Matériel : Vocal Score
This Christmas cantata is an uncanny recapture by Maxwell Davies of a relatively simple modal style: luminous sometimes plaintive sometimes rapturous. A linked series of George Mackay Brown settings designed to give pleasure (ifsometimes strenuous pleasure) to a non-professional choir. A spiritual mystery is glimpsed in an Orcadian setting. Commissioned by the London Symphony Chorus to commemorate its 30th anniversary with additional funds from theArts Council of Great Britain.The first performance was given in October 1995 by the London Symphony Chorus and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Richard Hickox.Vocal score.
SKU: HL.14008428
8.25x11.75x0.06 inches.
These are all arrangements of sixteenth-century Scottish church music, beginning with Psalm 124 by David Peebles, which gains an athletic counterpoint of Davies's own. Then comes John Fethy's O God Abufe played straight, and finally an anonymous motet, All Sons of Adam, again infiltrated by a modern voice.
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.14020995
ISBN 9780711961920.
Stud y score of The Three Kings, A Christmas Cantata for SATB soli, chorus and orchestra. Texts by George Mackay Brown and mediaeval, anonymous. This work was commissioned by the London Symphony Chorus to commemorate its 30th anniversary. First performed on 15th October 1995 at the Barbican Hall, London. Duration 50 minutes. Vocal Score also available for sale. Conductor's score and orchestral parts are available for hire.
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.49018422
ISBN 9790220132391. UPC: 884088614515. 8.25x11.75x0.232 inches.
Maxwell Davies' 'Das Rauschende der Farbe' (The Sound of Colour) is a reflection on the life and work of the German artist Paula Modersohn-Becker who died aged 31 in 1907. Maxwell Davies first got to know the artist's work whilst on a school exchange in Hamburg in 1951 and the composer has since written that Modersohn-Becker's work has influenced the way that he views the relationship between art and the landscape in which it is produced. This is a particularly significant statement for a composer whose music is often a response to the land and seascape of his adopted home in the Orkney Isles. Commissioned by the Bremer Philharmoniker and first performed by them in 2007, the 30 minute orchestral work in three movements is one of the key works by Maxwell Davies in recent years.
