Peter Maxwell Davies
Encyclopedia
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE
(born 8 September 1934) is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music
.
who said "He's either quite brilliant or mad". Conductor Charles Groves
nodded his approval and said, "I'd get him in". They did and his rise to fame began under the careful mentorship of Hill who made him their resident composer and introduced him to various professional musicians both in the UK and Germany. (The full story can be found in Over the Airwaves, the autobiography of Trevor Hill published by Book Guild in 2005). After education at Leigh Boys Grammar School
, Davies studied at the University of Manchester
and at the Royal Manchester College of Music (amalgamated into the Royal Northern College of Music
in 1973), where his fellow students included Harrison Birtwistle
, Alexander Goehr
, Elgar Howarth
and John Ogdon
. Together they formed New Music Manchester, a group committed to contemporary music. After graduating in 1956, he studied on an Italian government scholarship for a year with Goffredo Petrassi
in Rome before working as Director of Music at Cirencester
Grammar School
from 1959 to 1962.
In 1962, he secured a Harkness Fellowship
at Princeton University
, with the help of Aaron Copland
and Benjamin Britten
, where he studied with Roger Sessions
, Milton Babbitt
and Earl Kim
. He then moved to Australia, where he was Composer in Residence at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, University of Adelaide
from 1965–66.
He then returned to the United Kingdom and moved to the Orkney Islands
, initially to Hoy
in 1971, and later to Sanday
, where he lives with his partner Colin Parkinson. Orkney (particularly its capital, Kirkwall
) hosts the St Magnus Festival, an arts festival founded by Davies in 1977. He frequently uses it to premiere new works (often played by the local school orchestra).
Davies was Artistic Director of the Dartington Summer School
from 1979 to 1984 and has held a number of posts. From 1992 to 2002 he was associate conductor/composer with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
and he has conducted a number of other prominent orchestras, including the Philharmonia
, the Cleveland Orchestra
, the Boston Symphony Orchestra
and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
. In 2000 Davies was Artist in Residence at the Barossa Music Festival when he presented some of his music theatre works and worked with students from the Barossa Spring Academy. Davies is also Composer Laureate of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra
, for whom he wrote a series of ten Strathclyde Concertos.
He has been awarded a number of honorary doctorates, at various institutions. He has been President of Making Music (The National Federation of Music Societies) since 1989. Davies was made a CBE
in 1981 and knight
ed in 1987. He was appointed Master of the Queen's Music
for a ten-year period from March 2004. Oxford awarded him an honorary
Doctor of Music
degree in July 2005. On 25 November 2006, Sir Peter was appointed an Honorary Fellow of Canterbury Christ Church University
at a service in Canterbury Cathedral
. He is also a visiting professor of composition at the Royal Academy of Music
, and in 2009 became an Honorary
Fellow
of Homerton College, Cambridge
.
Davies was one of the first classical composers to open a music download
website, MaxOpus, (in 1996). The site became temporarily unavailable after the arrest in June 2007 of Michael Arnold (one of MaxOpus's directors) on fraud charges arising from money missing from Davies's business accounts. In October 2008 Arnold and his wife Judith (Davies' former agent) were charged with the theft of almost £450,000. In November 2009, Michael Arnold was sentenced to 18 months in jail. Maxopus.com was relaunched earlier in 2009.
Davies was known as an 'enfant terrible' of the 1960s, whose music frequently shocked audiences and critics. One of his overtly theatrical and shocking pieces was Eight Songs for a Mad King
(1969), in which he utilised 'musical parody' by taking a canonical piece of music, Handel
's Messiah
, and subverting it to suit his own needs.
Davies is openly gay. In 2007, a controversy arose regarding his intended civil partnership when he was told that the ceremony could not take place on the Sanday Light Railway
. He later abandoned his plans.
Davies is known informally as "Max", after his middle name "Maxwell". A reporter for The Independent
humorously recalled the confusion this brought about when Davies was staying in Las Vegas. No one seemed able to locate him at any hotel, despite trying "Maxwell Davies", "Davies", "Max", "Sir Peter" and every other imaginable permutation. It was finally discovered that the hotel had registered him as "Mavis", which inspired the composer to produce the orchestral piece Mavis in Las Vegas.
. He wrote The Yellow Cake Revue
, a collection of cabaret
-style pieces that he performed with actress Eleanor Bron
, in protest at plans to mine uranium
ore in Orkney. It is from this suite of pieces that his famous instrumental
chanson triste interlude Farewell to Stromness is taken. The slow, walking bass line that pervades the Farewell portrays the residents of the village of Stromness
having to leave their homes as a result of uranium contamination. The Revue was first performed at the St. Magnus Festival, in Orkney, by Bron, with the composer at the piano, in June 1980. Stromness, the second largest town in Orkney, would have been two miles from the uranium mine's core, and the center most threatened by pollution, had the proposed development been approved.
In the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003 he marched in protest, and has been an outspoken critic of the Ministries of both Gordon Brown
and Tony Blair
.
Davies' appointment to the post of Master of the Queen's Music was initially controversial, as he was a republican. However he confirmed in 2010 that close contact with the Queen had converted him to monarchism. He told the Daily Telegraph "I have come to realise that there is a lot to be said for the monarchy. It represents continuity, tradition and stability."
Early works include the Trumpet Sonata (1955), written while he was at college, and his first orchestral work, Prolation (1958), written while under the tutelage of Petrassi. Early works often use serial
techniques (for example Sinfonia for chamber orchestra, 1962), sometimes combined with Mediaeval and Renaissance compositional methods. Fragments of plainsong
are often used as basic source material to be adapted and developed in various ways.
Pieces from the late 1960s take up these techniques and tend towards experimental
and a violent character – these include Revelation and Fall (based on a poem by Georg Trakl
), the music theatre pieces Eight Songs for a Mad King
and Vesalii Icones, and the opera Taverner
. Taverner again shows an interest in Renaissance music, taking as its subject the composer John Taverner
, and consisting of parts resembling Renaissance forms. The orchestral piece St Thomas Wake (1969) also shows this interest, and is a particularly obvious example of Davies's polystylism, combining, as it does, a suite of foxtrot
s (played by a twenties-style dance band), a pavane
by John Bull
and Davies's "own" music (the work is described by Davies as a "Foxtrot for orchestra on a pavan by John Bull"). Many works from this period were performed by the Pierrot Players which Davies founded with Harrison Birtwistle
in 1967 (they were reformed as the Fires of London
in 1970, disbanded in 1987).
Davies is known for his use of magic square
s as a source of musical materials and as a structural determinant. In his work Ave Maris Stella (1975) he used a 9x9 square numerologically
associated with the moon, reduced modulo
9 to produce a Latin square
, to permute the notes of a plainsong melody with the same name as the piece and to govern the durations of the notes.
Worldes Blis (1969) indicated a move towards a more integrated and somewhat more restrained style, anticipating the calm which Davies would soon find at his new home in Orkney. Some have drawn a comparison between this later style and the music of Jean Sibelius
. His present style is regarded as much more accessible, to the point where Harrison Birtwistle
no longer regarded him as a modernist.
Since his move to Orkney, Davies has often drawn on Orcadian or more generally Scottish themes in his music, and has sometimes set the words of Orcadian writer George Mackay Brown
. He has written a number of other operas, including The Martyrdom of St Magnus
(1976), The Lighthouse
(1980, his most popular opera), and The Doctor of Myddfai
(1996). The ambitious, nihilistic parable Resurrection
(1987), which includes parts for a rock band, was nearly twenty years in gestation.
Davies also became interested in classical forms, completing his first symphony
in 1976. He has written eight numbered symphonies since—a symphonic cycle of the Symphonies Nos.1–7 (1976–2000), a Symphony No. 8 titled the 'Antarctic' (2000), a Sinfonia Concertante (1982), as well as the series of ten Strathclyde Concertos
for various instruments (pieces born out of his association with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra
, 1987–1996). In 2002, he began work on a series of string quartet
s for the Maggini String Quartet
to record on Naxos Records
(the so-called Naxos Quartets
). The whole series was completed in 2007, and is viewed by the composer as a novel in ten chapters".
Davies's lighter orchestral works have included Mavis in Las Vegas and Orkney Wedding, With Sunrise
(which features the bagpipes
), as well as a number of theatre pieces for children and a good deal of music with educational purposes. Additionally he wrote the scores for Ken Russell
's films The Devils
and The Boy Friend
.
Maxwell Davies's short piano piece Farewell to Stromness entered the Classic FM
Hall of Fame in 2003, his first ever entry, and was at that time the fastest-rising new entry in the chart's history.
He also writes with particular affinity for young and non-professional performers; for example, his Fanfare: A salute to Dennis Brain
is targeted at players of grade 6 standard or above, and he has composed several children's operas including A Selkie Tale, The Great Bank Robbery and The Spider's Revenge. Other children's works include Chat Moss and A Hoy Calendar both written for first performance by the children of St Edward's College Liverpool.
A Hymn to the Spirit of Fire was commissioned by the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral Concerts Society as the culmination of the city's Capital of Culture year 2008 and was given its world premiere at the Cathedral on Saturday 13 December.
His Violin Concerto No. 2 received its UK premiere on 8 September 2009 (the composer's 75th birthday) in the Royal Albert Hall
, London, as part of the 2009 season of the BBC
Proms.
On 13 October 2009, his string sextet 'The Last Island' was performed for the first time by the Nash Ensemble
at Wigmore Hall
in a 75th birthday concert for the composer.
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(born 8 September 1934) is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music
Master of the Queen's Music
Master of the Queen's Music is a post in the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. The holder of the post originally served the monarch of England.The post is roughly comparable to that of Poet Laureate...
.
Biography
Davies was born in Salford, Lancashire, the son of Thomas and Hilda Davies. He took piano lessons and composed from an early age. As a 14-year-old he submitted a composition called "Blue Ice" to BBC Children's Hour in Manchester. Producer Trevor Hill showed it to resident pianist Violet CarsonViolet Carson
Violet Helen Carson OBE was an English actress, best known for playing Ena Sharples, one of the original characters in the British soap opera Coronation Street.-Early life and career:...
who said "He's either quite brilliant or mad". Conductor Charles Groves
Charles Groves
Sir Charles Barnard Groves CBE was an English conductor. He was known for the breadth of his repertoire and for encouraging contemporary composers and young conductors....
nodded his approval and said, "I'd get him in". They did and his rise to fame began under the careful mentorship of Hill who made him their resident composer and introduced him to various professional musicians both in the UK and Germany. (The full story can be found in Over the Airwaves, the autobiography of Trevor Hill published by Book Guild in 2005). After education at Leigh Boys Grammar School
Bedford High School (Leigh)
Bedford High School is a comprehensive school with specialist Business and Enterprise College status in Leigh, Greater Manchester, England.-History:...
, Davies studied at the University of Manchester
Victoria University of Manchester
The Victoria University of Manchester was a university in Manchester, England. On 1 October 2004 it merged with the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology to form a new entity, "The University of Manchester".-1851 - 1951:The University was founded in 1851 as Owens College,...
and at the Royal Manchester College of Music (amalgamated into the Royal Northern College of Music
Royal Northern College of Music
The Royal Northern College of Music is a music school in Manchester, England. It is located on Oxford Road in Chorlton on Medlock, at the western edge of the campus of the University of Manchester and is one of four conservatories associated with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music...
in 1973), where his fellow students included Harrison Birtwistle
Harrison Birtwistle
Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have...
, Alexander Goehr
Alexander Goehr
Alexander Goehr is an English composer and academic.Goehr was born in Berlin in 1932, the son of the conductor and Schoenberg pupil Walter Goehr. In his early twenties he emerged as a central figure in the Manchester School of post-war British composers. In 1955–56 he joined Oliver Messiaen's...
, Elgar Howarth
Elgar Howarth
Elgar Howarth is an English conductor and composer.Howarth was educated in the 1950s at Manchester University and the Royal Manchester College of Music , where his fellow students included the composers Harrison Birtwistle, Alexander Goehr, Peter Maxwell Davies, and the...
and John Ogdon
John Ogdon
John Andrew Howard Ogdon was an English pianist and composer.-Biography:Ogdon was born in Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, and attended Manchester Grammar School, before studying at the Royal Northern College of Music between 1953 and 1957, where his fellow students under Richard Hall...
. Together they formed New Music Manchester, a group committed to contemporary music. After graduating in 1956, he studied on an Italian government scholarship for a year with Goffredo Petrassi
Goffredo Petrassi
Goffredo Petrassi was an Italian composer of modern classical music, conductor, and teacher. He is considered one of the most influential Italian composers of the twentieth century.-Life:...
in Rome before working as Director of Music at Cirencester
Cirencester
Cirencester is a market town in east Gloucestershire, England, 93 miles west northwest of London. Cirencester lies on the River Churn, a tributary of the River Thames, and is the largest town in the Cotswold District. It is the home of the Royal Agricultural College, the oldest agricultural...
Grammar School
Cirencester Grammar School
Cirencester Grammar School was a grammar school in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, England, founded in about 1461 and closed in 1966.-History:Princess Alexandra of Kent visited the school on 23 July 1958 as part of its quincentenary celebrations....
from 1959 to 1962.
In 1962, he secured a Harkness Fellowship
Harkness Fellowship
The Harkness Fellowships are a programme run by the Commonwealth Fund of New York City. They were established to reciprocate the Rhodes Scholarships and enable Fellows from several countries to spend time studying in the United States...
at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, with the help of Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
and Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
, where he studied with Roger Sessions
Roger Sessions
Roger Huntington Sessions was an American composer, critic, and teacher of music.-Life:Sessions was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a family that could trace its roots back to the American revolution. His mother, Ruth Huntington Sessions, was a direct descendent of Samuel Huntington, a signer of...
, Milton Babbitt
Milton Babbitt
Milton Byron Babbitt was an American composer, music theorist, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his serial and electronic music.-Biography:...
and Earl Kim
Earl Kim
Earl Kim was a Korean-American composer.Kim was born in Dinuba, California, to immigrant Korean parents. He began piano studies at age ten and soon developed an interest in composition, studying in Los Angeles and Berkeley with, among others, Arnold Schoenberg, Ernest Bloch, and Roger Sessions...
. He then moved to Australia, where he was Composer in Residence at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, University of Adelaide
University of Adelaide
The University of Adelaide is a public university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third oldest university in Australia...
from 1965–66.
He then returned to the United Kingdom and moved to the Orkney Islands
Orkney Islands
Orkney also known as the Orkney Islands , is an archipelago in northern Scotland, situated north of the coast of Caithness...
, initially to Hoy
Hoy
Hoy is an island in Orkney, Scotland. With an area of it is the second largest in the archipelago after the Mainland. It is connected by a causeway called The Ayre to South Walls...
in 1971, and later to Sanday
Sanday, Orkney
Sanday is one of the inhabited islands in the Orkney Islands, off the north coast of Scotland. With an area of , it is the third largest of the Orkney Islands. The main centres of population are Lady Village and Kettletoft. Sanday can be reached by Orkney Ferries or plane from Kirkwall on the...
, where he lives with his partner Colin Parkinson. Orkney (particularly its capital, Kirkwall
Kirkwall
Kirkwall is the biggest town and capital of Orkney, off the coast of northern mainland Scotland. The town is first mentioned in Orkneyinga saga in the year 1046 when it is recorded as the residence of Rögnvald Brusason the Earl of Orkney, who was killed by his uncle Thorfinn the Mighty...
) hosts the St Magnus Festival, an arts festival founded by Davies in 1977. He frequently uses it to premiere new works (often played by the local school orchestra).
Davies was Artistic Director of the Dartington Summer School
Dartington Hall
The Dartington Hall Trust, near Totnes, Devon, United Kingdom is a charity specialising in the arts, social justice and sustainability.The Trust currently runs 16 charitable programmes, including The Dartington International Summer School and Schumacher Environmental College...
from 1979 to 1984 and has held a number of posts. From 1992 to 2002 he was associate conductor/composer with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's national orchestra"...
and he has conducted a number of other prominent orchestras, including the Philharmonia
Philharmonia
The Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the leading orchestras in Great Britain, based in London. Since 1995, it has been based in the Royal Festival Hall. In Britain it is also the resident orchestra at De Montfort Hall, Leicester and the Corn Exchange, Bedford, as well as The Anvil, Basingstoke...
, the Cleveland Orchestra
Cleveland Orchestra
The Cleveland Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Cleveland, Ohio. It is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1918, the orchestra plays most of its concerts at Severance Hall...
, the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...
and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra is one of the the oldest symphony orchestras in the world...
. In 2000 Davies was Artist in Residence at the Barossa Music Festival when he presented some of his music theatre works and worked with students from the Barossa Spring Academy. Davies is also Composer Laureate of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra is Scotland's national chamber orchestra, based in Edinburgh. One of Scotland’s five National Performing Arts Companies, the SCO performs throughout Scotland, including annual tours of the Scottish Highlands and Islands and South of Scotland. The SCO appears...
, for whom he wrote a series of ten Strathclyde Concertos.
He has been awarded a number of honorary doctorates, at various institutions. He has been President of Making Music (The National Federation of Music Societies) since 1989. Davies was made a CBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
in 1981 and knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
ed in 1987. He was appointed Master of the Queen's Music
Master of the Queen's Music
Master of the Queen's Music is a post in the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. The holder of the post originally served the monarch of England.The post is roughly comparable to that of Poet Laureate...
for a ten-year period from March 2004. Oxford awarded him an honorary
Honorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
Doctor of Music
Doctor of Music
The Doctor of Music degree , like other doctorates, is an academic degree of the highest level. The D.Mus. is intended for musicians and composers who wish to combine the highest attainments in their area of specialization with doctoral-level academic study in music...
degree in July 2005. On 25 November 2006, Sir Peter was appointed an Honorary Fellow of Canterbury Christ Church University
Canterbury Christ Church University
Canterbury Christ Church University is a university in Canterbury, Kent, England. Founded as a Church of England college for teaching training it has grown to full university status and will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2012. The focus of its work is in the education of people going into...
at a service in Canterbury Cathedral
Canterbury Cathedral
Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England and forms part of a World Heritage Site....
. He is also a visiting professor of composition at the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
, and in 2009 became an Honorary
Honorary title (academic)
Honorary titles in academia may be conferred on persons in recognition of contributions by a non-employee or by an employee beyond regular duties...
Fellow
Fellow
A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...
of Homerton College, Cambridge
Homerton College, Cambridge
Homerton College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England.With around 1,200 students, Homerton has more students than any other Cambridge college, although less than half of these live in the college. The college has a long and complex history dating back to the...
.
Davies was one of the first classical composers to open a music download
Music download
A music download is the transferral of music from an Internet-facing computer or website to a user's local computer. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyright material without permission or payment...
website, MaxOpus, (in 1996). The site became temporarily unavailable after the arrest in June 2007 of Michael Arnold (one of MaxOpus's directors) on fraud charges arising from money missing from Davies's business accounts. In October 2008 Arnold and his wife Judith (Davies' former agent) were charged with the theft of almost £450,000. In November 2009, Michael Arnold was sentenced to 18 months in jail. Maxopus.com was relaunched earlier in 2009.
Davies was known as an 'enfant terrible' of the 1960s, whose music frequently shocked audiences and critics. One of his overtly theatrical and shocking pieces was Eight Songs for a Mad King
Eight Songs for a Mad King
Eight Songs for a Mad King is a monodrama by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies with a libretto by Randolph Stow, based on words of George III. The work was written for the South-African actor Roy Hart and the composer's ensemble the Pierrot Players, and premiered on 22 April 1969...
(1969), in which he utilised 'musical parody' by taking a canonical piece of music, Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
's Messiah
Messiah (Handel)
Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742, and received its London premiere nearly a year later...
, and subverting it to suit his own needs.
Davies is openly gay. In 2007, a controversy arose regarding his intended civil partnership when he was told that the ceremony could not take place on the Sanday Light Railway
Sanday Light Railway
The Sanday Light Railway was a privately-owned minimum gauge railway on the island of Sanday, Orkney, Scotland.The railway was of gauge. Construction began in 2000 and the line closed at the end of 2006...
. He later abandoned his plans.
Davies is known informally as "Max", after his middle name "Maxwell". A reporter for The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
humorously recalled the confusion this brought about when Davies was staying in Las Vegas. No one seemed able to locate him at any hotel, despite trying "Maxwell Davies", "Davies", "Max", "Sir Peter" and every other imaginable permutation. It was finally discovered that the hotel had registered him as "Mavis", which inspired the composer to produce the orchestral piece Mavis in Las Vegas.
Political views
Davies has a keen interest in environmentalismEnvironmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
. He wrote The Yellow Cake Revue
The Yellow Cake Revue
The Yellow Cake Revue is a musical composition for a speaker and pianist by the English composer Peter Maxwell Davies.-Background:...
, a collection of cabaret
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...
-style pieces that he performed with actress Eleanor Bron
Eleanor Bron
Eleanor Bron is an English stage, film and television actress and author.-Early life and family:Bron was born in 1938 in Stanmore, Middlesex, to a Jewish family of Eastern European origin...
, in protest at plans to mine uranium
Uranium
Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...
ore in Orkney. It is from this suite of pieces that his famous instrumental
Instrumental
An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....
chanson triste interlude Farewell to Stromness is taken. The slow, walking bass line that pervades the Farewell portrays the residents of the village of Stromness
Stromness
Stromness is the second-biggest town in Orkney, Scotland. It is in the south-west of Mainland Orkney. It is also a parish, with the town of Stromness as its capital.-Etymology:...
having to leave their homes as a result of uranium contamination. The Revue was first performed at the St. Magnus Festival, in Orkney, by Bron, with the composer at the piano, in June 1980. Stromness, the second largest town in Orkney, would have been two miles from the uranium mine's core, and the center most threatened by pollution, had the proposed development been approved.
In the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003 he marched in protest, and has been an outspoken critic of the Ministries of both Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...
and Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
.
Davies' appointment to the post of Master of the Queen's Music was initially controversial, as he was a republican. However he confirmed in 2010 that close contact with the Queen had converted him to monarchism. He told the Daily Telegraph "I have come to realise that there is a lot to be said for the monarchy. It represents continuity, tradition and stability."
Music
Davies is a prolific composer who has written music in a variety of styles and idioms over his career, often combining disparate styles in one piece.Early works include the Trumpet Sonata (1955), written while he was at college, and his first orchestral work, Prolation (1958), written while under the tutelage of Petrassi. Early works often use serial
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
techniques (for example Sinfonia for chamber orchestra, 1962), sometimes combined with Mediaeval and Renaissance compositional methods. Fragments of plainsong
Plainsong
Plainsong is a body of chants used in the liturgies of the Catholic Church. Though the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Catholic Church did not split until long after the origin of plainchant, Byzantine chants are generally not classified as plainsong.Plainsong is monophonic, consisting of a...
are often used as basic source material to be adapted and developed in various ways.
Pieces from the late 1960s take up these techniques and tend towards experimental
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
and a violent character – these include Revelation and Fall (based on a poem by Georg Trakl
Georg Trakl
Georg Trakl was an Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most important Austrian Expressionists.- Life and work :Trakl was born and lived the first 18 years of his life in Salzburg, Austria...
), the music theatre pieces Eight Songs for a Mad King
Eight Songs for a Mad King
Eight Songs for a Mad King is a monodrama by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies with a libretto by Randolph Stow, based on words of George III. The work was written for the South-African actor Roy Hart and the composer's ensemble the Pierrot Players, and premiered on 22 April 1969...
and Vesalii Icones, and the opera Taverner
Taverner (opera)
Taverner is an opera with music and libretto by Peter Maxwell Davies. It is based on the life of the 16th century English composer John Taverner, but in what Davies himself acknowledged was a non-realistic treatment. The gestation for the opera dated as far back as 1956 during Davies's years in...
. Taverner again shows an interest in Renaissance music, taking as its subject the composer John Taverner
John Taverner
John Taverner was an English composer and organist, regarded as the most important English composer of his era.- Career :...
, and consisting of parts resembling Renaissance forms. The orchestral piece St Thomas Wake (1969) also shows this interest, and is a particularly obvious example of Davies's polystylism, combining, as it does, a suite of foxtrot
Foxtrot (Dance)
The foxtrot is a smooth progressive dance characterized by long, continuous flowing movements across the dance floor. It is danced to big band music, and the feeling is one of elegance and sophistication...
s (played by a twenties-style dance band), a pavane
Pavane
The pavane, pavan, paven, pavin, pavian, pavine, or pavyn is a slow processional dance common in Europe during the 16th century .A pavane is a slow piece of music which is danced to in pairs....
by John Bull
John Bull (composer)
John Bull was an English composer, musician, and organ builder. He was a renowned keyboard performer of the virginalist school and most of his compositions were written for this medium.-Life:...
and Davies's "own" music (the work is described by Davies as a "Foxtrot for orchestra on a pavan by John Bull"). Many works from this period were performed by the Pierrot Players which Davies founded with Harrison Birtwistle
Harrison Birtwistle
Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have...
in 1967 (they were reformed as the Fires of London
Fires of London
The Fires of London, first formed in 1965 as the Pierrot Players, was a British chamber music ensemble which was active from 1965 to 1987....
in 1970, disbanded in 1987).
Davies is known for his use of magic square
Magic square
In recreational mathematics, a magic square of order n is an arrangement of n2 numbers, usually distinct integers, in a square, such that the n numbers in all rows, all columns, and both diagonals sum to the same constant. A normal magic square contains the integers from 1 to n2...
s as a source of musical materials and as a structural determinant. In his work Ave Maris Stella (1975) he used a 9x9 square numerologically
Numerology
Numerology is any study of the purported mystical relationship between a count or measurement and life. It has many systems and traditions and beliefs...
associated with the moon, reduced modulo
Modular arithmetic
In mathematics, modular arithmetic is a system of arithmetic for integers, where numbers "wrap around" after they reach a certain value—the modulus....
9 to produce a Latin square
Latin square
In combinatorics and in experimental design, a Latin square is an n × n array filled with n different symbols, each occurring exactly once in each row and exactly once in each column...
, to permute the notes of a plainsong melody with the same name as the piece and to govern the durations of the notes.
Worldes Blis (1969) indicated a move towards a more integrated and somewhat more restrained style, anticipating the calm which Davies would soon find at his new home in Orkney. Some have drawn a comparison between this later style and the music of Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
. His present style is regarded as much more accessible, to the point where Harrison Birtwistle
Harrison Birtwistle
Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have...
no longer regarded him as a modernist.
Since his move to Orkney, Davies has often drawn on Orcadian or more generally Scottish themes in his music, and has sometimes set the words of Orcadian writer George Mackay Brown
George Mackay Brown
George Mackay Brown , was a Scottish poet, author and dramatist, whose work has a distinctly Orcadian character...
. He has written a number of other operas, including The Martyrdom of St Magnus
The Martyrdom of St Magnus
The Martyrdom of St Magnus is a chamber opera in one act by the British composer Peter Maxwell Davies. The libretto, by Davies himself, is based on the novel Magnus by George Mackay Brown. The opera was first performed in St...
(1976), The Lighthouse
The Lighthouse (opera)
The Lighthouse is a chamber opera with words and music by Peter Maxwell Davies.The scenario was inspired by a true story. In December 1900 a lighthouse supply ship called the Hesperus, based in Stromness, Orkney, went on its routine tour of duty to the Flannan Isles in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland...
(1980, his most popular opera), and The Doctor of Myddfai
The Doctor of Myddfai
The Doctor of Myddfai is an opera in two acts composed by Peter Maxwell Davies to a libretto by David Pountney. The work premiered at the New Theatre in Cardiff on 5 June 1996, performed by the Welsh National Opera and conducted by Richard Armstrong. The libretto was adapted from an ancient Welsh...
(1996). The ambitious, nihilistic parable Resurrection
Resurrection (opera)
Resurrection is an opera by the English composer Peter Maxwell Davies. Maxwell Davies conceived in 1963 whilst at Princeton University. However, the composer did not complete the opera until over 20 years later...
(1987), which includes parts for a rock band, was nearly twenty years in gestation.
Davies also became interested in classical forms, completing his first symphony
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
in 1976. He has written eight numbered symphonies since—a symphonic cycle of the Symphonies Nos.1–7 (1976–2000), a Symphony No. 8 titled the 'Antarctic' (2000), a Sinfonia Concertante (1982), as well as the series of ten Strathclyde Concertos
Strathclyde Concertos
The Strathclyde Concertos are a series of ten orchestral works by the English composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.Commissioned by Strathclyde Regional Council, each work features an instrumental soloist and small orchestra. The first concerto, for oboe and orchestra, appeared in 1986, with the tenth...
for various instruments (pieces born out of his association with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra is Scotland's national chamber orchestra, based in Edinburgh. One of Scotland’s five National Performing Arts Companies, the SCO performs throughout Scotland, including annual tours of the Scottish Highlands and Islands and South of Scotland. The SCO appears...
, 1987–1996). In 2002, he began work on a series of string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
s for the Maggini String Quartet
Maggini String Quartet
The Maggini Quartet is a British string quartet formed in 1988. Among other notable projects, they have recorded the complete Naxos Quartets cycle by Peter Maxwell Davies....
to record on Naxos Records
Naxos Records
Naxos Records is a record label specializing in classical music. Through a number of imprints, Naxos also releases genres including Chinese music, jazz, world music, and early rock & roll. The company was founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann, a German-born resident of Hong Kong.Naxos is the largest...
(the so-called Naxos Quartets
Naxos Quartets
The Naxos Quartets are a series of ten string quartets by the English composer Peter Maxwell Davies.They were written between 2001 and 2007 to a commission from Naxos Records. In 2001 the Maggini Quartet was appointed to record all ten for the record label. The first quartet was premiered by the...
). The whole series was completed in 2007, and is viewed by the composer as a novel in ten chapters".
Davies's lighter orchestral works have included Mavis in Las Vegas and Orkney Wedding, With Sunrise
Orkney Wedding, With Sunrise
Orkney Wedding, With Sunrise is a classical orchestral composition by the English composer Peter Maxwell Davies. It is notable for being one of the few pieces in classical repertoire to feature a bagpipe solo....
(which features the bagpipes
Bagpipes
Bagpipes are a class of musical instrument, aerophones, using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. Though the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe and Irish uilleann pipes have the greatest international visibility, bagpipes of many different types come from...
), as well as a number of theatre pieces for children and a good deal of music with educational purposes. Additionally he wrote the scores for Ken Russell
Ken Russell
Henry Kenneth Alfred "Ken" Russell was an English film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. He attracted criticism as being obsessed with sexuality and the church...
's films The Devils
The Devils (film)
The Devils is a 1971 British historical drama directed by Ken Russell and starring Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave. It is based partially on the 1952 book The Devils of Loudun by Aldous Huxley, and partially on the 1960 play The Devils by John Whiting, also based on Huxley's book...
and The Boy Friend
The Boy Friend
The Boy Friend is a musical by Sandy Wilson. The musical's original 1954 London production ran for 2,078 performances, making it briefly the third-longest running musical in West End or Broadway history until it was surpassed by Salad Days...
.
Maxwell Davies's short piano piece Farewell to Stromness entered the Classic FM
Classic FM (UK)
Classic FM, one of the United Kingdom's three Independent National Radio stations, broadcasts classical music in a popular and accessible style.-Overview:...
Hall of Fame in 2003, his first ever entry, and was at that time the fastest-rising new entry in the chart's history.
He also writes with particular affinity for young and non-professional performers; for example, his Fanfare: A salute to Dennis Brain
Dennis Brain
Dennis Brain was a British virtuoso horn player and was largely credited for popularizing the horn as a solo classical instrument with the post-war British public...
is targeted at players of grade 6 standard or above, and he has composed several children's operas including A Selkie Tale, The Great Bank Robbery and The Spider's Revenge. Other children's works include Chat Moss and A Hoy Calendar both written for first performance by the children of St Edward's College Liverpool.
A Hymn to the Spirit of Fire was commissioned by the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral Concerts Society as the culmination of the city's Capital of Culture year 2008 and was given its world premiere at the Cathedral on Saturday 13 December.
His Violin Concerto No. 2 received its UK premiere on 8 September 2009 (the composer's 75th birthday) in the Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
, London, as part of the 2009 season of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Proms.
On 13 October 2009, his string sextet 'The Last Island' was performed for the first time by the Nash Ensemble
Nash Ensemble
The Nash Ensemble of London is an acclaimed English chamber ensemble. It was founded by Artistic Director Amelia Freedman in 1964, while she was a student at the Royal Academy of Music, and was named after the Nash Terraces around the Academy...
at Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...
in a 75th birthday concert for the composer.
Career highlights
- 1953–58 – studied in Manchester and Rome.
- 1967 – together with Harrison BirtwistleHarrison BirtwistleSir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have...
, founded the contemporary music touring ensemble the Pierrot Players (later renamed The Fires of London). - 1971 – moved to HoyHoyHoy is an island in Orkney, Scotland. With an area of it is the second largest in the archipelago after the Mainland. It is connected by a causeway called The Ayre to South Walls...
in the Orkney Islands. - 1977 – founds the St Magnus FestivalSt Magnus FestivalThe St Magnus Festival is an annual 6-day arts festival which takes place on the islands of Orkney off the north coast of mainland Scotland.-History and Management:...
. - 1987–96 – wrote the ten Strathclyde Concertos for the Scottish Chamber OrchestraScottish Chamber OrchestraThe Scottish Chamber Orchestra is Scotland's national chamber orchestra, based in Edinburgh. One of Scotland’s five National Performing Arts Companies, the SCO performs throughout Scotland, including annual tours of the Scottish Highlands and Islands and South of Scotland. The SCO appears...
. - 2002 – embarked on a cycle of ten string quartetsNaxos QuartetsThe Naxos Quartets are a series of ten string quartets by the English composer Peter Maxwell Davies.They were written between 2001 and 2007 to a commission from Naxos Records. In 2001 the Maggini Quartet was appointed to record all ten for the record label. The first quartet was premiered by the...
, commissioned by NaxosNaxos RecordsNaxos Records is a record label specializing in classical music. Through a number of imprints, Naxos also releases genres including Chinese music, jazz, world music, and early rock & roll. The company was founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann, a German-born resident of Hong Kong.Naxos is the largest...
. - 2004 – appointed Master of the Queen's MusicMaster of the Queen's MusicMaster of the Queen's Music is a post in the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. The holder of the post originally served the monarch of England.The post is roughly comparable to that of Poet Laureate...
. - 2008 – became patron of the Manchester University Music Society (MUMS)
- 2009 – became an HonoraryHonorary title (academic)Honorary titles in academia may be conferred on persons in recognition of contributions by a non-employee or by an employee beyond regular duties...
FellowFellowA fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...
of Homerton College, CambridgeHomerton College, CambridgeHomerton College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England.With around 1,200 students, Homerton has more students than any other Cambridge college, although less than half of these live in the college. The college has a long and complex history dating back to the...
Selected compositions
- Fantasias on an In nomine of John Taverner (1962; For a large orchestra dividing into several chambers ensembles to be performed)
- Eight Songs for a Mad KingEight Songs for a Mad KingEight Songs for a Mad King is a monodrama by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies with a libretto by Randolph Stow, based on words of George III. The work was written for the South-African actor Roy Hart and the composer's ensemble the Pierrot Players, and premiered on 22 April 1969...
(1968; for singer/narrator/actor and chamber ensemble) - Missa super l'homme armé (1968, rev. 1971; for male or female speaker or singer and ensemble)
- Ave Maris Stella (1975; chamber ensemble)
- The Door of the Sun for Viola Solo, J.132 (1975)
- Symphony No. 1 (1976–77; orchestra)
- The Martyrdom of St MagnusThe Martyrdom of St MagnusThe Martyrdom of St Magnus is a chamber opera in one act by the British composer Peter Maxwell Davies. The libretto, by Davies himself, is based on the novel Magnus by George Mackay Brown. The opera was first performed in St...
(1977; chamber operaChamber operaChamber 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...
) - The LighthouseThe Lighthouse (opera)The Lighthouse is a chamber opera with words and music by Peter Maxwell Davies.The scenario was inspired by a true story. In December 1900 a lighthouse supply ship called the Hesperus, based in Stromness, Orkney, went on its routine tour of duty to the Flannan Isles in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland...
(1979; chamber opera) - Black Pentecost (1979; quasi-symphony: mezzo-soprano, baritone, & orchestra)
- Cinderella (1980; children's opera)
- Image, Reflection, Shadow (1982; ensemble)
- Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1985; dedicated to Isaac SternIsaac SternIsaac Stern was a Ukrainian-born violinist. He was renowned for his recordings and for discovering new musical talent.-Biography:Isaac Stern was born into a Jewish family in Kremenets, Ukraine. He was fourteen months old when his family moved to San Francisco...
who gave the first performance on 21 June 1986 at the St. Magnus Festival in the Orkney Islands) - Caroline MathildeCaroline Mathilde (ballet)Caroline Mathilde is a two-act ballet to music by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. Its original choreographer was Flemming Flindt.It tells the story of the eighteenth century English princess Caroline Mathilde who was sent to Denmark aged 15 to be married to the 17-year-old schizophrenic Danish King,...
(1991; ballet) - Strathclyde Concerto No. 5 for Violin, Viola and String Orchestra, J.245 (1991)
- A Spell for Green Corn: The MacDonald Dances (1993; violin, orchestra)
- The Doctor of MyddfaiThe Doctor of MyddfaiThe Doctor of Myddfai is an opera in two acts composed by Peter Maxwell Davies to a libretto by David Pountney. The work premiered at the New Theatre in Cardiff on 5 June 1996, performed by the Welsh National Opera and conducted by Richard Armstrong. The libretto was adapted from an ancient Welsh...
(1996; opera) - Job (1997; singers, orchestra)
- Mr Emmet Takes a WalkMr Emmet Takes a WalkMr Emmet Takes a Walk is a chamber opera by the English composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies with a libretto by David Pountney. The work is self-described as a "dramatic sonata"....
(2000; chamber opera) - Naxos QuartetsNaxos QuartetsThe Naxos Quartets are a series of ten string quartets by the English composer Peter Maxwell Davies.They were written between 2001 and 2007 to a commission from Naxos Records. In 2001 the Maggini Quartet was appointed to record all ten for the record label. The first quartet was premiered by the...
(2001–2007; string quartet) - Midhouse Air for Violin and Viola
- Homerton (2010; for the choir of Homerton College, Cambridge)
- 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:...
(2011; opera)
Recordings
- Naxos Quartets – Naxos 8.505225
- Missa parvula; two organ pieces; two motets – Hyperion CDA67454
- Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis and O Sacrum Convivium – Delphian DCD34037
- Symphonies 1 – 6 – BBC Philharmonic/composer – Collins Classics
- Ave Maris Stella; Image, Reflection, Shadow; Runes from a Holy Island – Fires of London/composer – Unicorn-KanchanaUnicorn-KanchanaUnicorn-Kanchana was a British independent record label. Originally known as Unicorn Records, the name Kanchana was added later to distinguish the company from Unicorn Records of Montréal, Canada...
Notable students
- Edward BarnesEdward Barnes (composer)Edward Barnes is an American composer and producer.Edward Barnes studied music composition at the Juilliard School with composers Vincent Persichetti and David Diamond, and at Dartington Hall in Great Britain with composer-conductor Sir Peter Maxwell Davies...
- Elisabetta BrusaElisabetta BrusaElisabetta Olga Laura Brusa is an Italian composer.Brusa was born in Milan, and as a child wrote 32 piano pieces. At the Milan Conservatory she formally studied composition with Bruno Bettinelli, and Azio Corghi, graduating in 1980...
- Ronald CaltabianoRonald CaltabianoRonald Caltabiano is an American arts administrator and composer of contemporary classical music, with his music showing elements of modernism and romanticism....
- Ross EdwardsRoss Edwards (composer)Ross Edwards is an Australian composer of a wide variety of music including orchestral and chamber music, choral music, children's music, opera and film music. He is not to be confused with a British up and coming singer-songwriter of the same name.-Life:Ross Edwards was born in Sydney...
- Philip GrangePhilip GrangePhilip Grange is an English composer.Grange was born in London. He attended Peter Maxwell Davies’s classes at Dartington, and then took further, private, lessons with Davies while at The University of York, where he also studied composition with David Blake...
- Hafliði Hallgrímsson
- Hilda ParedesHilda ParedesHilda Paredes is one of Mexico's leading contemporary composers, and has received many prestigious awards for her work...
- Gillian WhiteheadGillian WhiteheadDame Gillian Karawe Whitehead, DNZM is a New Zealand composer.She studied at the University of Auckland from 1959–62, and Victoria University of Wellington in 1963, graduating BMus Hons in 1964. She then studied composition at the University of Sydney with Peter Sculthorpe from...
External links
- YouTube – Peter Maxwell Davies: Miss Donnithorne's Maggot
- A portrait in words of the composer by Stephen Moss in The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- The Profile Page of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies at Schott Music ltd
- Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' homepage at Chester Music
- Maxwell Davies and the String Quartet CompositionToday article by Paul Driver
- Peter Maxwell Davies interview with Bruce Duffie
- Peter Maxwell Davies at Boosey & Hawkes