Mr Emmet Takes a Walk is a chamber opera

Chamber opera

Chamber opera is a designation for operas written to be performed with a chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra.The term and form were invented by Benjamin Britten in the 1940s, when the English Opera Group needed works that could easily be taken on tour and performed in a variety of small...

 by the English composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies

Peter Maxwell Davies

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...

 with a libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 by David Pountney

David Pountney

David Pountney is a British theatre and opera director and librettist internationally known for his productions of rarely performed operas and new productions of classic works...

. The work is self-described as a "dramatic sonata

Sonata

Sonata , in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata , a piece sung. The term, being vague, naturally evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms prior to the Classical era...

".

It tells the story of the last seconds of the life of Mr Emmet before his suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 on a railway line. Thoughts, ideas, musical fragments and experiences flash through Mr Emmet's mind before his death which expand across the fifty minute duration of the work.

Davies has cited the works of four composers as motif

Motif (music)

In music, a motif or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition....

s in the opera: J.S. Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

's "Prelude and Fugue No. 12 in F minor

F minor

F minor is a minor scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. The harmonic minor raises the E to E. Its key signature has four flats ....

" (BWV

BWV

The Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis is the numbering system identifying compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. The prefix BWV, followed by the work's number, is the shorthand identification for Bach's compositions...

 881) from Book 2 of the Well-Tempered Clavier, Andrea Gabrieli

Andrea Gabrieli

Andrea Gabrieli was an Italian composer and organist of the late Renaissance. The uncle of the somewhat more famous Giovanni Gabrieli, he was the first internationally renowned member of the Venetian School of composers, and was extremely influential in spreading the Venetian style in Italy as...

's Edipo Tiranno, "Come furia disperata" from Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

's Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...

(Donna Anna in act 1, scene 1), and the opening of Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

's Second Symphony

Symphony No. 2 (Schumann)

The Symphony in C major by German composer Robert Schumann was published in 1847 as his Symphony No. 2, Op. 61, although it was the third symphony he had completed, counting the B-flat major symphony published as No. 1 in 1841, and the original version of his D minor symphony of 1841 The Symphony...

.

The work premiered in a co-production of Muziektheater Transparant and the Psappha ensemble

Psappha New Music Ensemble

Psappha New Music Ensemble is an ensemble of contemporary classical musicians based in the North West of England, specialised in the performance of works by living composers. Founded in 1991, Psappha takes its name from the composition of the same name by Greek modernist composer Iannis Xenakis...

 at the St. Magnus Festival, Orkney on 16 June 2000

2000 in music

See also:* 2000 in music Record labels established in 2000-Events:*January – Gary Glitter is released from jail, two months before his sentence for sexual offences ends.*January 1**John Tavener is knighted in the New Year's Honours List....

. It was recorded in 2005 with the original cast.

Although Davies intimated that Mr Emmet Takes a Walk would be his last piece of musical theatre, just over a decade later he completed the a further opera, Kommilitonen!

Kommilitonen!

Kommilitonen! is an opera by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. The libretto is by David Pountney, who was also the director of the premiere performances in March 2011.-Genesis:...

.

Roles

Role	Voice type Voice type A voice type is a particular kind of human singing voice perceived as having certain identifying qualities or characteristics. Voice classification is the process by which human voices are evaluated and are thereby designated into voice types...	Première cast, 16 June 2000 Conductor Conducting Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble... : Étienne Siebens
Mr Emmet	baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...	Adrian Clarke
multiple roles	bass-baritone Bass-baritone A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Wagnerian roles: the Dutchman in Der fliegende...	Jonathan Best
multiple roles	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Rebecca Caine Rebecca Caine Rebecca Caine is a Canadian opera and musical theatre performer. She was born in Toronto and studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. She currently resides in London. She is 50–51 years of age.-Career:...
Orchestra		Psappha
Director		David Pountney

Sections

Exposition — A premonition

• No. 1 Introduction
• No. 2 Duet
• No. 3 Arioso
• No. 4 Cabaletta
• No. 5 Trio

Development — Encounters

• Episode 1 The Piano
• Interlude 1
• Episode 2 The Park
• Interlude 2
• Episode 3 The Hotel Room
• Interlude 3
• Episode 4 The Mountain
• Interlude 4
• Episode 5 The Teacher
• The Torch Song
• Interlude 5
• Recapitulation - A monologue
• Coda

External links

• Details at Boosey & Hawkes
  Boosey & Hawkes
  Boosey & Hawkes is a British music publisher purported to be the largest specialist classical music publisher in the world. Until 2003, it was also a major manufacturer of brass, string and wind musical instruments....
  
  
• Notes on the work (Psappha)]
• Production details at Muziektheater Transparant