MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: MDT AmazonUK AmazonUS
Sound Samples & Downloads

Peter MAXWELL DAVIES (b.1934)
Symphony no.1, op.119 (1976) [54:54]
Mavis in Las Vegas (1997) [13:09]
BBC Philharmonic/Peter Maxwell Davies
rec. New Broadcasting House, Manchester, 8-9 December 1994 (Symphony); 10 July 1997 (Mavis). DDD
NAXOS 8.572348 [68:03]

Experience Classicsonline


Following the success of the ten 'Naxos' Quartets (review of boxed set), 2012 sees Naxos reissuing the first five Maxwell Davies Symphonies (review of the Third) and there’s much more to follow from one of Britain's finest living composers. These Symphonies were all originally issued in the mid-Nineties by the now vanished Collins Classics label: Mavis in Las Vegas appeared on 15242 (1998) and the First Symphony on 14352 (1995). The only other recording to date of the latter remains the premiere by a young Simon Rattle conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra on Decca in the late Seventies, reissued on Universal Classics a decade ago (473 721-2), still widely available at a competitive price.
 
Mavis in Las Vegas is a work of unabashedly light music, a sort of cross between his own An Orkney Wedding With Sunrise and some of Malcolm Arnold's more frivolous film music. It recounts a night out in the titular world headquarters of gaudiness by 'Mavis' - the name under which a hotel had reserved a room for a touring Maxwell Davies.
 
For those who know the composer only through Mavis, An Orkney Wedding or the pretty, universally mispronounced piano piece Farewell to Stromness, the Symphony no.1 will feel like an icy plunge into the cold waters of the North Sea. This is by contrast a work that makes substantial demands on the intellect and concentration, and is therefore not altogether lovable at first or second hearing - unless perhaps the listener skips to the last five minutes. It undulates and rumbles along for nearly an hour with little in the way of tunes, and with plenty of atonal passages. Yet Maxwell Davies's orchestral colourisation is always inspired and evocative of the dramatic seascapes of his home on Orkney. Like the Second Symphony, the First is vivid in its modernistically-inclined representation of the flows, sounds and firths that surround the islands. The work as a whole becomes more accessible and alluring with every reacquaintance.
 
The BBC Philharmonic in the safe and authoritative hands of Maxwell Davies himself give a good, solid performance of what is a rather demanding work for musicians too. They can even be heard to loosen the dicky and undo a button for Mavis in Las Vegas.  

Sound quality in both recordings is fairly good, but certainly does not justify the 'superb' rating given by Naxos's resident reviewer - at times there is a distinct loss of definition in the strings. On the other hand, this slight lossy feel is not enough to undermine the impact of Maxwell Davies's music. The composer's own booklet notes are intelligent and interesting, especially where he relives his experience as 'Mavis'.
 
Byzantion
Collected reviews and contact at artmusicreviews.co.uk

Reviews of Maxwell Davies on Naxos

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Error processing SSI file