Written for an instrumental ensemble consisting of Flute Clarinet Violin Cello Guitar Percussion this set of seven delightful realisations of early Scottish dances from the 16th century is both pleasing to listen to and relatively easy to perform yet not without enough difficulties to provide a challenge to young players.
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.48010131
UPC: 073999586411. 9.25x12.25x0.114 inches.
Chamber Music for Strings and Winds.
SKU: HL.49017923
ISBN 9790220131141. UPC: 884088567217. 9.0x12.0x0.125 inches.
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies is universally acknowledged as one of the foremost composers of our time and as he reaches his 75th birthday in 2009 he remains prolific.The sonata for violin and piano was written for the virtuoso violinist, Ilya Gringolts and first performed at the St Magnus Festival in Orkney in 2008. The work is principally concerned with Italian architecture and the music takes both performers and audience across an imaginary walkway over Rome as proposed by the architect Giuseppe Rebecchini. Starting at the 17th Century Chiesa Nuova the exceptional journey passes Renaissance churches, exhibition spaces, the river Tiber, glass facades, sculptures and even a prison where a Lazio folk tune can be heard echoing from behind the walls. The journey ends 15 minutes later at Gianicolo, an area where one can take in breathtaking views over the whole city.
