Peter Maxwell Davies
An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise
Born in 1934 in Manchester, England, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies is known for his energetic, eclectic compositions and the breadth of his musical idiom, embracing everything from serialism to expressionism, foxtrots to pavanes. He attended Manchester University and the Royal Manchester College of Music, graduating in 1956, then studied with Goffredo Petrasi in Rome, where he wrote his first orchestral work, Prolation (1958). He has been an active music educator, working as Director of Music at Cirencester Grammar School in England from 1959-62, Composer-in-Residence at the University of Adelaide in Autstralia from 1965-66, and Artistic Director of the Dartingon International Summer School in England from 1979-84. His interest in theater led him to form a contemporary music performance group called “The Pierrot Players” with fellow Manchester graduate Harrison Birtwistle in 1969, premiering Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King that same year. The work, which portrays the madness of King George III, demonstrates Davies’s theatrical flair, requiring the musicians to perform in cages like King George’s own pet bullfinches. Davies has written concertos, operas, movie scores, and eight symphonies, called “the most important symphonic cycle since Shostakovich” by The Times of London. He has also worked steadily as a conductor, spending ten years as Composer/Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras. He was knighted in 1987, and was appointed Master of the Queen’s Music in 2004.
In 1971 Davies moved to Hoy, one of the Orkney islands off the northern coast of Scotland. The dramatic landscape of the islands profoundly affected the composer, who writes that there is “no escape from yourself here, you just have to realize what you are through your music with much more intensity than in urban surroundings.” Many of the works written after his move find inspiration in the islands, including his Symphony No. 3 (1984), whose second movement was sparked in part by the sight of a steep Orkney cliff-face thronged by circling seabirds. He wrote An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise that same year, finding a different sort of inspiration at the wedding of a friend in Hoy. The music is strongly programmatic; Davies calls it a ‘picture postcard’ and describes it as follows:
“The wedding party arrives at the hall out of violent weather. There follows a processional, after which the band tunes up for a wedding dance which builds to an inebriated climax. The guests leave the hall with echoes of the processional music in their ears, while the sun, personified by the full splendour of highland bagpipes, rises over Caithness.”
Davies’s ‘violent weather’ is evident in the lashing string figures that open the piece. These quickly subside to an oboe solo reminiscent of Celtic and Gaelic folk tunes, soon taken up by clarinet, flute, and other woodwinds. Dancing begins in earnest with the strings, interrupted by a somewhat tipsy tuning session, then followed by dances in various moods from raucous to military to gentle (the latter featuring an extended solo for first violin). These dances fall in and out of sync as the orchestra reaches its ‘inebriated climax.’ Having marked the guests’ entrance, the oboe now denotes their departure into the early morning. Great brass swells announce coming of the sunrise, and a bagpiper enters the hall and processes to the stage. The work closes in triumphal brilliance.