingham, by Kathryn Stott and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the composer. 2 copies are required for performance.

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.14008406

ISBN 9780711948716.

A work for solo violin and orchestra, commissioned by Donald McDonald for the 21st birthday of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the 60th birthday of the composer. It was first performed in November 1993 in Glasgow, by James Clark and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Maxwell Davies. The spell is one quoted by George Mackay Brown in his book An Orkney Tapestry: 'Let not plough be put to acre except a fiddle cross first the furrow.' Davies's dancing concerto imagines the fiddler following a route from field to field, from dance to dance, accompanied by a bunch of companions in the form of an orchestra. As the music goes on, so it gets brighter and livelier, moving from the dark colouring of clarinets, bassoons and strings to full ensemble with prominent brass and (solo) tuned percussion, as if the dancers as much as the fields were beginning to glow with new life. Score (miniature). Duration c. 20mins.