This is the latest volume in Naxos's excellent series
of reissues of 1990s-vintage Collins Classics recordings of Peter Maxwell
Davies's orchestral works. 2012 saw the release of five separate volumes
offering his first six symphonies - see reviews of the
First,
Third,
Fourth
& Fifth and
Sixth.
Now that the Collins Classics originals are only available second-hand
or imported, these Naxos CDs become especially collectable: in most
cases they remain - rather surprisingly - the only recordings of these
major late-20th-century works.
This latest disc has two links to the Sixth Symphony recording, both
through veteran instrumentalist and composer George McIlwham. Alongside
the Sixth can be heard one of Maxwell Davies's most popular works,
An
Orkney Wedding With Sunrise. Some may remember it from the Last
Night of the BBC Proms in 1992, with Andrew Davis conducting the BBC
Symphony Orchestra: the Highland piper that night was none other than
McIlwham, father of Stewart, piccolo soloist on the present recording.
Furthermore,
An Orkney Wedding With Sunrise sports not only a
similar title to the more recent
Maxwell's Reel With Northern Lights,
it also provides it with some instantly recognisable material. The titular
Maxwell is not the composer, incidentally, but rather indicates a Scottish
folk tune from Carolina Nairne's invaluable anthology published in the
1820s as
The Scottish Minstrel.
The Piccolo Concerto is a curious work, not merely because of the unusual
solo instrument: all three movements are slow, with only a couple of
spurts of speed up to
allegro. In fact, much of this CD consists
of unusually slow-tempo music, and it might be argued that the programming
could have been more effective if it had been more contrastive. At any
rate, the piccolo flute is possibly not everyone's idea of a reflective
instrument - and Maxwell Davies does exploit the top end of its range
at times. However in a stratospheric kind of way it does achieve a certain
serenity, especially when played with McIlwham's expertise. There have
not been many piccolo concertos since Vivaldi's three, and Maxwell Davies'
exemplar leaves the listener wondering why more composers have not had
a go.
In the sense that it is completely tonal and even angularly tuneful,
the concerto makes for a good opener. On the other hand, its general
tranquillity would make it a good follow-up to the finale of the Trumpet
Concerto which, though it too begins ruminatively - albeit with a noticeably
larger orchestra - ends with a terrifically virtuosic
presto-marked
last movement. It celebrates the livelier qualities of the trumpet and
revels in the work's outstanding dedicatee John Wallace, not to mention
Maxwell Davies's sometimes overtly modernist leanings. Orchestrational
differences aside, the long central
Adagio sounds as if it may
have inspired the middle movement of James MacMillan's recent trumpet
concertino entitled
Seraph - memorably recorded by Alison Balsom
recently for EMI Classics - see
review.
Modernism is to the fore in the
Five Klee Pictures, which are
a revised early piece. These pictures are rhythmically striking, graphic
studies of genius-or-charlatan Paul Klee. The work was originally written,
perhaps surprisingly, for a school orchestra. As in all the works heard
here, though, Maxwell Davies rarely wanders too far from tonality or
recognisable structures.
Conducting three excellent orchestras across an eight-year period, the
Master of the Queen's Music makes sure his is done the right way for
posterity. Posterity should now make sure it has a copy of this disc!
Sound quality ranges from good to first-rate. The booklet texts are
shared between David Nice and Richard Whitehouse, both eloquent annotators.
One minor criticism of Naxos's presentation is the absence of opus numbers
- the above are taken from Maxwell Davies's excellent
website.
Also, the error from a previous release of omitting the final 's' from
Glasgow's City Halls reappears here. Credit to Naxos, however, for not
reprinting the photo of the composer on the cover of the Collins Classics
Trumpet Concerto disc wearing
that shirt.
Byzantion
Collected reviews and contact at artmusicreviews.co.uk
