Lone voices - Peter Maxwell Davies


Many people think of Peter Maxwell Davies as a Scottish composer, but in fact he was born in Salford in Lancashire. And I'm adding to the confusion by featuring a CD of his music titled A Celebration of Scotland for the simple reason that it contains some of the most beautiful music ever captured on disc. The riches are too many to list. But for starters try the haunting Farewell to Stromness and Yesnaby Ground for solo piano played by Max, the ravishing Lullabye for Lucy sung by the Choir of St. Mary's Music School, Edinburgh, and the extrovert An Orkney Wedding with Sunrise complete with George McIlwham playing the highland bagpipes.

Originally released as a Unicorn-Kanchana vinyl LP in 1988, A Celebration of Scotland was captured in stunning sound in the Queen's Hall, Edinburgh by recording engineer Antony Howell. It, thankfully, remains available as a CD, snap it up while you can. And this post brings a neat symmetry to the path as we are off to Scotland (where we lived for six years in the 1980s) after hearing Jordi Savall and Rolf Lislevand in this evening's Snape Prom. So I'll be celebrating Scotland (and Sufism at the Edinburgh Festival) instead of blogging for a few days. More on Scottish musical connections in Farewell to Stromness.

Lone voices showcases music not featured in the 2008 BBC Proms, discover more lone voices here. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Comments

Post a Comment

Recent popular posts

I have seen the future and it is cardboard

Image
This striking structure is the work of the Japanese architect Shigeru Ban. It houses one of the electric powered tugs that worked on the Burgundy Canal until the 1930s, and is part of the Cap Canal museum at Pouilly-en-Auxois in France which we visited recently. By any criteria this is a remarkable work of art, but it becomes quite exceptional when it is explained that this is one of Shigeru Ban's famous paper tube structures. Shigeru Ban is famous for his innovative work using paper and cardboard tubing as a material for building construction, and he is particularly known for using recycled cardboard paper tubes to quickly and efficiently house disaster victims . His designs are influenced by the pioneering geodesic domes created by Buckminster Fuller, who made a guest appearance in Karlheinz Stockhausen - part of a dream . Free thinking chamber music ensemble Domus used a geodesic dome when they performed outside the comfort zone , while maverick architect Louis Kahn's
Read more

Four great albums that are victims of clickbait correctness

Image
Clickbait correctness - if ain't clickable, don't hype it on social media - means some great albums are not receiving the attention they deserve. My recent rewarding listening has included the new Alice Coltrane release Kirtan: Turiya Sings . Kirtans are sacred Vedic chants, and  Turiya Sings  was originally released exclusively on cassette in 1982 for the students of Alice Coltrane's ashram at the The Vedantic Center, northwest of Los Angeles. For this cassette release synthesizers, strings, and sound effects were added to Alice Coltrane’s voice and organ. Although this mix was never commercially released, it achieved cult status as a bootleg recording. The reason for the absence of a commercial release remains unclear, but the most plausible explanation is that the complete master tapes were not retained, making quality remastering impossible. But in 2004 Ravi Coltrane , who is Alice’s son by John Coltrane and producer of this new release, discovered tapes of just Ali
Read more

Towards infinite potential

Image
The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics postulates that "atoms form a world of potentials and possibilities, rather than of things and facts". Following a parallel path Ajahn Sumedho , a teacher from the Thai Forest Buddhist tradition , has proposed that: We do not know the future. But we do not need to know. We can let the future be the mysterious unknown, the infinite potential - the possibility for pleasure, the possibility for pain, the possibility for peace. As we let go of the fear of the unknown, we find peace. My photo of a stormy sky over Colombo in Sri Lanka hints at that infinite potential. There are many ways to experience it, and music is one of them. For me two examples particularly relevant to this post are Claude Vivier's Siddhartha and Jonathan Harvey's Body Mandala . It is now time for me to defy my advancing years and travel into the mysterious unknown of the future. Which means On An Overgrown Path  will fall silent, When, or indeed i
Read more

New classical audiences need new music

Image
A reader's  perceptive comment  explained that to reach a new audience classical music must help listeners across the classical/non-classical divide.  Electronic Dance Music  (EDM) is the immensely popular staple fare of classical's elusive new young audience, and EDM lacks any narrative progression. Classical music can also be non-linear: one example is John Luther Adams' Become Desert , a seamless 40 minute sonic mirage which   abandons the horizontal narrative structures of works such as Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony  with its 'Awakening of cheerful feelings on arrival in the countryside'.  Become Desert sits comfortably in the concert hall, yet it would not be out of place in a sunset session at Ibiza's Café Del Mar or a full moon trance party on Koh Pha Ngan . As John Luther Adams described in a New York Times essay ,  Become Desert  literally entrances its audience - "You find yourself listening in ways you never have before. The scale of yo
Read more

Forgotten heroes

Image
Yet another example of never letting the truth get in the way of a good story has appeared on Slipped Disc . Norman Lebrecht suggests  the New York Times should have asked Simon Rattle to contribute to its Malcolm Arnold tribute because Rattle "has performed [Arnold's] music since age 15".  In fact Rattle's only claim to Malcolm Arnold fame was conducting a 1998 performance in Birmingham Arena of the composer's Little Suite No. 2 played by 3495 musicians - the largest orchestra ever assembled. This pseudo-event  merited an entry in the Guiness Book of Records , which was the 1990s equivalent of trending on Twitter. During the current Arnold centenary year Sir Simon was too busy bleating about Brexit and moaning that his pleas for a new personal London concert hall  had fallen on acoustically imperfect ears to conduct Sir Malcolm's music. So it was left to Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra to showcase an Arnold symphony at this year's Proms.
Read more

Scott Ross and the paradox of popularity

Image
After seven years my post ' Scott Ross and the paradox of genius ' is still one of the most widely read Overgrown Path articles. This popularity at first sight seems pardoxical, as Scott Ross lacks any click bait or celebrity appeal. But his flame is kept alive by thoughtful articles such as the one in today's FranceSoir by Moufid Azmaïesh which links to my 2004 post.  What is remarkable and heartening is that Moufid Azmaïesh's article  is given prominence in a respected international publication without the clickable hook of virtue signalling , an anniversary or a scandal to hang the story on. In his thoughtful appraisal Moufid Azmaïesh avoids the sensationalism that blights so much of today's classical music writing . Instead he ponders on how art, and Scott Ross' art in particular, takes us to a better place beyond today's ailing materialistic culture. Moufid Azmaïesh goes on to explain how at this time of global crisis art exposes us to "the s
Read more

When classical musicians fought against tuxedo fascism

Image
In the late 1960s artist Tom Philips was also known for his music activities. These included compositions performed by pianist John Tilbury , and he also played in the Portsmouth Sinfonia and Cornelius Cardew's Scratch Orchestra . The Portsmouth Sinfonia was inspired by Cardew's Scratch Orchestra. It was formed in 1970 by a mischievous  Gavin Bryars  from staff and students at Portsmouth College of Art as a one-off ensemble to participate in a talent competition. But the Sinfonia took on a life of its own as a reaction against what its members termed 'tuxedo fascism'.  Ability and experience were not a criteria for playing in the Portsmouth Sinfonia, however attendance at rehearsals was mandatory and intentionally bad playing was not allowed. Early repertoire comprised classical warhorses such as The Blue Danube and Also Sprach Zarathustra . The Sinfonia went on to play at the Purcell Room, Festival Hall, and Albert Hall, and was rewarded with a recording contract; y
Read more

A Negro in front of a white symphony group? No - I'm sorry

Image
It is reported that Everett Lee has died at the grand old age of 105. Everett Lee was an early victim of the institutionalised racism that still pervades classical music, and he deserves far more than to be lauded in a trite obituary and then forgotten again. My Overgrown Path articles about him ten years ago were in the vanguard of the movement to give musicians of colour the recognition they deserve. So here again are three of those articles: 'I don't believe in Negro symphony conductors': July 25th 2011 'Oh, come in, young man. I'm reading these reviews. They are out of this world. You really have something. But I might as well tell you, right now, I don't believe in Negro symphony conductors. No, you may play solo with our symphonies, all over this country. You can dance with them, sing with them. But a Negro, standing in front of a white symphony group? No. I'm sorry.' That is the impresario Arthur Judson discussing career opportunities with
Read more

Breaking news - music blogging is not quite dead

Image
A comment added by Lukas Fierz in answer to my question Where has all the musical adventurousness gone? set me questioning once again whether music blogging, and that includes On An Overgrown Path , now serves any useful purpose. When OAOP first posted back in 2004 music blogging was driven by sharing discoveries and sharing experiences. Today that sense of revelation has been exorcised by a toxic mix of self-interest and couch activism, all driven by a paranoid pursuit of social approval. Readership numbers and egos have been boosted , but the music has suffered terminally. My recent post asked where has all the musical adventurousness gone? Who is transcending conventions and pursuing their own unique musical vision? In one of the most useful contributions to music blogging since the advent of social media, Lukas Fierz answered my question by listing a five contemporary musicians who are pushing the socially-defined classical comfort zone.  Slipped Disc's leadership  of the
Read more

...and the musicians were paid £800

Image
Back in 2008 I curated what was probably the first and only broadcast of a complete lilal  night healing ritual performed by the sub-Saharan musicians known as Gnawa. As a result of that broadcast, eight years later I was invited to a Gnawa trance ritual in Essaouira on Morocco's Atlantic coast. That  lilal was a private devotional event which I was privileged to attend with a Moroccan Sufi friend. But like all musicians, the Gnawa rely on commercial performances for their income. That source of income was abruptly terminated by the Covid pandemic. Which has left many Gnawa musicians facing extreme hardship in a country where fiscal safety-nets are much more fallible than in the West, and as a result  a priceless cultural tradition is at risk. Now there has been a heartwarming attempt to alleviate, at least in part, the musicians' hardship. A UNESCO intiative led to 75 gnawan master musicians gathering in Essaouira in December for the filming of a two hour TV special
Read more