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Kleszynski has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for \ Doctor of philosophy degree in Music education @7104st Major professor February 17, 1984 MSU is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution MSU LIBRARIES w \o RETURNING MATERIALS: Place in book drop to remove this checkout from your record. FINES will be charged if book is returned after the date stamped below. PETER MAXWELL DAVIES’ INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC FOR YOUNG PERFORMERS By Kenneth A. Kleszynski A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Music 1984 ABSTRACT PETER MAXWELL DAVIES’ INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC FOR YOUNG PERFORMERS By Kenneth A. Kleszynski Peter Maxwell Davies is one of the few major 20th-century composers who has worked extensively in the areas of music educating and composing for young performers. Since his tenure as music director at Cirencester Grammar School (England, 1959-62), he has produced a large body of works for school-age musicians; included with these are 10 instru- mental pieces for either solo piano, chamber ensemble, or school orchestra. A formal and stylistic analysis of these instrumental works shows them to contain, in microcosm, all of the major devices of Davies’ general compositional mode of expression. Such aspects as the use of borrowed and pre-Classical materials and techniques, a flair for the dramatic, and new types of musical organization and sonority are all present to some degree in this body of pieces. This music also reflects Davies’ philosophy of music education. He has stated his belief in the receptiveness of young people to modern musical idioms, as well as in the ability of schoolchildren to perform and understand music written in an apparently advanced style. Ultimately, an examination of Davies’ instrumental works for young performers, and a comparison of these works with his compositional development and ideas on music education reveals that a composer of Davies’ stature need not condescend when writing for non-professional musicians. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Musical excerpts from Farewell to Stromness, Yesnaby ground, Five Klee pictures, Renaissance Scottish dances, Stevie’s ferry to Hoy, and A welcome to Orkney are used by permission of Boosey & Hawkes, lnc. Musical excerpts from William Byrd: Three dances and Five voluntaries are used by permission of European American Music Distributors Corporation, sole U.S. agent for Schott & Co., Ltd. Musical excerpts from Three studies for percussion are used by permission of Magnamusic-Baton, Inc. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: Introduction ............................................... 1 Background of the Study .............................................. 1 Purpose of the Study .................................................. 2 The Problem and Subproblems .......................................... 2 Philosophy ...................................................... 2 Composition ..................................................... 3 Conclusions ...................................................... 3 Limitations and Definitions ............................................. 3 Need for the Study ................................................... 4 CHAPTER TWO: Review of the Literature ..................................... 6 Compositional Style .................................... - .............. 6 Music Education ..................................................... 9 CHAPTER THREE: Davies’ Stylistic Development .............................. 14 CHAPTER FOUR: Davies and Music Education ................................ 23 CHAPTER FIVE: The Instrumental Music for Young Performers ................... 30 Piano Music ........................................................ 30 Orchestral Works .................................................... 46 Ensemble Works ................................................... 104 CHAPTER SIX: Results, Conclusions, and Recommendations for Further Research. . . .132 Playability of the Music ......................................... .. . . .132 Stevie’s ferry to Hoy (1975) ....................................... 133 Farewell to Stromnessfi 980) ...................................... 133 Yesnaby ground (1980) ........................................... 134 Renaissance Scottish dances (1973) ................................. 134 Three studies for percussion (1975) ................................. 136 William Byrd: Three dances (1959) ................................. 136 Five voluntaries @960) ........................................... 137 Five Klee pictures (1959, rev. 1976) ................................. 138 A welcome to Orkney (1980) ...................................... 139 The Instrumental Music for Young Performers and Davies’ Stylistic Development ............................................ 140 The Instrumental Music and Davies’ Views on Music Education ............... 143 Recommendations for Further Research ................................. 146 APPENDIX: Playing Ranges in Davies’ Instrumental Works for Young Performers ..... 147 LIST OF REFERENCES .................................................. 152 Figure 1. Figure 2. Figure 3. Figure 4. Figure 5. Figure 6. Figure 7. Figure 8. Figure 9. Figure 10. Figure 11. Figure 12. Figure 13. Figure 14. Figure 15. Figure 16. Figure 17. Figure 18. Figure 19. Figure 20. Figure 21. Figure 22. Figure 23. Figure 24. Figure 25. Figure 26. Figure 27. Figure 28. Figure 29. Figure 30. Figure 31. Figure 32. Figure 33. Figure 34. Figure 35. Figure 36. Figure 37. Figure 38. Figure 39. LIST OF FIGURES Stevie’s ferryto Hoy, “Calm water” ................................ 32 Stevie’s ferry to Hoy, “Choppy seas” ............................... 34 Stevie’s ferry to Hoy, “Safe landing” ............................... 36 Farewell to Stromness ........................................... 38 Yesnaby ground ............................................... 43 William Byrd: Three dances, “La volta,” meas. 1-7 .................... 48 “La volta,” meas. 8-14 .......................................... 49 “La volta,” meas. 22-28 ......................................... 50 “La volta,” meas. 29-36 ......................................... 52 “La volta,” meas. 37-52 ......................................... 53 William Byrd: Three dances, “Alman,” meas. 1-8 ...................... 54 “Alman,” meas. 9-16 ............................................ 55 “Alman,” meas. 17-24 ........................................... 56 “Alman,” meas. 25-35 ........................................... 58 William Byrd: Three dances, “Coranto,” meas. 1-8 .................... 57 “Coranto,” meas. 9-16 .......................................... 59 “Coranto,” meas. 17-24 ......................................... 59 Five voluntaries, “March tune,” meas. 1-8 ............................ 63 “March tune,” meas. 9-16 ........................................ 65 Five voluntaries, “Serenade” ...................................... 67 Five voluntaries, ”Magnificat,” meas. 1-8 ............................ 69 ”Magnificat,” meas. 9-19 ......................................... 71 Five voluntaries, ”Sarabande” ..................................... 73 Five voluntaries, “King William’s march” ............................ 76 Five Klee pictures, ”A crusader,” meas. 1-4 .......................... 82 Five Klee pictures, “Oriental garden,” meas. 1-4 ....................... 84 Five Klee pictures, “The twittering machine,” meas. 1-4 ................. 84 ”The twittering machine,” meas. 5-8 ................................ 85 “The twittering machine,” meas. 9-12 ............................... 86 “The twittering machine,” meas. 13-16 .............................. 86 “The twittering machine,” meas. 17-20 .............................. 86 “The twittering maching,” meas. 21-24 .............................. 87 Five Klee pictures, “Stained-glass saint,” meas. 1-5 ..................... 89 Five Klee pictures, “Ad Parnassum,” meas. 1-4 ........................ 90 “Ad Parnassum,” meas. 22-30 ..................................... 91 A welcome to Orkney, meas. 1-15 .................................. 94 A welcome to Orkney, meas. 15-21 ................................. 97 A welcome to Orkney, meas. 22-27 ................................. 98 A welcome to Orkney, meas. 28-33 ................................ 100 Figure 40. Figure 41. Figure 42. Figure 43. Figure 44. Figure 45. Figure 46. Figure 47. Figure 48. Figure 49. Figure 50. Figure 51. Figure 52. Figure 53. Figure 54. Figure 55. Figure 56. Figure 57. Figure 58. Figure 59. Figure 60. Figure 61. Figure 62. Figure 63. A welcome to Orkney, meas. 41-46 ................................ 101 A welcome to Orkney, meas. 48-53 ................................. 99 A welcome to Orkney, meas. 52-59 ................................ 102 A welcome to Orkney, meas. 59-65 ................................ 102 A welcome to Orkney, meas. 86-91 ................................ 103 “Jhon come kisse me noue” ..................................... 106 Renaissance Scottish dances, “lntrada” ............................. 105 “Coranto” ................................................... 106 Renaissance Scottish dances, “Currant” ............................ 108 “Sueit smylling Katie loves me” .................................. 107 Renaissance Scottish dances, “Sweit smylling Katie loves me” ........... 109 “Till I be lullid beyond thee” .................................... 110 “Last time I came over the mure” ................................. 110 Renaissance Scottish dances, “Last time I came over the mure” .......... 111 Renaissance Scottish dances, ”Ane exempill of tripla” ................. 114 Renaissance Scottish dances, “Remember me my deir” ................ 116 “Almayne” .................................................. 118 Renaissance Scottish dances, “Almayne” ........................... 119 Three studies for percussion, I, meas. 1-9 ........................... 124 Three studies for percussion, I, meas. 11 ............................ 126 Three studies for percussion, l, meas. 16-17 ......................... 126 Three studies for percussion, ll, meas. 1-5 ........................... 128 Symphony no. 1, II, meas. 1-8 ................................... 129 Three studies for percussion, Ill, meas. 1-3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._ . . . .130 CHAPTE R ONE Introduction Background of the Study Pruslin (1981) writes At the age of forty-six, Peter Maxwell Davies has joined the select handful of composers who are universally considered the most important figures at work in the world today. His extraordinarily consistent and prolific output embraces every medium. Despite Davies’s formidable achievement, he is no ivory tower composer—on the contrary, his experience as a performer, conduc- tor and teacher renders him uncommonly practical in his approach. Each of his works, whether educational or virtuosic, theatrical or “absolute,” is utterly suited to its medium and precisely guaged to its purpose. At the same time, Davies is always himself, so that any part of this catalogue provides a history and cross-section of the preoccupations of this protean and charismatic musical personality (p. 5). Davies’ eminence as a composer is evidenced in many ways. His catalogue of pub- lished works lists over 140 compositions (Arnold, 1981 ); at least 17 of these pieces have been recorded by major performers for European and American labels (Greenfield, Layton, & March, 1977, 1982). He has been honored by the British government (“Break for younger listeners,” 1981), and is the subject of a lengthy entry in The new Grove dictionary of music and musicians (1980, pp. 275-279). Performances and reviews of his music are numerous; between September, 1982, and April, 1983, for example, 33 of his works were programmed on 93 separate occasions in Europe and the United States (Arnold, 1982). Davies’ first acknowledged works date from his years spent at the Royal Manchester College of Music (1952-6). After further study at the University of Manchester and in Rome with Goffredo Petrassi, Davies was appointed director of music at Cirencester Grammar School in England (1959). He held this post until 1962, at which time he accepted a Harkness Fellowship and went to Princeton to study with Roger Sessions. Davies’ interest in music education and in composing for young performers began during his tenure, at Cirencester; he has remained active in these areas since that time. “Like Benjamin Britten, and arguably to a far greater and more complex extent, working with children and young people has been crucial to his development as a composer and to the direction and content of music in education over the last two decades” (“Break for younger 1 2 listeners,” 1981). While vocal compositions and music theater comprise a large part of Davies’ musicufor young people, “the composer also doesn’t forget that there are those youngsters who simply feel more comfortable expressing themselves instrumentally rather than vocally” (Pruslin, 1981, p. 5). To date he has written ten instrumental works for young performers, ranging from short piano pieces to multi-movement works for large school orchestra. Varying degrees of difficulty are also represented; while some of this music is meant for “a budding recitalist,” other pieces, while still appropriate for school use, have been performed by such professional organizations as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Symphony Orchestra and the Fires of London (Davies’ own virtuoso chamber group) (Pruslin, 1981, p. 5). There is, therefore, a significant body of works which warrants further investigation and research. Purpose of the Study The purposes of this study are to examine Peter Maxwell Davies’ instrumental music for young performers according to the following criteria: (a) his philosophy of music education, particularly his views on the relationship of the composer to the school musician, and (b) his general compositional style. The Problem and Subproblems The full realization of the purposes of an analytical examination of Peter Maxwell Davies’ instrumental music for young performers generates the following problems and sub- problems. Philosophy (a) To summarize Davies’ philosophy of music education as expressed by himself and by commentaries on his work. (b) Subproblem—To identify appropriate areas in Davies’ philosophy which can be used as criteria for judgement of his music. Composition (c) To describe Davies’ compositional style and development and to relate this style to the works under investigation. (d) Subproblem—To analyze each work for general formal and stylistic character- istics; playing ranges of instruments; particular playing techniques and difficulties; sources, where applicable, e.g., transcriptions; circumstances and purposes of composition; level of performance difficulty; and the relationship of a particular work to Davies’ total output. Conclusions (e) To determine if the music examined does fit Davies’ expressed educational philos- ophy by comparing the musical characteristics of the compositions with Davies’ comments and statements on writing music for young performers. (f) To summarize the relationship of Davies’ instrumental music for young per- formers to his overall stylistic development as a composer, based on musicological references. Limitations and Definitions Limitations and definitions pertinent to this dissertation are as follows: (a) Only instrumental works, excluding vocal/choral works of any kind, will be analyzed. Instrumental music is defined in this context as music written specifically and exclusively for instruments, either solo or in ensemble. (b) For the purpose of this study, music for young performers will be those works catalogued as such by Arnold (1981), Davies’ manager and personal representative. (c) The music for young performers is presumed to have been written for young people’s use. Arnold (1982) writes, I think that the crucial point is that all the works that Mr. Maxwell Davies has written are intended for performance by non-specialist schoolchildren. This approach is, at first, difficult to comprehend, in that many teachers don’t have the faith in ordinary schoolchildren, within the classroom context, to tackle these works. However, it has been proved, repeatedly, that given an enlightened teacher any of these works can be performed magnificently. 4 (d) The works to be examined are those which are available as of December, 1983, according to both the Arnold catalogue and information supplied by Davies’ publishers. (e) The anlayses are not to be of a note-by-note nature; they are to hinge on formal and structural musical matters. The analysis is to include that which would be relevant to the music educator, particularly in regard to assessing a piece for performance by a student and/or student ensemble. (f) Davies’ philosophy of music education will be considered as a unique entity; E music will be related to h_i$ philosophy. It is beyond the scope of this dissertation to catego- rize or relate this material to that of other music educators unless done so specifically by Davies or another writer on this subject. (g) Davies’ entire compositional output will not be traced or discussed. Rather, those works and characteristics which are necessary to an understanding of the music under consideration will be examined. (h) Determinations of playability and difficulty of ensemble and orchestral works will be based upon standards established by Kennan (1970) and Blatter (1980) for elemen- tary, junior-high, and senior-high musicians. (i) Quotations are given exactly as in the original sources, including the use of British spellings. There are, then, discrepancies regarding some words which are to be found both in quotations and in the rest of the text; in the latter case standard American usage has been followed. Need for the Study Peter Maxwell Davies’ music, especially that written for instruments, is of value to music educators and, therefore, in need of systematic study. This music is not as widely known in the United States as it is in Europe, particularly in Great Britain. These pieces provide effective introductions to and examples of many styles and types of music, includ- ing programmatic works, transcriptions of Renaissance and Baroque music, and the avant garde. 5 Along with all this musical nourishment, Davies injects, almost en route as it were, a goodly measure of culture—whether in the use of plainchant, or medieval Latin, or of serious poetry—without this in any way having to be spelled with a capital C (Pruslin, 1981, p. 5). In addition, Davies’ position as a teacher of music at the Cirencester Grammar School provides a fine example of the interaction between composer and school, and as such is of concern to both these areas of the music profession. CHAPTER TWO Review of the Literature Journal articles comprise the major source of information on Davies and his music, largely because of the recent nature of so much of his work. In turn, the majority of the articles are reviews and critiques of specific works, based on their professional performance. Additional analytical material on Davies concerns two major areas: (a) his compositional development and style, and (b) his educational philosophies and beliefs. Compositional Style Routh (1972) provides an analysis of Davies’ musical style by discussing key works in various phases of the composer’s development. After citing some of Davies’ early music, the author describes the influence of the composer’s work at Cirencester on his later develop- ment. During Davies’ time at Cirencester a characteristic pattern began to appear in his compositional output, one in which groups of two or three individual compositions would be derived from the “same basic inspiration” (Routh, 1972, p. 232). Davies’ String quartet (1961 ), Leopardi fragments (1961), and Sinfonia (1962), for example, all “owe their impulse to Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610” (Routh, 1972, p. 232). Other works which Routh (1972) cites as fulfilling a similar function are Davies’ own opera Taverner and those pieces “whose chief characteristic is that of dramatic treatment” (p. 240), i.e., Hymnos (1967), Antechrist (1967), and Eight songs for a mad king (1969). Routh (1972) also identifies “a group whose aim is primarily. distortion or parody” (p. 240), including Revelation and fall (1966), L’Homme arme (1968) and St. Thomas wake—Foxtrot for orchestra (1969). While other works are mentioned in Routh’s study, Davies’ Second fantasia on John Taverner’s “In no_r_nin_e” receives the most attention; ”an analysis based on the composer’s programme-note for the first performance” is included in the text (Routh, 1972, p. 235). Along with Routh (1972), Pruslin (1979) provides a comprehensive overview of Davies’ musical development. Pruslin, who has been associated closely with Davies as a member of the Fires of London, selected and introduced a collection of essays based on material from 7 Tempo, entitling the collection Studies from two decades (1979). This volume contains 19 separate entries, divided into four parts, each part contining pertinent materials on certain time periods in Davies’ life (i.e., 1957-64, 1965, 1966-69, and 1969-78). As Pruslin (1979) writes in his Editor’s Note, “The articles in this collection were chosen so as to provide a balance between the specific and the general, between close musical analysis and a broader, more ‘cultural’ approach.” Particularly relevant is Pruslin’s own introductory piece, which examines Davies’ stature as a composer, his mastery of compositional technique, and his music’s “capacity for growth, change and renewal” (Pruslin, 1979, p. 3). In the same work is a study by Knussen, himself a British composer, that provides a thorough analysis offlg Klee pictures, commenting on the importance of this piece in the context of Davies’ work with children. Most of the other entries in this collection deal with specific works important to Davies’ development; the composer himself is represented by three essays, ‘Taverner’—a synopsis (1972); ‘Revelation and Fall’ (1979); Symphony (1978); and a concluding poem, written along with Roderic Dunnett, entitled Envoi (1979). This volume also includes a chronological list of Davies’ works. Another source on Davies’ music is Greenfield (1981), who briefly discusses Davies’ compositions from the 1970’s. This author also finds the composer’s Orkney home a direct influence on much of his work. Greenfield (1981) compares Davies to another important composer of music for young performers, writing that “working for children inspires him just as it did Benjamin Britten” (p. 5). Two entries in Musical Events (1962, 1969) provide very brief and informal introduc- tions to Davies and his early work. Northcott (1969) considers Davies’ music in a general manner; this source also includes the music for two of Davies’ Five little pieces for piano (1960-64). More recently, Griffiths (1980) has examined and reviewed Davies’ music, emphasizing the composer’s interest in pre-classical music. Smalley (1968) also mentions the usage of medieval materials and techniques in Davies’ music. In addition Smalley considers the 8 “rediscovery of the gesture” (1968, p. 3) in Davies’ works (i.e., the derivation of a particular piece from long contrapuntal lines, rather than from short motives). The author comments that Davies’ “stylistic and linguistic development has been remarkable for the way in which the same obsessive thread runs unswervingly through it” (Smalley, 1968, p. 3). Further emphasizing the importance of medieval materials in Davies’ music, particularly through the use of parody, Chanan (1969) writes, ”One of the persistent features of Peter Maxwell Davies’ music has been the use of musical material borrowed from medieval and renaissance sources” (p. 12). Raynor (1980) and Porter (1965) both compare and contrast Davies’ professionally- oriented works with his school music: “Maxwell Davies’ work at Cirencester spread out to influence musical education generally. . . it influenced his own ‘grown-up’ compositions in the direction of a new simplicity” (Porter, 1965, p. 17). These two writers also consider Davies in the context of his belonging to the so-called Manchester School, in which Alexander Goehr, Peter Maxwell Davies, and Harrison Birtwistle. . . linked initially by their being students in Manchester at the same time and forming in 1953, with the pianist John Ogden, an actual Group that brought its music to London in 1956; re-linked subsequently (after each had pursued a rather different path) in their organizing a Summer School at Wardour Castle, Dorset, in 1964 (Porter, 1965, p. 16). J. Arnold’s two catalogues of Davies’ published works (1981) not only categorize each piece, but also include the circumstances of the premiere performance. These volumes contain valuable introductory essays by Pruslin that summarize Davies’ musical development, emphasizing the variety and unifying factors to be found in his work. Three previous doctoral dissertations have evaluated and investigated Davies’ music. Preheim (1972) dealt with his choral works, while Borwick (1972) analyzed the composer’s Antechrist. Silsbee (1979), who analyzed Stone litany as Part 2 of her dissertation, provides insights into ways of approaching and examining Davies’ avant-garde works. Tracing the process of music development employed in Stone litany, Borwick illustrates the great techni- cal control which Davies has over his materials. Music Education With regard to Davies’ activities in the area of music education, Woodward (1978) summarizes the composer’s teaching at Cirencester, which included the teaching of traditional musical grammar (e.g., sight-singing) in addition to innovative ideas concerning improvisation and composition by students. Woodward also quotes Davies regarding the latter’s thoughts on how he approaches his own compositions for children (see Chapter Four). Finch (1982) concentrates on the close musical relationshp between Davies’ music for children and his other compositions. Citing “plain speaking, accessibility, selection, harmonic clarity, improvisatory freedom” (Finch, 1982, p. 9) of musical language as necessary consid- erations for the composer’s works written for Cirencester, the author gives examples of how these and other elements of Davies’ school music affected his adult-oriented pieces. Davies’ Orkney home has also had an influence on his music for young perfoimers, particularly in the recent past. The move to Orkney in 1970 marked the beginning of a new period of technical and emotional expansiveness as new stimuli—light, sound, space, movement, and the written word—permeated Davies’ language. “I wanted to learn from the reactions of people in the community so that music would not be inflicted on them but there would be an interaction between them and me, working both ways constructively” (Finch, 1982, p. 9). “Break for younger listeners,” an unsigned article in The Times Educational Supple- m (1981 ), very briefly summarizes Davies’ work with children. The previous source cites one reason that Davies considers composing for children to be important: “Composersmuit write for children: they are the performers and listeners of the future.” Schlotel (1973) interviewed Davies as part of an overview of his music for young people. Emphasized here are Davies’ ideas on improvisation and composition by students, influences on his own compositional technique, and his reason for leaving teaching (i.e., “he did not leave because he disliked teaching, it was rather because he felt increasingly called to devote his whole time to composition”) (Schlotel, 1973, p. 14). The introductory note to an early catalogue of Davies’ music (1975) once again mentions the importance of his teaching at Cirencester, “where he implemented a highly 10 original and fresh approach to teaching young people to make music” (p. 2). It is also noted in this unsigned essay that “these methods produced such successful and interesting results that his services as a lecturer have been much in demand ever since. During this period he wrote several ’works for young people and made a series of BBC Television broadcasts to schools” (Peter Maxwell Davies, 1975, p. 2). J. Arnold (1982), Davies’ manager and personal representative, has published a commentary on the composer’s The two fiddlers a children’s opera. In this note she empha- ) sizes the importance of the teacher, and particularly the teacher’s confidence in him/herself and his/her students, in producing a good performance of Davies’ music. Commentaries on performances of Davies’ school works are plentiful, particularly in regard to his operas and theatrical works for young performers. Presentations of his children’s opera The two fiddlers and Cinderella, as given at the St. Magnus Festival in Orkney, have been the subjects of reviews by Griffiths (1978), Kenyon (1978), Wilson (1978), and Clements (1980). Performances of some of his instrumental works for young people have also received notice in the press. Tempo (1980) contains material on Davies’ Yellow cake review, the source of Farewell to Stromness and Yesnaby ground, two of his piano pieces for young performers. Clements (1980) has reviewed the premiere of A welcome to Orkney, also given at the Orkney Festival. Both Music and Musicians (1976) and Griffiths (1976) have evaluated performances of Five Klee pictures; Griffiths’ review was of a concert given by the Young Musicians’ Symphony Orchestra. All of these reviews contain descriptions of the individual works and comments on the importance of Davies’ work with and music for children, as well as critiques of the performances themselves. One of the most prolific writers both on Davies’ music and his work in education has been the composer himself. One of his earliest contributions is a transcript of a talk which he gave at the 14th Symposium of the Colston Research Society held at the University of Bristol (1963). Delivered toward the end of Davies’ stay at Cirencester, this talk; after commenting on the state of music education at the school upon the composer’s arrival, is ll concerned mainly with original composition by children as part of their school music experience. The composer emphasizes teacher competence and knowledge as key factors in this type of activity; he also illustrates his ideas with musical examples written by his own students. In the transcribed session following this talk the composer states that teacher confidence is important when working with student composers. He also mentionssome ideas on orchestrating for school groups; the necessity for traditional training of students, partic- ularly in sight-singing, along with more creative activities; and the need for the teacher to be positive and encouraging when assessing student efforts. Davies has written of his own compositions for school use in Making Music (1961) and in a note on his opera Cinderella (1982). In the latter the composer states that children’s terms of reference must be considered carefully when writing music for their use, being wary of underestimating their musical capacity. He also writes that it would be a much more profitable course of education for young composers to be apprenticed to schools, choirs and orchestras under expert guidance rather than receiving their present abstract and academic theory of composition at our music colleges (Davies, 1982, p. 2). In a note on his The two fiddlers the composer mentions an idea that keeps occuring in the literature on Davies’ music for children: So often young people appear to have minimal difficulty with the “contempor- ary” music that their elders might find puzzling, and their unbiased, though extremely searching freshness is always a great inspiration to work for and with (Davies, 1982). In addition to his work at Cirencester, Davies has been concerned with the training of composers at the college and university levels. In a 1967 article, he criticized the educational training of composers, particularly in regard to the lack of emphasis on sound technique and rigorous analytical studies. He does not feel that such training is appropriate only for future composers: “A teacher who cannot improvise and compose is as incapacitated as one who cannot play and sing” (Davies, 1967, p. 463). In writing about his music in more general terms Davies has discussed his ideas about musical series and sets. He writes, 12 l have for a few years been working with series or “sets” (not necessarily 12- tone) which are in a perpetual state of transformation, so that given musical identities, such as “straight” or “inverted” set forms, are only gradually estab- lished and disintegrated. . . When such a transformation process is projected against pre-existing “raw material,” it can produce very interesting results, the raw material being sometimes filtered through the set-process, sometimes col- Iiding, as it were, head-on (Davies, 1968, p. 250). In addition to considering compositional technique, Davies has also considered the importance of his Orkney home and environment to his music: “There’s no escape from yourself here, you just have to realize what you are through your music, with much more intensity than in urban surroundings” (Davies, 1976, p. 21). Thus, at about the time of “Davies’ adoption of Orkney as his home, a new lyricism and reflectiveness enter his work” (Walsh, 1980, p. 278). Davies has shown his concern for the composer and his unique problems and challenges by writing three articles on this subject. The first (1956) is a reply to an article by Ernest Gold, in which the latter criticized modern music as being too scientific, complex, and rational. Davies defends modern techniques of composition, stating that all types of musical construction should be taught in the schools. He writes that a mastery of technique is important so that those who “know next to nothing. . .might not be so keen. . .to inflict their paltry knowledge on defenceless children in schools” (Davies, 1956, p. 84). In this 1956 article Davies comments on his own philosophy of composition: Any composer worthy of the name can afford to take for granted the fact that he is expressing a “fundamental human experience,” and set about finding him- self the most suitable and convincing way of doing it. If he has any doubts about this, he should either stop composing, or convince himself, once and for all, otherwise he is guilty of fraudulent imposition on his fellows (Davies, p. 85). In a later essay (1959), Davies writes on the particular problems facing the contem- porary British composer. He believes that contemporary developments in music cannot be ignored by writing, “In order to transcend its time, a work must have a time to transcend, a point of reference in time. . . . There is no longer any place for nationalism in music: our problems are fundamental, general, international” (Davies, 1959, p. 563). Once again Davies criticizes the training which composers receive in schools, bemoaning the lack of competent 13 composition teachers. Commenting on the seeming strangeness of new music, Davies (1959) states, It is wrong to say that art is in advance of its time. It is a sure indication of its time, although the true nature of any given period is, at first, recognized by few. The others, the vast majority do not penetrate beyond the surface, which is always a hangover from the preceding period anyway (p. 564). Davies also addresses the problem of form as “another acute problem in our present situa- tion” (1959, p.564), citing the following example: Stockhausen in his Eleventh Piano Piece, presented the performer with several selections of music, or “groups,” as they are called, and left the determination of their order to the performer. But surely this procedure shifts the responsi- bility of formal organization on to the player, and evades the problem of form (p.564) In 1965, Davies discussed his reasons for coming to study with Roger Sessions. He examined the case of the composer in America, writing, the real composer has no real function in American society. . . one learns com- position not so much to be able to compose, as to be able to make a living teaching composition (Davies, 1965, p. 2). Davies also commented upon the gulf between the university-based American composer and school/public performances of his music, stating that neither the composer nor the society can benefit from such a situation. CHAPTER THREE Davies’ Stylistic Development Born in 1934, Peter Maxwell Davies was educated at Leigh Grammar School (Lancashire), the Royal Manchester College of Music (1952-56), and Manchester University (1952-57) (Walsh, 1980, p. 275). While at Manchester University Davies became associated with a group of young musicians including the composers Harrison Birtwistle and Alexander Goehr and the pianist John Ogden. Calling themselves New Music Manchester, these musicians took a then unfashionable interest in the European avant garde. . . Later they came frequently to be known simply as the Manchester Group, although their music pursued divergent courses from the first (Walsh, 1980, p. 275). It was during this time at Manchester that Davies composed his earliest acknowledged works, the Trumpets sonata and the Piano pieces, Op. 2. Both of these works employ pre-existing materials and compositional devices; the Trumpets sonata contains a rhythmic series, based on principles of set theory, while the Piano pieces make use of isorhythm. The use of borrowed material and technique has become a persistent feature of Davies’ music. Accord- ing to Walsh (1980), in the early works this process is little more than an extension of the serial technique. . . It is as if a parallel were being drawn between the procedures of serialism and the still more rigorous and specialized techniques of medieval music (p. 276). Davies’ first “true” 12-tone piece was the woodwind sextet Alma redemptoris mater of 1957. This was also the first of his works to use a specific medieval piece as a composi- tional source, in this case a Dunstable motet of the same name. In 1957-58 Davies, sponsored by an Italian government scholarship, studied with Goffredo Petrassi. Petrassi subjected Davies’ style to careful scrutiny, and it was under his guidance that Davies wrote his first important works for large ensembles, the St. Michael sonata and Prolation. St. Michael sonata, for 17 winds, was based on plainchants of the Requiem Mass. Inspired by the late-Renaissance music of the Venetian school, Davies makes use of antiphonal choirs in this work. In the St. Michael sonata, however, the 14 15 emphasis is on line, texture, dynamics, and timbre, rather than on vertical sonorities. The composer stated, “I was much torn by the fundamental question of good and evil at that time. . . Writing that work was an attempt to come to terms with that problem” (Hindley, 1971, p. 532). In Prolation, which is based on medieval proportional devices, short motifs are subjected to varying treatments regarding density, dynamics, and note values. As an attempt to apply medieval principles in a contemporary context, this orchestral work was awarded the Olivetti prize in Rome in 1959. In summarizing Davies’ music to 1959, Hindley (1971) writes, In all these earlier works, however, the sources never appear in their original form, but are always transmuted through complex serial and contrapuntal techniques into a musical structure which, although exhibiting the same kind of intellectual and emotional toughness of much late medieval music, neverthe- less sounds totally different (p. 532). Upon his return to England in 1959, Davies was appointed director of music at Cirencester Grammar School. His work there was significant in his development as a composer, for he is one of the few living composers who not only writes consistently and successfully for young performers but who considers his work for children and adults as totally inseparable. From his earliest work as music director at Cirencester. . . the process of cross- pollination and inter-fertilization has been consistent and unique. . . it started a revolution in composing. “I listened to what the kids were doing and felt my way very slowly and gently. I realised they could not only play music which you could arrange and adapt, even compose, for their quite specific use, but that they could compose, impro- vise, conduct, and perform their own work in a way from which I could Iearn” (Finch, 1982, p. 9). Routh (1972) writes, The most direct result of Davies’ years at Cirencester was the Christmas sequence of carols and instrumental sonatas, O Magnum Mysterium (1960). The intention of this work was to write something within the range of children but without compromising his own individual style which was just beginning to be formed. The importance of this work is that it tested the applicability and relevance of the new style; if young people could assimilate it, surely the composer might thence proceed to enlarge the scope of subsequent compositions. The instru- mental sections allow for free improvisation within defined limits. The words of the carols are, needless to say, mediaeval. Both the carols and the instrumen- tal sonatas are, by necessity, simple, and. . . the chordal, melodic nature of the carols is a perfect foil for the more fragmentary part-writing of the sonatas (p. 232). 16 O magnum mjsterium concludes with an organ fantasia built on the opening notes of the carol theme. Here we find a strength and power. . . The almost excessively austere crescendo over a rising scale on the pedals with which the piece opens, and the superbly ”organistic” climax, have a basically simple grandeur that is new (Waterhouse, 1979,p.20) In discussing O magnum mysterium Knussen (1979) comments, This music must have appeared outrageously difficult in all respects to most music educators at that time, yet it proceeded from the premise that children will respond best to music which presumes their serious attention and which, while remaining technically within their capacities, extends their concepts of what is musically possible for them—and, indeed, of what music itself is (pp. 8-9). Davies’ music for children liberated his own language into the comparative freedom of his 1961 String Quartet, with its controlled improvisation, the whirling, almost childlike gesture at the end of the First Taverner Fantasia of 1962, the clarity of the 1964 Seven In Nomine, the economy and austerity of the Five Carols of 1967. The uninhibited kaleidoscopic percussion patternings of timbre, rhythm, and pitch which have become such a hallmark of Davies’ writing have travelled from the hands of children in O Magnum Mysterium to the virtuoso marimba playing of Gregory Knowles in the First of London to the full resources of a symphony orchestra in works such as Worldes Blis and the Second Symphony (Finch, 1982, p. 9). While at Cirencester Davies composed a series of works based on Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610. While not written for young performers, each of these pieces shows the new stylistic developments which were taking place in Davies’ music. Leopardi fragments (1961) for soprano, contralto, and chamber ensemble was his first important work for solo voices, this was also his most “romantic” composition to date. Here, after the hard, multicoloured brilliance of the wind ensemble used in St. Michael. . . he turned to a chamber group rich in atmos- pheric possibilities. Only eight instrumentalists are required. . . but from them Davies extracts an extraordinary variety of evocative textures. . . This sort of textural variety is found throughout the work, and its atmospheric power is sometimes almost Debussian—an impression enhanced by many suggestions of the whole-tone scale in the melodic shapes (Waterhouse, 1979, pp. 20-21). The String quartet, also of 1961, is derived from Monteverdi’s Sonata sopra Sancta Maria. While much of Davies’ preceding music had made use of short melodic motifs, in the Quartet longer, more lyrical lines appear. This work “contains the first of those extra- ordinary, long, Inwardly ecstatic adagios that have virtually become Maxwell Davies’ own 17 property” (Knussen, 1979, p. 12). In the Sinfonia (1962), the last of the Monteverdi-inspired works, materials are subjected to gradual thematic transformations, with a new emphasis being placed upon vertical sonorities, as well as the individual melodic lines. “The three important works based on Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610. . . show pro- gressive steps towards this new directness of ‘professional’ manner” (Knussen, 1979, p. 12). These pieces have led Routh to comment, A comparison with Stravinsky is by no means inappropriate; not only is Davies particularly impressed by Stravinsky’s later serial works, such as Movements or Threni, but like the elder composer he is highly and enthusiastically receptive to the music of numerous other periods and traditions; particularly the mediaeval, which he does not slavishly copy so much as embody into his own musical think- ing. He is a neo-mediaeval composer to the same extent as Stravinsky was a neo- classical composer; the two are precisely analagous (1972, p. 233). Davies left Cirencester in 1962 to go to Princeton on a Harkness Fellowship. He remained at Princeton until 1964, during which time he began a series of works inspired by John Taverner, the 16th-century English composer. This group of pieces can be considered a culmination of Davies’ output up to the mid-1960’s; they “closed this more or less abstract and cerebral phase in Davies’ relationship with early music” (Walsh, 1980, p. 277). The Taverner-inspired works include the opera Taverner, begun as early as 1957, with a libretto by the composer himself. Each act has a precise structure, with each scene being based on a single musical form. The plot considers the situation of John Taverner, a Catholic musician, who, when accused of heresy, compromised his beliefs in order to save himself. “The analogy with Berg’s Wozzeck is. . . most striking. Musical as well as spiritual parallels are drawn” (Routh, 1972, p. 234). Other works in this group include the First fantasia on an “In nomine” of John Taverner (1962), written as a preparation for the opera, and Seven in nomine (1963-65), which makes use of a formal scheme similar to that of O magnum mysterium. The most significant of the Taverner works, however, is the Second fantasia on John Taverner’s “In nomine” because “this Fantasia sums up his technical advances up to 1964” (Routh, 1972, p.237) 18 Davies himself has commented on the Second Fantasia (1973, p. 7). The work grew out of the completed first act of Taverner, during the writing of which I had felt that many ideas were capable of a more symphonic develop- ment that was possible within the confines of the dramatic context. . . My main compositional concern was to explore the possibilities of continuous thematic transformation; so that material is in a constant state of flux—the intervallic and rhythmic contours of one of the three main melodic figures. . . are systematically gradually modified, until the figure becomes, for instance, its own inversion, or one of the other figures. The musical processes involved are perhaps somewhat analagous to the literary techniques employed by Hoffman in, say, Meister Floh, where certain people, spirits, and plants are shown to be, within the context of an elaborate “plot,” manifestations of the same character-principle—as is made clear by a line of connection (not a process of development!) that is sometimes semantic. In this, the largest of Davies’ works since his Prolation, the somewhat brash serialism of the student work is here tempered by a sense of freedom, such as is shown by the constantly evolving set, or by the whirling woodwind. . . which marks the central climax of the work; by a concern for the vertical sound as much as the horizontal melody, which has the effect of making the music structurally less diffuse, more tightly knit; by the deeper assimilation of mediaeval contrapuntal techniques, which are used throughout this complex and intricate score; also by a broader more symphonic conception, which is impelled by a dramatic momentum, originating from that highly dramatic crisis facing John Taverner at his trial; this gives the work an urgency. . . the use of the orchestra is always subservient to the material; the orchestration is entirely functional; the overall effect is of anguish covering a long time-span. The influence of Mahler is pervasive. . . But the work is a highly individual break-through as far as style is concerned. The post-Webern serialism, which was Davies’ somewhat theoretical and forbidding starting-point, has already been left far behind, and has been humanized, personalized, dramatized by the composer’s affinity with the mediaeval period (Routh, 1972, pp. 235, 237). In 1965 Davies took part in the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Conference on Music in Education (for which he wrote another work for children, The shepherd’s calendar) and gave lecture tours in Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. He returned to Australia in 1966 to take up an appointment as composer-in- residence at the University of Adelaide. In 1967 Davies came back to Britain where, with Harrison Birtwistle, he founded the Pierrot Players. This chamber ensemble (re-named The Fires of London in 1970) has become associated closely with Davies and his music; “It is specifically for this group. . . that a number of works have been written since 1967” (Routh, 1972, p. 240). This new phase in Davies’ development was marked by a series of ~'.-._..g..‘g a. -_ L. 40..-“...n _.'.a;. .x- ...... . . 19 more theatrical, gestural works that. . . lean no less heavily on borrowed material, with the difference that the material is increasingly parodied, in the modern sense as well as the medieval, and parody is now an important associative device, as well as a compositional technique (Walsh, 1980, p. 277). One of the first works with which the Fires of London became associated was Revelation and fall, composed in 1966. This work is more experimental than most of Davies’ earlier music; it also relies heavily on visual, as well as musical effects. While use is made of such medieval techniques as mensural canon, many new avant-garde techniques also are present. Davies (1968) has written about this piece: Apart from instrumental writing more rhythmically ambitious than any of my previous music, except the opera Taverner, and a vocal line of terrifying virtuosity (to be sung by the indefatigable Mary Thomas), it requires specially constructed percussion instruments. These, made by Noah Morris, include a metal cylinder with protruding steel rods, a ratchet turned by a clock mechanism, and a glass-smashing machine, as well as ordinary pebbles, clapping sticks, anvil, handbells, railway guard’s whistle, and knife-grinder. . . l have given the piece much period flavor (carried over by Noah Morris in the sculptural percussion instruments)—not only in the often Pierrot Lunaire-Iike vocal treatment, but in the suggestions of Lehar, of ragtime of the period, etc. Some of the instruments have individual contact microphones and amplifications, and the singer occasion- ally uses a loud-hailer (p. 250). Antechrist (1967) was written to be performed by The Fires of London as a type of overture at their concerts. music The composer has said that it is concerned with “things not being quite what they seem to be. . . It begins with a straightforward rendering of the 13th-century motet ‘Deo confitemini—Domino,’ which is then broken up and superimposed on related plainsong fragments, which both musically and with regard to the related implied texts, turns the sense of the motet inside out.” An interesting feature of the motet is that the lowest and middle parts played together, and the middle and top parts together, are more or less consonant, but when all three are sounded together, dissonance is produced (Chanan, 1979, p. 70). Related to Antechrist is a group of “realisations” which Davies has based on the of Bach, Purcell, Dunstable, and others. The pieces. . . were written as “curtain raisers” for Fires of London concerts. . . we have found them a very useful means of establishing contact with an audience, who respond immediately to the familiar and recognizable aspects of the realisa- tions and are then very willing to go on and meet the demands of the contemporary works that follow. Over the years, these short pieces have grown into a consider- able corpus of works in their own right. . . Clearly, the assignment of Renaissance and Baroque pieces to a timbrally mixed ensemble of modern instruments can in no way be construed as authentic—more importantly, these realisations were never intended as such. As the word “realisation” suggests, Peter Maxwell Davies . . __.... . ._ .-.-._.~.....--.._-.-‘:L..~._ 20 is interested in using the works concerned as a departure-point for his own very personal interpretations. While this may not appeal to the purist, such inter- pretations still very much inhabit the world of “pure” music. Far from representing a philosophical platform from which Maxwell Davies can moralize at the prevalent temper of the times, the realisations are audibly the extension of an enormous knowledge and love of early music, carried out in a spirit of colleague- ship across the centuries. . . There is much humour here, also parody and irony both subtle and explicit. As is usual with Maxwell Davies, the presence of these qualities does not preclude the presence of a serious and relevant point under- neath (Pruslin, 1981). St. Thomas wake: Foxtrot for orchestra on a pavan by John Bull (1969) makes use of a dance band (including an out-of-tune piano) contrasted with the larger instrumental body. It is in Vesalii icones of 1969, however, that the composer combines medievalism, parody, and pastiche with a new aspect, that Of modern dance. Here illustrations from Vesalius’ De humanis corporis fabricia, a 16th-century anatomical work, are superimposed on images from the 14 Stations of the Cross. The use of the whole-tone scale, which was found in others of Davies’ works including the Leopardi fragments, St. Thomas wake, and Taverner, appears here, as does the increasingly-characteristic use of bell sounds. Davies’ continuing use of medieval sources is very apparent in his Missa super l’homme arme (1968), which began as a completion of an anonymous 15th-century Mass based on the L’homme arme tune. “While working on this, the composer somewhat disarm- ingly admits, ‘other possibilities suggested themselves’ ” (Routh, 1972, p. 241 ). The 15th- century original is fragmented and distorted, with bell sounds once again forming an important part of the texture. Eight songs for a mad king (1969) marks a hiatus in Davies’ development, one in which “Dramatic gesture informs the very substance of the music” (Walsh, 1980, p. 277). This work is described by the composer: The poems forming the text of this work were suggested by a miniature mech- anical organ playing eight tunes, once the property of George III. A scrap of paper sold with it explains that “This Organ was George the third for Birds to sing.” A few years ago, the organ was acquired by the Hon. Sir Steven Runciman, who in 1966 demonstrated it to me. It left a peculiar and disturbing impression. One imagined the King, in his purple flannel dressing-gown and ermine night-cap, struggling to teach birds to make the music which he could so rarely torture out of his flute and harpsichord. Or trying to sing with them, in that ravaged voice, 21 made almost inhuman by day-long soliloquies, which once murdered Handel for Fanny Burney’s entertainment. There were echoes of the story of the Emperor’s nightingale. But this Emperor was mad; and at times he knew it, and wept. The songs are to be understood as the King’s monologue while listening to his birds perform, and incorporate some sentences actually spoken by George lll._. . In performance, the flute, clarinet, violin and cello players sit in cages, repre- senting, on one level, the bullfinches the King was trying to teach to sing. The King has extended dialogues with these players individually. . . As well as their own instruments, the players have mechanical birdsong devices, operated by a clockwork, and the percussion player has a collection of bird-call instruments. The vocal writing calls for extremes of register and a virtuoso acting ability (Davies, 1973). ln’considering Davies’ music up through 1969, Walsh states, Between the Second Taverner Fantasia and the Eight Songs for a Mad King there was indeed a substantial breakdown of method. From an intensive unity of manner and matter, one passes to an extensive disunity, the interesting point. being that the composer seems to endorse—even design—this breakdown by his choice of subject. However, the breakdown is accompanied by a great enrichment of means, not only idiomatic but technical and, not least, textural and coloristic. . . Texturally a complete emancipation took place. In the Second Fantasia polyphony, though well judged, is ruthlessly functional and still shows the influence of serial fragmentation. In subsequent works the growing importance of gesture lends increasing substance, independence and character to individual lines so that a new kind of polyphony is created, of great brilliance and plasticity. Colour achieves a new importance. Bell sounds dominate. . . ideas are stimulated by the sharp outlines of individual instruments, above all clarinet, violin and soprano voice, and by the fascination with the “music of the absurd”—out-of—tune positive organs, honky-tonk pianos, instruments built from spare parts found in a scrapyard, and the crazed singing of a madman (1980, pp. 277-278). In 1970 Davies moved to Orkney, off the northeastern coast of Scotland. His works written at about the time, such as From stone to thorne and Hymn to St. Magnus, contain a new lyricism and reflectiveness. The continued religious and medieval preoccupations are present in a more subtle manner, with no use being made of visual apparatus in performance. The Hymn to St. Magnus (1972), based on a 12th-century hymn to the Orcadian saint, uses bright colors and bell-sounds sustained and disciplined over a longer time-span than in previous works. In both Ave maris stella (1975) and Mirror of whitening light (1976-77) the composer has sought to define functional harmony in a non-tonal context and framework. Martyrdom of St. Magnus (1977), the first of Davies’ Orkney-inspired dramatic works, is clear, economical, and makes use of simple musical means. It stands in “sharp contrast to 22 the dramatic and contrapuntal complexities of Taverner; in it are resolved many of the psychological conflicts expressed in the music of a decade earlier” (Walsh, 1980, p. 278). Davies’ most recent music, most notably Symphony no. 1 (1976), Symphony no. 2 (1980), and Salome (ballet, 1979), shows a new concern for large-scale symphonic structures. Whereas in previous orchestral works one feels that “idea” is being clothed in sound—that there is just enough “orchestration” and no more—in the symphony one feels that idea and sound come from their own opposite corners and meet in the middle. The possibility of being aware of pure sound in the symphony introduces a subtle French flavour into a work which ultimately is deeply rooted in the Austro-German tradition. . . it must also be the opening of another compositional arc whose span and content we anticipate with the keenest interest (Pruslin, 1979, p. 6). Several characteristics run consistently throughout Peter Maxwell Davies’ music: the use of borrowed and pre-Classical materials and techniques; a flair for the dramatic; an interest in new types of musical organization and sonority. All of these characteristics will be found in Davies’ instrumental music for young performers, as investigated in Chapter Five of this dissertation. CHAPTER FOUR Davies and Music Education Peter Maxwell Davies has been involved with contemporary music education in three capacities: he has been an active and influential composer of music for school use, a com- mentator on educational topics, and a teacher. His first experience in this last area began in 1959, when he was appointed music director at Cirencester Grammar School. His reason for taking the position was less than dramatic: When I got there I had no approach to teaching whatsoever. I came back from Italy, where I had been studying, and found I had no money; I had to make some somehow and I thought teaching would probably be the least painful way, although one does not make all that much at it, so I applied for the job at Cirencester and I went down there without any preconceived ideas at all. When I got there, my first concern was to establish discipline, nothing beyond—I was nasty to them, like mad, for three months, just imposing personality; nobody dared stir in my class. I thought “Right, I’ll teach you lot and you will jolly well have to take notice” and then, as they were decent kids, I could get on with.them quite well. . . I learned from experience all the time (Davies, 1963, pp. 116-117). He soon evolved a personal teaching method based largely on student creativity and performance. The traditional methods, he reasoned, were all wrong. Music at school had always been something that was there and which had to be taught. But to him it was something which could be discovered by teachers and pupils in a joint, creative, fun process. . . “At Cirencester,” he explains, “I insisted that the children should improvise with their voices and ‘sight-sing’ from written notation. It was absolutely essential, it seemed to me, that they should have some rudiments of musical grammar if they were going to be involved in writing it down. “I wanted to make music enjoyable. My philosophy was to discover and develop the natural musicality of the kids. “It worked—this idea of having the kids improvise, compose in groups, make little pieces of music-theatre. “The various kind of music notation I developed—or they developed—were seeds which in recent years have sprouted quite considerably. It is immensely satisfying to see it happening.” Children love him, and he them (Woodward, 1978). Improvisation, including the use of aleatory writing in some of his school works, has formed an important part of Davies’ teaching method. The first step to composition is improvisation. Composition, after all, is much slowed-down and chewed-over improvisation. I used it very early with the school orchestra. . . rhythmic improvisation is invaluable even in class, where it can hammer home most effectively the basic rules about time (Davies, 1963, p. 114). 23 24 Schlotel (1973), in an interview with Davies, writes, I asked him to tell me more about his views on the value of this, reminding him that some of his critics have suggested that notation, which allows for chance happenings, has little to do with the mainstream of European culture. He replied: “I don’t know about the mainstream of ‘European culture,’ I think this is the biggest bugbear in musical education there ever was. It depends how you are dealing with music education. If you are dealing with interpretation it has no application, but if you are approaching musical education creatively as one approaches art education—one does not have people in an art class reproducing masters of the past, one has the pupils creating their own works of art, in an attempt to help them find their own creative resources out of themselves and bringing this to fruition as part of the development of their personality—if you take that approach to music education and you are having the children improvise and compose music, then I think you should use any means whatever in order to liberate their innate musical talents; and I think that aleatory notation is one of the biggest deinhibitors and in these circum- stances is extremely useful. It seems such an obvious thing to do in music education. I think any teacher, in order to liberate the natural creative talents of his pupils, ought to know something about the use of aleatory notation, and, for a start, get de-inhibited himself (pp. 13-14). Davies’ employment of student creativity in the learning process had its start in his work with the orchestra at Cirencester. Dissatisfied with the school orchestra arrangements then available to him, he began to make his own. It was here that the creative work with music in the school began—born of sheer necessity. The children were reading from manuscript parts, which could be altered in the practices, if some addition or subtraction should prove more effective. In this way they were already taking part in the creation of something new (Davies, 1963, pp. 108-109). Shortly after this some of Davies’ students started to make their own arrangements for the orchestra. Davies encouraged this, even allowing the arrangers to conduct their own scores. In 1960, about the time when Davies’ 0 magnum mysterium was being prepared for its permiere, original compositions by students began to appear. The composer had pre- pared his pupils for this activity: As the young composers had learned chords, 1 IV and V in class, working with them practically, their first original efforts naturally employed these formulae. . . many visitors to the School have been surprised to see me insisting on chords I, IV and V to the extent of having the children improvise on them cleanly and correctly in groups of simple chord patterns, with voices and instruments, resulting in an elementary but controlled polyphony. . . l have noticed that when children are composing in a group, it is like an art room, they do not 25 seem to mind if other people are busily engaged in the same activity round about; they can only, it seems, hear the thing they themselves are actually on (Davies, 1963, pp. 109, 111). While Davies insisted on his students’ having a sound musical vocabulary as a basis for their compositions, his approach to evaluating their work was liberal. The first need of a young person trying to compose is to get his idea across, and to niggle him about note-to-note niceties before the basic idea has become alive and meaningful and satisfactory on a very deep level is to inhibit all creation, and probably to inflict permanent harm on the creative faculty. . . These early compositions, then, by our children, contained parallel fifths and octaves and plenty of the pundit’s “grammatical errors.” Had I insisted on grammatical accuracy at this stage, the freshness and spontaneous joy would have disappeared (Davies, 1963, p. 110). Davies has emphasized the fact that the teacher must be a well-prepared and—know- ledgeable musician in order to work effectively with children on a creative level. As the student’s grasp of compositional technique and knowledge increases, it is clear that to help a pupil work out a composition. . . in a very, “contemporary” idiom, the teacher must be familiar with the problems involved. . . Yet the ready answers to the problems must be forgotten, and not intrude upon the solution of the particular work. But without the knowledge the teacher would be para- doxically powerless (Davies, 1963, p. 113). The teacher needs to be careful in his/her approach to criticism of student compositions. Even if the thing is not terribly good, you have to find something in it which you can single out and encourage. . . Really, you have to go very carefully, because if you say something injurious, you might do more injury than you think you are doing. I cannot emphasize that enough, because I am sure that the state of composition among young people generally, even at the college level, is largely due to their not being encouraged enough and people trying to make them conform to standards which they are just not capable of under- standing, or which they, sometimes quite justifiably, consider to be absolutely irrelevant to their own needs of expression (Davies, 1963, p. 122). Davies became quite well-known for his innovative work at Cirencester, and delivered a number of public lectures on this topic. Because of these lectures. . . many people felt that that was almost exclusively his pre-occupation at Cirencester. I questioned Maxwell Davies about this, and his reply made it clear that within the school he worked to a much more balanced curriculum: “1 lectured on composition by my pupils because I thought it was the thing people needed to know about most. One naturally wants the children to be aware of other-things as well. I always wanted it to be clear that I taught them to read music and to sight sing music, and, in order 26 to do this, one taught them traditional scales and notation, because those are the things they find in use around them all the time. I remember reading one article in which the writer thought I was trying to turn all the children into 12—tone composers or little Boulezes. I cannot imagine anything further from the truth. One is dealing with music as a live language and children don’t distinguish between music which is of the past and music which is of the present, they don’t have that historical sense. They will seize on anything, and use anything—in their improvisation, in their writing, and in their singing and playing—which is relevant to their musical needs. But in order for them to read traditional music, to play and sing it, we have to teach children basic techniques (Schlotel, 1973, p. 14). Davies’ success at Cirencester was shown not only by his public notoriety, but also by the activities of his students themselves. During his time there the number of children tak- ing up instruments increased dramatically; interest in contemporary music increased through student buying of records and attendance at and listening to concerts; and pupils at the school recorded 0 magnum mysterium under the composer’s direction for Argo records. Despite this success, Davies is quick to point out that his work at Cirencester does not represent an attempt to establish a systematic method of music education: “I do not think there is any formula at all really, beyond having absolute confidence in what you are doing and confidence in the children” (Davies, 1963, p. 117). Nevertheless the manifestations of Davies’ work as a teacher at Cirencester “shows that he must have unusual qualities as a teacher” (Raynor, 1980, p. 237). In addition to his work at Cirencester Davies has had experience in working with undergraduate composers, most notably at the University of Adelaide, where he was composer-in-residence in 1966. He has become an outspoken critic of the academic training of composers. My work at Cirencester has caused a certain confusion in what people see as my attitude to this—believing that, because I gave the children enormous freedom to express themselves through music, particularly in improvisation and composition, my attitude to students undergoing professional training in composition is one of laissez faire. . . For the child or adolescent, particularly when he is not going in for music, for the average child, the attitude I took at Cirencester is on two conditions right; the freedom must be controlled by someone who realizes that freedom becomes anarchy unless it operates within certain limits, and second, the teacher must be prepared to forget what he thinks music ought to be, and learns afresh with each new musical experience or creative act of the children in his charge. . . But with the serious composi-'_ tion student who wants to devote his life to musical creation, one assumes ' 27 that he has gone beyond this level of musical creative experience, while retaining the creative drive common to children; he is in search of a precise tool with which to put his musical ideas into the shape best suited to him—a reliable technique of composition. . . Our own colleges and academies are incompetent to deal with the composer, who emerges perhaps as a good amateur, but whose music has such technical flaws that it cannot be seriously considered (Davies, 1967, p. 463). Davies has identified the lack of training in analysis and technique as being at the core of the problem: Our youngest composer’s trouble is the almost complete lack of competent composition teachers. There are few who can inspire a student to study a score in close analytical detail; indeed, close analysis is sometimes even dis- couraged. . . Much of our so-called teaching of musical composition today is an accumulation of interest on vested ignorance (Davies, 1959, pp. 563—564). While Davies has emphasized the need for such training for professional composers, he also feels that creative experiences in music are important for all types of musicians. I found that, with children, musical creation is spontaneous and full of energy, so long as the teacher does not stop this creative flow, and I hope that one day creative music making will be as normal and accepted as part of a child’s musical education at school as painting and work with allied creative media are in his education in visual aids. Moreover, given that situation in schools, there is no reason why creation in music should not follow on in the training of every professional musician at college. . . Surely this would give considerable insight— just to have experienced musical creation on any level—into an interpretation of a composer’s intentions? (Davies, 1967, p. 463). Despite Davies’ contributions to music education as teacher and commentator it is as a composer of music for young people that he is best-known. Few living composers speak with a voice as original as his, and it is fortunate that his interest in education has resulted in a series of publications in which this originality can be explored by young performers (Schlotel, 1973, p. 14). Davies has a “special gift for writing uncomplicated (though often complex) pieces in all manner of ‘difficult’ idoms which children sing and play with ease and delight” (Gill). The importance of writing music for children forms an explicit part of Davies’ philo- sophy of composition. It is essential for composers to write for children—children as performers and listeners—as they are our audiences and musicians of the future. However, one soon realises that writing music for young people to play—people who rehearse and perform voluntarily, without payment, presents problems quite distinct from those concerning music for professional adults. . . The musical levels have to be finely judged, and as children never let a trick pass, always 28 saying exactly what they think, you know if you judge your compositions wrongly, there is no hope of getting away with it whereas with adults, you might at least sometimes be given the benefit of a doubt. Underestimation of children’s musical capacity is the easiest trap. Children find the basic vocabulary and grammar of today’s music difficult only when their teachers project onto the children their own difficulties in coping (Davies, 1980, p. 1). In addition to stating the reasons for and problems presented by composing music for young people, Davies has commented on how he approaches his composing in this area. “When you’re writing for children,” he says, “everything has got to work immediately”. . . Any work involving children. . . must be adaptable to the needs of the moment and to the performing talents available. And there must be no “writing down,” as children would see through any condescension. So how does he do it? . . . He explains: “You hypnotise yourself—and I use the word quite carefully—into a state where you are 1 1-years—old. You’ve got your techniques of composition to fall back on. . . but your reaction to what you’re doing the whole time is that of a child. “There I was, a 43-year-old, reacting to what I was creating as if I was a boy. It means I had this 11-year-old alter ego always just over my shoulder, listen- ing to everything and reminding me that ‘this won’t work, nor this; now that’s a good idea: yes, you’d better chase that one a bit’ . . . When you’re writing music for kids, you’ve got to find a theme which gives reign to the kind of extraordinary fantasy that they have. “Yet, at the same time, there are certain things which they are not prepared to tolerate—for instance, you can’t have anything which they would consider soppy. Musically, you mustn’t use the equivalent of very long words. Sim- plicity is the key-note. . . I hope that this childish enquiring, rather naive mind is the part of myself that I keep very much alive. “It should be a very impor- tant part of everybody’s experience. With it old people stay young; without it, young people soon become old” (Woodward, 1978). The importance which Davies places on not writing down to children is “lived out in the testing and inventive parts he always writes for non-specialist players, singers and actors’ (“Break for younger listeners,” 1981). “While giving young people their due credit, Davies keeps his feet firmly on the ground by tempering the adventurous with a judicious dose of the familiar” (Pruslin, 1981, p. 5). In this way Working on serious. . . projects of this kind will draw out the gifts of children who are intrinsically musical, and the more casual (or indeed hostile) partici- pants will not feel condescended to. Meanwhile the chronically musical child— who often feels like an outcast—will at last be able to find some kind of common concern with his classmates; for while Maxwell Davies’s school music is technically relatively simple, it is conceptually on a high level (Knussen, 1979, p. 9). In any effective performance of Davies’ school music the teacher has a crucial role. 29 The main problem seems to be that the teachers are rather frightened of the projects. They feel that such things are automatically beyond children. This has been proved not to be the case over and over again. The success of the project. . . depends entirely on the confidence of the teacher not to be intimidated by what he is about to do. Experience has shown that with careful teaching and endless patience, children turn out to be the same all over the wrold, and react spontaneously to the music and its challenges. I think that the crucial point is that enough time must be given to the whole project (Arnold, 1982, p. 1). Davies’ music for children is a reminder that he “ is not only able but eager to write music which, in his own words, is related to the community” (Wilson, 1978). Davies himself has written: It is through focal events like the St. Magnus’ Festival, all over the world, co- operating with the education authorities, the Arts’ Societies and other interested bodies, and backed up by a permanent and healthy musical life throughout the year in music societies, schools, sacred and secular choruses, dance bands, jazz groups, etc. that music of all kinds and on all levels can be seen to work meaningfully in the context of a community, in a way that needs exclude nobody—particularly the children (1980, p. 5). Davies’ music for young performers, of which the instrumental works will be examined in the next chapter, form a large, characteristic, and significant part of his com- positional output. Whatever the age involved, Davies’s attitude as a music educationist is every- where in evidence. Writing for young people does not mean writing down to them. In all these works, Davies’s own boyish sense of humour results in many comic moments, without precluding the possibility of a serious and relevant point being made underneath (Preslin 1981, pp. 5-6). CHAPTER FIVE The Instrumental Music for Young Performers The Arnold catalogue (1981) cites ten instrumental pieces which Peter Maxwell Davies has written for young performers; nine of these are presently in print and readily available. These works fall into three categories: piano pieces, music for small ensembles, and orchestral compositions and transcriptions. The earliest of these dates from 1959 and the latest from 1980, with a hiatus from 1960 to 1973. The orchestra works, with one exception, were written during Davies’ tenure at Cirencester Grammar School, thus reflect- ing his educational setting and compositional concerns of that time. All of the other music was composed after Davies’ move to Orkney, where he has no regular teaching responsi- bilities. Thus the instrumental music for young musicians brackets Davies’ compositional career, from his earliest efforts at writing for young people to his most recent music, with its consolidation of past developments and exploration of new means of expression. Piano Music Stevie’s ferry to Hoy, the first of Davies’ piano pieces for young performers, was published in 1978. This set of three short movements, written for beginners (Arnold, 1981, p. 13), was composed for “Anne Bevan to play on the piano” (Davies, 1978, p. 2). After leaving Cirencester in 1962 Davies had produced only one large-scale work for children, The shepherd’s calendar (1965), “for young singers (SATB) and instrumentalists” (Arnold, 1981, p. 14), commissioned by the UNESCO Conference on Music in Education. At the time of the publication of Stevie’s ferr to Ho , and coinciding with Davies’ involvement as Y Y artistic director of the Orkney Festival, a new series of children’s works began to appear, in- cluding the operas The two fiddlers (1978) and Cinderella (1980), Kirkwall shopping songs (1979), and a number of choral and instrumental pieces. Thus, while Stevie’s ferry to Hoy may not have been directly responsible for this new period of activity, it does mark a begin- ning of the composer’s more active return to the realm of musical composition for children. St_e_vie’s ferry to Hoy contains three short, programmatic movements, each one page 30 31 long. The first of these, “Calm water,” is an Andante in the key of C major (Figure 1). It begins with a four-measure phrase played by the right hand (meas. 1-4). This phrase immed- iately generates another important idea, in which measures 1-2 are superimposed on measures 3-4 (meas. 5-6, 7-8). As the right hand begins an exact repeat of the opening eight bars in measure 9, the left hand enters with another idea (meas. 9-12). While this ascending phrase moves mostly in contrary motion to the descending direction of the upper lines, its smooth contour shows a relationship to the opening measures of the piece. The rest of the piece is derived from these three musical figures. The left-hand phrase is played again, as the right hand continues with its repetition of the opening measures. This leads to a seven-measure passage in which the right hand plays a series of dotted-quarter note diads skeletonized and rhythmically augmented from measures 5 and 6 against a figure, based on the lower line from measure 12, in the left hand. The left-hand switches to the treble clef at this point, requiring that hand to cross over the right (meas. 17-23). In the next phrase (meas. 24-28) a transposition of the opening four measures of the piece, played in the left hand beginning on a1 , is contrasted with an inversion of this same idea in the right hand, starting on f2. In this case the original four-bar phrase is extended by the addition of another measure consisting of a sustained C major-minor seventh chord. This in turn is followed by four more measures of held cords (Fm - Eb - Db), leading to a repeat of measures 9-16, in which the opening eight bars of the piece are played in the right hand with the left-hand phrase from measures 912 appearing an octave lower than it did originally. Measures 18-23 are played, varied by some pitch changes. The short five- measure coda consists of a sustained C-major triad in the left hand above, which the right hand plays figures reminiscent of what happened during bars 21-22 and 18-19. “Calm water” is written to be played legato throughout. With the exception of one short poco crescendo followed by a diminuendo the dynamic level remains piano. The over- all rhythmic structure of the piece gives the effect of the alternation of long and short values. These characteristics, in conjunction with the flow of the melodic lines, reflect 32 Andante ’TT——_—TT“ .——-—\ A "sf“. 42 43 £4 45 46 47 48 49 so 51 52 Figure 1. Stevie’s ferry to Hoy, “Calm water” 1978 Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited, London ll right reserved Used by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited 33 appropriately the title of this piece. While the left hand is required to cross over the right at certain spots, no wide leaps or stretches are found in the parts. The performer must switch between treble and bass clef in reading the lower line; some reading knowledge of leger lines and octave transposition symbols is also necessary. While the composer has supplied pedaling directions, no finger- ings are given in the music. In contrast to the smooth motion of “Calm water,” “Choppy seas,” the second number of the set, is an Allegro moderato which takes the form of a white-key, five-finger exercise. The left hand is to play staccato at all times, while the right hand is directed to perform legato sempre (Figure 2). The opening six-measure, sequentially-constructed melodic line serves as an ostinato throughout the piece (meas. 1-6). . The right hand enters at measure seven with another six-measure phrase, played above the left-hand ostinato (meas. 7-12). This phrase is immediately repeated a minor third higher. At measure 19, with the beginning of the fourth statement of the ostinato, shorter phrase lengths appear in the upper part. Two two-measure phrases, melodically derived from the opening right-hand figure, lead to a gradual speeding-up of rhythmic motion in which one-bar units move in contrary motion to the left-hand line (meas. 19-30). At this’point the dynamic level drops to pp and the rhythm changes to a constant six- teenth-note motion in both hands. The notes of the ostinato remain the same, as does the contrary motion in the right hand. Five measures before the end of the piece the ostinato, instead of beginning another repetition, moves downward by step. In the next two measures the rhythmic pattern continues while the characteristic sequential melodic move- ment takes place at the beginning of the measure rather than on each beat, as has been the case since the beginning of the sixteenth-note passage. The piece closes on an A-minor chord, with punctuating notes (meas. 34-38). 34 nd I‘Legaro . I . . "I ’9 Allegro moderato ' / ‘ ms. {lam sempre fmolro PP subito (NSF. Figure 2. Stevie’s ferry to Hoy, “Choppy seas” 35 “Choppy seas” presents several challenges to the young pianist, requiring careful con- trol of articulation, dynamics, and rhythm. Fingerings are supplied, and the composer is most exact in his performance directions. Like “Calm water” this piece effectively paints a miniature tone picture, presented in a tightly organized manner. “Safe landing,” the last number in Stevie’s ferry to Hoy, is also the shortest. A 16- measure Andante, it requires both staccato and legato articulations from the player. Chang- ing and asymmetrical time signatures are also found in this piece. The right-hand part consists completely of thirds; melodic interest lies in the lower voice, which presents its motive in the second measure (Figure 3). The next three measures contain a repetition of this motive, with its last four notes extended through the use of a sequence. The right-hand thirds move in sequence, upward and in contrary motion in the lower voice. In measure 7 the opening bars are repeated, now in the key of C. Again this motive is sequentially extended, with increased rhythmic move- ment leading to a fermata on a chord consisting of the notes D - eb2 - c3 (meas. 10-12). Four measures before the end the right hand plays chromatically-descending sixths, while the left—hand idea appears in its original form, with its final note augmented. The penultimate measure moves to 5/4; the descending sixths continue, separated by rests. The ascending fourth interval which opens the left-hand motive appears twice, the time signa- ture switches back to 4/4, and the piece ends on a G-major chord. “Safe Ianding” contains some techniques used in the other pieces in Stevie’s ferry to Hoy, i.e., different articulations in each hand, the use of both treble and bass clef by the left hand. The dynamic levels indicated at the beginning of the piece remain consistent through- out. As in “Calm water,” no fingerings are given. Since no pedaling indications are present, apparently no pedal is to be used. The clarity of the lines, then, depends on the performer’s control of articulation and fingering. This collection of short pieces is quite representative of Davies’ views on musical com- position for children. By giving each piece a programmatic title, and by expressing these 36 Andante Figure 3. Stevie’s ferry to Hoy, “Safe landing” 37 titles musically, the child’s frame of reference is acknowledged. A particular pianistic tech- nique appears to be emphasized in each number: soft, legato playing in the first, indepen- dence of hands in the second, and clarity of individual lines in the third. Davies does not condescend to the young performer. While the music is clearly tonal, certain of his stylistic characteristics are present in each movement. Each of the pieces grows from the transfor- mation and development of melodic figures; the approach is largely horizontal, rather than vertical. While common chords are present, some sonorities and harmonic progressions show the music definitely to be of the 20th century. The modal influence of pre-Classical music appears in the second piece, which employs the Aeolian mode on A. Such music can- not be effectively performed in a mechanical fashion; Davies makes demands on the young pianist’s musical sensibilities, demands which can be met realistically through the simple means employed in the music itself. Davies’ next group of piano pieces, Farewell to Stromness and Yesnaby ground, both date from 1980. These are piano interludes from The yellow cake revue, “comments in words and music on the threat of uranium mining in Orkney for voice and piano” (Arnold, 1981, p. 37). They were first performed by the composer; according to the Arnold cata- logue (1981), however, they are deemed suitable for performance by young musicians. In his Composer’s Note to these piano works, which have been published as a set separate from The ellow cake revue Davies describes the music as “a se uence of cabaret st le numbers” , . (1980). Like.,,Stevie’s ferry to Hoy, these two works are programmatic in intent. “The Yellow Cake Revue” takes its name from the popular term for refined uranium ore, and concerns the threat of the proposed uranium mining to the economy and ecology of the Orkney Island which islanders are determined to fight, down to the last person. Stromness, the second largest town in Orkney (pop. 1,500) would be two miles from the uranium mine’s core, and the center most threatened by pollution etc., Yesnaby, is the nearby clifftop beauty spot under whose soil the uranium is known to lie (Davies, 1980, Composer’s Note). In keeping with the cabaret style of the revue both of these piano interludes employ styles and forms influenced by popular music. Farewell to Stromness makes use of three- part form; it is in the key of D and is to be played “At a slow walking pace” (Figure 4). The 38 At a slow walking pace J .-. 60- sim. ' 3 sim. 22 23 24 25 26 Figure 4. Farewell to Stromness © 1980 Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd., London All rights reserved Used by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. 39 Figure 4 (cont’d.). 40 2nd time) 73 74 75 75 Figure 4 (cont’d.). 41 piece begins with a two-measure “walking” bass, an idea that will figure prominently throughout the rest of the composition (meas. 1-2). As the bass line repeats, the right hand enters with an eight-measure period. The melodic and rhythmic characteristics here have a definite popular-music style (meas. 5-12). An eight-measure bridge passage, retaining the same melodic and rhythmic features as the preceding passage, leads to an embellished repeat of measures 5-12. Here, the bass line takes up the triplet rhythm, and a new counter-melody is added in the right hand (meas. 17- 24). The first section of the piece concludes with a plagal cadence in the tonic key. The middle part begins in B-minor, the relative minor of D-major. This section is chordal in nature; the first eight bars consist’of left-hand planing of B-minor and A-major triads above which the right hand plays the material found in measures 27-34. An eight-bar bridge, consisting of two similar phrases, continues this rhythmic pattern. In the last phrase of the bridge, a crescendo (the first dynamic change from piano indicated in the piece) leads to a statement of what is found in measures 27-34, forte, in B-major, with the use of the lowered seventh giving the music a Mixolydian flavor. The following eight measures sud- denly return to B-minor, with the material in measures 27-34 being repeated exactly, with the addition of a diminuendo in its first phrase, returning the music to a piano level. Another connecting passage, four measures long, derived from measures 33 and 34, crescen- dos into the forte return of the first section of the piece. The bass line from measure 17 is heard, as is the first right-hand idea from measures 5-12, with some added grace-note embellishments. The same bridge passage found at measures 13-16 of the first section is also repeated with added grace notes, with the dynamic level gradually diminishing to mezzo piano for a restatement of the ideas heard at measures 17-24. The dynamics soften to pianissimo at the short coda, which consists of two measures in which material from the first half of measure 24 is elongated and repeated, followed by two measures of a sustained D-major chord punctuated by syncopated d’s and e’s. The piece ends on a sustained D- major chord. 42 Farewell to Stromness is technically more challenging than the piano pieces in Stevie’s ferry to Hoy. The left hand is required to stretch an octave in several spots, with the right hand extending to a major ninth in places. Some of the syncopated rhythms are quite challenging, most notably at measures 17-24. The music is legato at all times, and no finger- ing or pedaling directions are given. In The-syellow cake revue, Farewell to Stromness comes between “Patriotic song— You’ve heard of the man with the acemaker” and “Recitation—nuclear job interview 1— P The security guard” (Arnold, 1981, p. 37). Yesnaby ground, with which it shares some sim- ilarities, is sandwiched between “Recitation—nuclear job interview 3—The mental health worker” and “The terrorist song—Have you heard of the terrorist suicide squad?” (Arnold, 1981, p. 37). The titles of these pieces are indicative of the biting humor which is charac- teristic of so much of Davies’ output. Even the title of Yesnaby ground is a pun, referring not only to an area of land but also to the particular compositional technique used in this piece, that of variations over a ground bass. To be played “At a fast walking pace,” the music of Yesnaby ground begins with a six-measure ostinato in the left hand (Figure 5). Measures 3 and 4 derive from measures 1 and 2; measures 5 and 6 also represent variants of measure 2. The ostinato is to be stated seven times throughout the piece. The music remains centered on the tonic of Eb for its entire length. As the ostinato begins its first repetition at measure 7, the right hand enters with the melody found in measures 7-12. These measures are repeated immediately in measures 13-18, with the upper voice being melodically embel- lished through the addition of nonharmonic tones. With the fourth statement of the ostinato the music moves to the parallel minor mode. A new idea is played by the right hand in measures 19-24. The music returns to the major mode, with a fifth playing of the left-hand ostinato and another embellishment of the passage found in measures 7-12. With the sixth statement of the left-hand ostinato the right hand achieves its greatest degree of rhythmic activity, 43 At a fast walking pace J 3 80¢. , tuft/r rwr 6 8 J v 13 14 15 Figure 5. Yesnaby ground 44 Figure 5 (cont’d.). wwflawma #1 . . . ’ ! 45 with the material from measures 7-12 being elaborated upon with syncopations, scale passages, and nonharmonic tones. With the final appearance of the ostinato the rhythmic activity of the preceding measures slows down, with fragments of material from measures 7-12 and 19-24 appearing in the right hand, separated by rests. Four measures before the end the music shifts again to the parallel minor, returning to the major mode at the second-to-last bar. The piece ends with an Eb major chord. Yesnaby ground is written to be performed at a piano dynamic level throughout, with the primary source of musical contrast being the gradual increase and decrease of rhythmic activity in the upper voice. Technically, the widest interval to be played in either hand is the octave. The major performance challenge to the young pianist lies in the area of rhythm, especially in the play- ing of syncopations using short note values. As the piece is written completely in the key of Eb a facility with this scale would be helpful in performance. Accidentals, particularly those involving modal changes and inflections, may demand particular attention from the teacher and performer. Both Yesnaby ground and Farewell to Stromness have characteristics in common. Both make use of popular idioms, have simple, straightforward forms, and rely heavily on identifiable bass patterns as structural devices. Their reliance on popular-music rhythmic styles (particularly Farewell to Stromness), while challenging in performance, would appeal to and provide a frame of reference for a young pianist. This popular influence, however, must not be overemphasized; both of these pieces make use of sound organizational proced- ures. As such, this music would be worthy of study by an intermediate—level pianist. While he is himself a pianist, works for solo piano have not figured largely in Davies’ output. Stevie’s ferryto Hoy, Yesnaby ground, and Farewell to Stromness comprise almost one-half of his production for this instrument. These three works are all connected with his Orkney home; it is significant, perhaps, that the composer chose his own instrument to 46 express some musical thoughts on the community in which he lives. Orchestral W’orks Davies’ four published pieces for school orchestra divide evenly into original compo- sitions and arrangements of music by other composers. The transcriptions were the earliest of these works, being written for use at Cirencester Grammar School. As Davies wrote in 1961, the inspiration for this music was practical in nature. Published “arrangements” of classical music for school orchestras are, almost without exception, stupid to the point of imbecility. Not only do the strings have the biggest burden, but I have seen in well known arranger’s scores trills In the second violin part, as well as improbably high p05itions and fussy notes. . . I should have realised that there was nothing for it but to write and arrange music right away for one’s own school players oneself. In the present state of affairs nothing else is possible, if one is completely honest and not frightened of hard work (p. 7). When he made the above statement, Davies apparently was referring to the state of school orchestra music in Great Britain. It is not known whether he was aware of materials avail- able in other countries, e.g., the Young Composers Project sponsored by the Ford Founda- tion and the National Music Council in the United States (1959-1964). In 1959 Davies arranged three pieces by Byrd for his ensemble at Cirencester; these were published as William Byrd: Three dances in 1969. Davies chose the music of this pre- Classical composer for specific reasons: Classical music in some form or other is familiar to most people, particularly those who are interested enough to take up an instrument; pre-classical music is probably a safer bet for school use. Not only are parts more vocal-like, and therefore easier to play, but the musical forms are simpler and more easily understood, and pieces are shorter, which is a blessing for younger children particularly (Davies, 1961, p. 7). William Byrd: Three dances is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two Clarinets, bassoon, horn, two trumpets, trombone, percussion, guitar, strings, and continuo. The percussion part, for one player, is to be performed on tambourine and tabor; the composer describes the latter in the score as “a small, tight, snareless drum, best played with the fingers, or the wrong end of a normal drumstick” (Davies, 1969, p. 1). A full body of strings is employed, with the violins being divided into three parts for the first and third 47 movements. The continuo is actually a keyboard reduction of the orchestral parts and, as the composer states, “if possible, this should be played on a harpsichord, rather as a continuo. Only if a harpsichord is not available, and keyboard accompaniment is necessary, should a piano be used, then discreetly” (Davies, 1969, p. 1). While individual players’ parts for transposing instruments are notated using the appropriate pitches, the full conductor’s score is written entirely in the sounding key. The complete work is approximately four minutes in duration. The first movement, “La volta,” begins with the melody, in octaves, in the flutes. Clarinets and lower strings provide the accompaniment. Celli and basses play pizzicato, while the viola line consists of open-string double stops, becomingM at measure 6 and re- turning to double stops at measure 7 (Figure 6). At measure 8 the first and second violins appear with the melodic phrase in octaves; the unison oboes double the upper violin line beginning at measure 12. Clarinets and lower strings again provide the harmonic background, with the celli playing, among other things, double-stops on open strings. The tambourine also enters at measure 8, with trills and staccato single notes (Figure 7). Measures 15-21 are similar to measures 8-14; some nonharmonic tones are added to the melodic line, and the percussion player switches to to the tabor. The instrumentation in the accompaniment remains identical. The melodic line returns to the flutes in octaves during bar 22, which is a variant of the opening measures. The Clarinets continue their harmonic function (identical to measures 1-7), while all the strings (except for some of the celli) play pizzicato (Figure 8). First and second violins are divisi in four and three parts respectively; only some of the celli are to play in this manner, with the others continuing arco. Beginning with measure 8 a characteristic dynamic pattern emerges, consisting of one phrase followed by another at a louder level. This pattern remains consistent throughout measures 29-36, in which the forte at measure 29 is followed by a fortissimo at measure 33. 48 Alkfln rmulrr-lu flannel: D) II “am I Tmmpru Hr Trombone "‘"rusurll [hum-mum and [I'll I Gm!" Allegro man-lento I thm u Violoncello Contrabau 'Keyboud reduction , J- J -. _ J”; ‘ -“:‘ H5, {31% r r 'II Fanihlc, this should he played on a har'mrlmnl. ntlm u Irnnunuo ITAIIOR: A small. light. man-In: dmm, he.“ played with the Only II a humirhorrl It not IVIl'IhIf. and keyboard accompaniment is “"19“. 0' "'9 “OM "“1 0' I normal dl’umflKk necnun'. should a [II-1M Inc used, lhcndivtn-Ily. r I“ .‘ltNlll l ('n IMI . Inmlnn Figure 6. William Byrd: Three dances, “La volta,” meas. 1-7 1969 Schott & Co., Ltd., London All rights reserved Used by permission of European American Music Distributors Corporation, sole U.S. agent for Schott & Co., Ltd. 3% .32: :.3_0> 3: .n Eami L L L L L L L . . _ _ . . . L _ fl (.1: . L a! q l a: H D t 1‘ l = - ox «N L . LL c I! -L i - E 5 : I lh. l a‘ a\ 1 .V (V I a l .I ‘Q = W I .I E 1 B .E C .D .U l .5 D m .E 1.” A _ L 4 _ _ _ _ _ _ .95 B L RE RE n . _ _ a r _ I‘ll _ III P » nu : L H 3 a J. a a l L 5 4i . H t t l w: a . 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As measures 22 ff. represented a version of the piece’s opening, measures 37-43 recall bars 8-14. The brass appear at this point, forte, accompanied by the Clarinets, bassoon, and tabor. The melody is in the first trumpet, which has an embellished version of the first- violin line at measures 8-14. The next eight measures also make use of this material, making 1b’. Beginning with measure 44 the melodic material given the overall form of the piece aba in Figure 7 is augmented rhythmically in the first violins and first flute. The second violins are doubled by the second flute, with the bassoon, celli, and basses playing the bass line. Trumpets, third violins, and violas carry the inner voices, while the Clarinets take up a new passage in eighth notes. The oboes, which at all of their previous appearances have been In unison, have separate parts on the last four measures. The final G-major chord is tutti, to be played at a piano dynamic level (Figure 10). The second movement, “Alman,” also has G as the tonic, with characteristics of both Dorian and major modes. This is the slow movement of the suite, beginning with the melody in octaves played by the Clarinets. This is accompanied by the bassoon,"~ first trumpet, and lower strings. As was the case in some places in ”La Volta,” the celli are again directed to play “some pizz., some arco” (Davies, 1969, p. 5). The first eight measures of the movement are given in Figure 11. GEN .235 as? 3.. .m 2%; 52 .L— —.l IIIL .. l l Illlll I ll L al.— P II. I . . .1 ill - . I- I ll I1 1 H n“ l l . llll lie I I . . l L ill I l i ill I a“ LN m I I I ll fl I lllllfi .. ..I ill I I. ll ll Illli — u— Illlw '_ M u—u E __ _ L L H - m H s. 2.. a H H H H 1 I L I H H 1 I I l J H 11 n H H 1 I H H V) 1I 19 H- lF E H nldlh 1 I 1L H FIN H 1 I I - 1 F H I H H 1L I 1 I A“ ' “ I 1 I in I Eu“ 1. E l... l‘ m. El. m. l -..m H 1H 1IIIH “ Ir A H w 1 I L H H H H H I I d —l l E l . { H [I U 4 Q d I _ _ . _ KM. _ H K. 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William Byrd: Three dances, “Alman,” meas. 1-8 The soft dynamic level continues into the next eight measures, in which the flutes and oboes in octaves share the melodic material, an instance of durchbroche'ne Arbeit. The guitar enters into the accompaniment at measure 9 with several measures of chords, all of which can be played in the first position. Soft chords in the brass occur at the phrase end- ings. The celli, directed to perform soli and _p_p_p in these eight measures, “are arranged thus: 4 solo cellos playing arco, with remaining cellos doubling pizzicato, in the following order of precedence: lV II, III” (Davies, 1969, p. 5). From this short passage one might infer that Davies’ cello players at Cirencester when this arrangement was made were both rather numerous and capable of sensitive dynamic control of their instruments (Figure 12). Measure 17 begins forte, gradually decreasing in volume to piano at measure 18 and increasing again to forte at measure 21, where this dynamic pattern repeats. Melodically and harmonically measures 17-24 (Figure 13) grow from the first four measures of the piece. In measures 17-20 the orchestration becomes thinner than in the preceding passage (Figure 12), with the first violin accompanied by clarinet and bassoon; at the end of the phrase the first trumpet plays its figure from measures 15 and 16. Measures 21-24 essen- tially repeat bars 17-20; the melody, further embellished, moves to the clarinets in octaves 55 :2 (93,? F ?_.E¢F::—:__::___EE:F F EH31. _ 2 ‘92:”:4: -‘ 3716?: EEFH FF‘F 333%. .. 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Harmonically identical, a new version of the melody from measures 9-12 appears in the flutes at bars 25-28; the accompaniment, includ- ing the celli soli, is virtually unchanged from the earlier passage. At measure 29 a very florid version of this melody is given in the first oboe part. Regarding this, the composer writes (1969% From here on,‘ the semiquaver part should be omitted in the “continuo” if the oboe is to play it. If the oboe is unable to play it, and no other wood wind instrument is capable of it either, then the part should be played by the key- board, quite prominently. The keyboard should continue playing chords even if it is not playing the semiquavers (p. 7). This line is accompanied by pizzicato strings and legato lower voices in the bassoon and trombone. At the end of the phrase the brass again enter (as first occurred at bars 11 56 Figure 13. “Alman,” meas. 17-24 57 and 12), with new, more elaborate trumpet parts in the final measure. Two forte chords in the whole orchestra lead to the final two measures, consisting of successive entries of notes of a G-major chord in the strings (Figure 14, letter “C” ff.). “Coranto” is the final movement of William Byrd: Three dances. It is a quick move- ment in the key of C, beginning with a repeated eight-measure phrase (Figure 15). The melody is in the first violins, accompanied by clarinets, percussion (tabor), guitar, and the other strings (celli doubling the basses). 11231)" 1"‘J2IJ22- .J IJ -: J IJ “IW MUN..."(iJgJIJJ)|JJJ|JJJ|JJJ|JJJ|JJJ|JJ)-.H -f I:- --: um [éif15—'—~J-_1J:‘::1J—_ .1 IF_ ...-1:) 1:1:- -- :‘Jff . 791;" ‘ T372121? 3" J J'CTF _ (' FF 71:353-352. \vnlnu n 85 f? j 3 3 JV 3 JV 3 JV F J J ("iv-I'M ‘ m éiéJLJu 31:311-1- J"— J ,1..- .1 J;. __J-'- Jj-Z-iiJ'i- 1121-1-- 35‘! 11‘1”-.- ". 1_ V-_._n-_. V.____ 1: "____ -—:V.--,- H:_:" __- 1‘.-:_,‘L:.- _. \ . Riga—€32; J33: 113:.) Jig—:3: 1211;- _-:—;:—-_:r_2: c1133; ,-: ~ all“)? .-. v "v ~-. v H, n_,_n_, _____ .. .‘""’:'...‘;'.'_i' 21;}: "i: .5? J ’_J::J‘:—:LJ:J" J. '-'_'__ 1:15:52 {:11 ("f-:- ! H'P/ {QM-:15) J13: #13 J.-.-.-_—_-'J.—-. J:- _ Ji 1 fi‘ i113— PH ,- -f;J.: '1'”), ~- J ; V J“ H” . _ .> — 92:22-1er 5 J“ F“ r.- r r r. r. Figure 15. William Byrd: Three dances, “Coranto,” meas. 1-8 The next phrase is taken by the woodwinds, with the melody in the flutes and oboes (Figure 16). This change in timbre from the preceding phrase extends to the percussion part, which switches to the tambourine. __-_*~ .555 {13717323sz . 311‘“ 'J' 2 2:17: 58 11335 J:?T‘f:2'?% n.\ 3:. 471 _ 1 . ..I .. . lid. .116. . n _ 1 __ In“ u _ _” lfikfler-fla “pl _, g __ . -_ h _ ..ldr. U” . _._ _ 1 .. ya...”- ’—"\ JEFF l1 /‘ fr __ ff—W ' _ _fi: 5- __3 «FLJF- ‘ 2 ;;r r - ——2~-—u-; .:._ .- sri‘p’ riff: r332223 fr '1 g-Fegg f} F- (.7: u f: <: 3 1 ‘lgéggézsgzszgfizzf <: C”? ' lrgulo =1? Lflx—‘I:1I__- ~C— ’T :2 Vlns. 11 V1... 1. II. \|(. Ill, IV Fl {I nbl I - 3: . JéL 75 r .-_ T1 1.3:- f 00 I ..J- _ ti)? 2:7 l .-__ I-q .d p J __ _ -: . _. . ___ 35') _ {Fad _J-r neffrffr == LL: 'f_:.-1C{...Ff 1'13. n'hn'v P7:F ? ., ‘ ."I'; IV¢‘ 12—4 “Alman,” meas. 25-35 522.3: Hn Figure 14. > so was: Hm . P l’crL / — - _ _ \_ - __-__ _ _ _ =z"7f‘-:-:f:af '- r {2'73 I ___ J H . r, 1:27;: _' h F ' " 1 J. 59? P p- I'P. ;;‘ 7- :-- Figure 16. “Coranto,” meas. 9-16 A third idea occurs beginning in measure 17, played by the first violins and clarinet. Accompanied by the second clarinet, bassoon, brass, and strings (with the celli playing “some pizz.” again), the music builds from piano to forte, followed by a diminuendo to pianissimo (Figure 17). l’ 7 DJ ff 1' 59 J2": ‘J' _ J.“ - / l - - '- u :n '2??? if“ '2 r; "32'. r: ‘1 Ill (y: --— D—- _-_—0L _. P 1' 1.. ... ;9'-fé.i:_i~‘?’_j ”.333:- :TJ'J i_—f... -"‘ -—.——3 "(2"‘721—1- I2 J15 - —— f—— —-~ MJH§§§3FI¥QS%§€:: " F; .l’ _jZWLT:-_ " ‘ -" . __f— 7” r 5.9 "JiTLE-i’ J,» J.» _ } )1) 'J" ' ___.: Ji:f::f —:—* :: éggé; Jag-riggfi .J.:-._.-_J -:-__ Tlm J4Er: —‘7 _F F;__ f: i _— 3 Ill (gen—{3:— 51::— _ 22:11:11. ‘35:; _ 7;: éEFF: \'la. “(- Ch. Figure 17. “Coranto,” meas. 17-24 - 5-0.4... - l ......“ II—Ilrg—i—J—JJ—J—J—IJ i—i——|.J --i~- i -|J--i J--|J - :3 J---|J- i--- ) :j'fl‘) ' _ 60 This material cited in Figure 17 is then repeated in measures 25-32, with passing tones added to the melody in bars 25-28 and to the bass line in measures 29-32. Instrumentation, harmony, and dynamics remain the same. As the form of “Coranto” is abca1 b1 c1 , the opening eight measures now return. The melody from measures 1-8 has been transformed into a running eighth-note passage in the first clarinet, with harmonic background provided by the other woodwinds, the horn, and the trombone. The percussion player uses a tambourine, rather than the tabor which was used at the original appearance of this material. Like the first eight measures of the piece, this variant is repeated, followed by a re-statement of the material found in Figure 16. Strings are not used here, with the emphasis on woodwind and percussion colors. The first trumpet and guitar re-enter, not having been heard since measures 32 and 8 respectively. The melody, embellished from measure 9 primarily through the use of passing tones, is heard in the flutes and oboes, exchanging phrases in durchbrochene Arbeit. The clarinets provide sustained inner voices, while the tabor reappears. Finally, a return of the material from Figure 17 begins at measure 49. Thisjs almost unchanged from its initial appearance, except that at this point the percussionist must play both tambourine and tabor. Measures 57-60 are similar to bars 25-28, with the passing-tone additions to the melody of measures 17-20 intact. The guitar, which had not played when this material first appeared, now joins into the accompaniment. Measures 61-62 parallel bars 29-32; the flutes are added in octaves to the melody line, with the oboes playing the lines which had originally been performed by the clarinets. The music decreases in volume to pianissimo, followed by a final C-major chord, forte. William Byrd: Three dances is an effective arrangement of worthwhile music for young performers. The woodwind and brass parts tend to be written mostly in the middle and lower ranges of the instruments, with no notes being out of the practical playing registers. Strings (including the guitar) may make use of first position throughout, with careful attention being given to bowings, articulations, and playing directions in all parts. 61 String parts are often doubled by winds, especially on melodic and bass lines. The more difficult woodwind instruments, such as the double reeds, are generally doubled by some other part. The violin lll part is usually related to the viola line, either through heterophony or exact doubling. Except for the oboe passage at the end of the second move- ment, note values smaller than the eighth note are not used. The Renaissance style of the original pieces, with their use of simultaneous cross- relations and~often modal harmonies, is captured in these arrangements, particularly through the use of tabor and tambourine and the suggested use of a harpsichord as a continuo instrument. Challenges are provided for each member of the orchestra; no one instrument or section is confined solely to playing the melody or the accompaniment. The music provides its challenges, primarily in terms of dynamics, balance, and phrasing. Davies has indicated that William Byrd: Three dances was written for either school or amateur orchestra. The straightforward nature of the music and the variety of character, key, and instrumentation between and within movements make this a piece most appro- priate for performance by young musicians, including those of junior-high age. Five voluntaries, Davies’ other arrangement for school or amateur orchestra, was written in 1960, one year after William Byrd: Three dances. Like the earlier arrangement, it was published in 1969. Five voluntaries was also written for Cirencester, but its scope, both in terms of instrumentation and length, is greater than that of the Byrd arrangements. Lasting approximately ten minutes, the five movements are scored for the following: three flutes, three oboes, two clarinets, bassoon, two horns, three trumpets (in Bb or C), two trombones, timpani, percussion (cymbal, side drum, bass drum), strings, and continuo (piano or harpsichord). Similarities exist between these two sets of arrangements: both are based on the music of pre-Classical composers, with uncomplicated formal structures; both use keyboard reductions in the scores; and the instrumental writing in both is basically similar, including the use of third-violin parts. In Five voluntaries, however, the technical challenges given the 62 players are more difficult than those found in William Byrd: Three dances. These demands, the use of larger orchestral forces than in the earlier work, and the known fact that the number of instrumental music students at Cirencester increased during the time that Davies taught there lead one to believe that the ensemble for which he wrote this piece had grown both in numbers and ability from an earlier time. The first movement is a “March tune” by William Croft. A bipartite form in D-major, the first period consists of an antecedent and a consequent phrase. The melody is found in the first and second violins, flutes, oboes, and then trumpets, with full-orchestra accompan- iment. These opening eight measures are repeated, with percussion employed during the repeat. The keyboard reduction/continue part is to be played preferably on the harpsi- chord; the composer even indicates what registrations are to be used. This opening idea, and the string writing in particular, gives evidence of the greater expectations which Davies had of his players, compared to the challenges presented in William Byrd: Three dances (Figure 18). The instrumentation of the first phrase of the second period is similar to that of measures 1-4. The second phrase of this section emphasizes woodwind and brass timbres, with the upper strings entering at the last two bars of the phrase. Like the first eight bars, measures 9-16 are repeated; percussion instruments enter on the repeat, the dynamics are varied, and the music contains a rit. poco a poco in the final two measures (Figure 19). The second number, “Serenade” by Jeremiah Clark, is a slow movement in D major. A reduced orchestra is used here, consisting of flutes, clarinets, violins (in unison), violas, celli, and continuo. Like the first movement, this has a two-part form, with the strings accompanying the woodwind melody throughout. The use of some strings playing pizzicato and somearc_o in the same section, a device found in William Byrd: Three dances, is present here. The first phrase of the second section modulates to the relative minor, returning to the tonic in the last four bars. This whole second section is repeated; examples of 63 All. mun-in [Mk-um fulivo] ’ William Crolt OI I". l Flutes II "I i Oboe: [I III Clannc s ‘ M Na soon Trumpets ill Trombone} I ll I’.‘m|. lime umlv) Percussion fitfilfifliln D J I ' I All» mania [Allegro festive] n " V n V "‘ I 2 ‘ --—;—'f GEL-J"? 317-2123;: ff EU Violins I! "I Viola Violoncello Contrahnss K cyhoa rd ml nct Ion lfi'o R'o J'o c, Conlmuo Figure 18. Five voluntaries, “March tune,” meas. 1-8 1969 Schott & Co., Ltd., London All rights reserved . Used by permission of European American Music Distributors Corporation, sole U.S. agent for Schott & Co., Ltd. 64 1 Fl. 1] I” l Ob. ” .l’plm lll Tbns. l Timp. Pvrr. Vlns. ll lll Vl.1. \‘lc (nrlllllun Figure 18 (cont’d.). 65 07¢ .238 :65: 2822: .m— 835 L LQILI-LQLL; 53.-Iran a ..LmeLL -L_ .. L La . ......L.‘. 55.25.. _ L .L L...\.E ...... - .-- I _m m. _ urn -..-.91.... ”fin-mum MILI: EH 1I111-1u.-.III1HI ...W Ll... _.n.I..I.1u. .....J ....J. L]. 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P 4 1.1 a1 I A I II . 1 l 1 141.111-!- I1l Ill I r. _ E .... I > t > t t > r. ... > abs—«Kotkn 3 \R‘ —av..»C~N 1» <1 l‘l‘l.‘l.‘“ .. I J1l u 1' I1 I M 1 MM — l “H.1IIlllllhl.hloli l. ‘1 n . x I 1« K < “~ \ Ull‘HI‘lH.ll +‘l‘lUH-l ‘Hlll‘vlu ‘i'llul‘uI r. t Nfix > ... > t > .L > ‘Iu > z, _ k. .. L 1 L I. up F L L 3 l l .0 l l o L11 fl . L _ L _ L LIL PP Figure 26. Five Klee pictures, “Oriental garden,” meas. 1-4 This idea is continued in the next phrase, still with the use of changing and asymmetric time signatures. With the entrance of the second oboe in the third phrase the pitch level moves to a higher level; the melodic function of the oboes and the longer tones in the clarinets (still based on the tritone) remain consistent, as does the continuing motivic development of the first measures. In the final phrase, rit. al fine, the original instrumentation returns, with the oboe playing a version of its opening phrase a tritone lower. In the final measure the oboe drops out and the clarinets’ tritone idea resolves to a unison f. The dynamic level re- mains soft throughout, not rising above mg Controlled improvistation is introduced into Five Klee pictures in the third move- ment, “The twittering machine.” The music is divided into eight eight-measure sections; the first of these (Figure 27) contains an ostinato idea that will be used throughout the rest of the movement. Allegro moderato (J : 80.poco n poco m‘crl.) ”Oral qustucc. 2nd lime—fl : Trome 'Cello solo ls! lime-—-— 2?... ppm. 'Celli altri ( 9 Db.8vo lower Figure 27. Five Klee pictures, “The twittering machine,” meas. 1-4 ‘ H .. “gnu-2‘9" ._\.L._— - _;‘_ - .J .. ‘ \.;. ~ 85 The horn, trombone, and solo cello lines in this ostinato all derive from the unifying half step-whole step motive. The minor thirds in the other celli and basses, derived from a combination of these intervals, outline diminished-seventh chords. This first section, which began Allegro moderato ( J =80), is to maintain a “very gradual accelerando up to J =1OO by end of Section VI” (Davies, 1978, p. 9). At the beginning of Section ll the snare drum enters with one measure of dotted rhythm; after this the player is directed to improvise. The clarinets also appear in this section, with the material shown in Figure 28. "l’ [mafia 310.35. ”‘1’ Figure 28. “The twittering machine,” meas. 5-8 The first clarinet, which plays on the repeat of the material given in Figure 28, is directed to “improvise jagged fiorature” (Davies, 1978, p. 10). At this point in the score the composer writes, “Instruments improvising flourishes (Cl. Ob. Tr.): start simply getting wilder and more complex by the end of Section VI repeat” (1978, p. 10). Also beginning with Section II most of the orchestral instruments are directed to “cresc. to ffl by end of Section VI repeat” (Davies, 1978, p. 10). As the ideas from Sections 1 and ll continue, more instrumental layers are added in Section III. The wood block enters; after one measure of notated rhythm it, like the snare drum at the beginning of Section ll, is directed to improvise. The cello solo ostinato (Figure 27) is now to “syncopate ad lib.” (Davies, 1978, p. 11), and the oboes play the material in Figure 29; in the last two measures they are to “improvise syncopations using complete 3 note figure each bar” (Davies, 1978, p. 11). {Fa/«h _n_.'.-_‘.._- .s ~. d._ ..--. - 7 . 86 1’ Figure 29. “The twittering machine,” meas. 9-12 In Section N the first trombone ostinato from Section I (Figure 27) is to be synco- pated ad. lib., as the castanets join the other percussion, also improvising. The upper strings make their first appearance in the movement with the glissandi shown in Figure 30 (violas play both times; violins play only on the repeat of the section). Figure 30. “The twittering machine,” meas. 13-16 improvisation on the cymbal, played with a hard stick, begins in Section V. Trum- pets make their entrance in this section with the phrase cited in Figure 31; the first-chair player is to improvise a “jagged flourish” in the last two measures of this phrase. <> Figure 31. “The twittering machine,” meas. 17-20 ,,,,,,,,, m ' ‘d '..~-.4.'-o. _.i- .4 - . --“- , . . _ _.__..4_-. _.~—a.- \~ ’__ 87 The climax of density, dynamics, and tempo comes in Section VI. The previously- silent flutes and bassoon play the following (Figure 32): Figure 32. “The twittering machine,” meas. 21-24 The trumpets continue here with a variant of their material from measure 17; the first trumpet is to improvise flourishes in each bar, with the second part being syncopated ad lib. Rhythmic impetus to the end of the section is provided by the entry of the bass drum, which begins the section forte in a steady, quarter-note rhythm. The rhythm in this part speeds up in regular, two-bar increments until, at the end of Section VI, the drum is to be played fff in continuous sixteenth notes. Sudden contrast is provided by the beginning of Section VII, in which the ostinato from Section I returns in its original instrumentation, tempo, rhythm, and dynamics. The rest of the orchestra drops out, with the exception of the first oboe, clarinet, and trumpet, which punctuate the music with isolated notes reminiscent of the materials on which pre- vious improvisations had been based. Temple blocks appear on the first beat of alternate measures with short, sixteenth-note runs; the order of the blocks is to be varied at each repetition. Finally, in Section Vlll, the instrumentation is further reduced, with the ostinato occurring in only the first trombone and lower strings. Soft notes in the bass drum, cymbal (played with a soft stick) and triangle are sounded on the first beats of measures. A rit. al fine appears four bars before the end of the movement, as the volume decreases and the rhythmic motion of the ostinato comes to a gradual halt. 88 Knussen, in his study of Five Klee pictures, has described this movement in the fol- lowing way: “As the quaver pulse remains constant. . . the tendency will be to produce a sort of mechanical Keystone Cops/Nightmare/Bad jazz texture” (1979, p. 10). “The twittering machine” is similar to the first movement of the suite (“A crusader”) in that individual parts are based on simple materials, variants of which are repeated (or improvised upon) throughout the course of the piece. Musical interest is provided by the gradual growth of the instrumental density, tempo, and dynamics, and by the juxtaposition of individual voices with differing natures. Performance difficulties in “The twittering machine” lie not so much in the nature of the parts themselves but in the inhibitions which both players and conductor must over- come, particularly in the improvisatory sections. Playing ranges required of the instruments are, once again, quite practical. With the exception of the viola, which must move to a third-position pitch in the glissando passage beginning in Section IV, the string parts may be played in the first position. The written rhythms of the parts are uncomplicated. Acciden- tals such as double flats are used in several places, and an understanding of these by the players would be necessary. It must be noted that many of the playing directions given in the score are not to be found in the individual parts; the conductor, therefore, must spend some time explaining certain playing directions to the orchestra. This discrepancy between parts and score is also evident in other movements of Five Klee pictures, particularly in some parts of the final movement. The next movement, “Stained-glass saint,” is “I think, the most significant of the set. It is Maxwell Davies’s first overtly Mahlerian slow movement, albeit in miniature” (Knussen, 1979, p. 10). This Lento piece begins with some intervals of the seventh in the violins, after which a stepwise melody in the oboe solo appears (Figure 33). «-..»- --.—... \ ~_-_. - 89 Lento J = 70 3. '"mp lrgulo Barn! dc' Vial. 'Colli p legato Figure 33. Five Klee pictures, “Stained-glass saint,” meas. 1-5 The rise and fall of this melodic line is motivically expanded and developed, with a gradual growth in dynamics and instrumentation reaching a climax after twenty bars. At this point, four measures before the end of the movement, a nightingale is sounded by the percussion- ist. Thus, the climax of the movement “is grotesquely mocked by a birdcall effect, as if the praying saint had turned to show a demon’s grin” (Griffiths, 1982, p. 31). The music then quickly recedes to a quiet ending in the strings, with the final sound being that of the tri- tone, derived, like the main melodic idea of the movement, from the combination of half- and whole steps. Griffiths has written that this introduction of a mocking birdcall effect is “a striking forecast of the macabre things to come” (1976, p. 1019). Further, Knussen (1979) has commented that it is more like Britten/Shostakovich-Mahler than Maxwell Davies-Mahler, but the emotional climate is unmistakeably Maxwell Davies, as is the gesture of intro- ducing a bird-call effect at the climax (pre-shades of L’Homme arme and fight Songs for a Mad King) . . . It would seem, however, that it was always there, and the concept of building something significant over a long period, only to reveal it as ironic over a very short period, is certainly characteristic (e.g., the coda of the Second Taverner Fantasia). Youth orchestras are not often presented with such highly-charged stuff (1979, p. 10). The richness of the orchestration in “Stained-glass saint” is the result of the com- poser’s use of the lower and middle registers of the instruments. Violins play in unison over sustained sounds in the lower strings; almost no upper strings are called for on any of these lower instruments. The solo oboe and first clarinet and bassoon are required to play fairly - .s.-. [— _-...--. - . , — .- -,.—A._ _..~_ _\ ‘._'. .~. . 90 long, sustained phrases, but the composer’s careful attention to breath markings makes an effective performance feasible. This dark orchestral writing contrasts all the more effective- ly with the shrillness of the nightingale at its entrance, thereby enhancing the dramatic effect. The final movement, “Ad Parnassum,” is constructed on an ascending motive heard at the beginning in the bassoon (Figure 34). Ex.5 Lento J = 453 pp < "J 2) >101) Depress all keys ............. 1 With arm Poo. Pno. Solo 'collo Figure 34. Five Klee pictures, “Ad Parnassum,” meas. 1-4 In the fifth measure the tempo increases to ) =80. The volume gradually grows as more instruments take up the development of this motive, using such devices as transposition, octave displacement, inversion, and rhythmic augmentation and diminution. At measure 13 the time signature changes to 3/4, and the music begins a five-measure accelerando. Throughout this and the preceding passage the music has been punctuated by sounds played on the interior of the piano, using such devices as short glissandi on the strings and playing the strings with an xylophone stick. The accelerando, accompanied by a crescendo (oboes and clarinets playing bells up), leads to a sudden change to J =60 at measure 18. The first measure of this new Adagio section contains a Chorale-like phrase in the brass, once again based on the half— and whole steps of the opening motive. This measure, which is in 5/4, is immediately followed by a 6/4 bar in which the flutes and oboes play an ascending, motivically-related flourish —o __d“ -‘JH- ‘~- _‘f‘ . . . . . ~n~——‘Q. N. _h‘_ _«. 91 accompanied by a tremolando chord in the strings (celli reading the notes c1 and db1 in tenor clef). Variants of these two measures are then repeated in bars 20 and 21; the wood- wind flourish and a glissando in the strings lead to the beginning of the coda at measure 22. This consists of a retrograde canon (with free rhythms and octave displacement) in the trumpets (Figure 35) over string tremolandi which gradually increase in intensity. ()I‘ la ' b A T; ‘9'; ”(u-TC 1-1 (_‘3'_J 1...}.4 La-3--"-I L \ Cv(S(. < fFF Figure 35. “Ad Parnassum,” meas. 22-30 The final tutti chord, fl, consists of eight pitches, which, when rearranged in order from the note C, are in the following order: c-d-eb-f-gb-ab-a-b. Although this ordering of pitches demonstrates the whole and half-step pattern characteristic of the entire piece, Knussen (1979) writes, Strangely enough, there seems to be little or no motivic connection between this coda and the rest of the work, which at once suggests—as indeed the original score confirms—that this was the section added in 1976. But the fact that it fits so well, and that the whole movement sounds no less unified than i,ifi_w_fi___m—o—M ' mfim..’.‘_‘...s~.n—A____—._\ _.__~ -.. w 92 the rest of the work, further confirms that in Maxwell Davies unity is achieved as much by force of personality as by any structural or substruc- tural schemes (p. 10). The fact that this coda is a later addition to the score is further reinforced by the aspect that in this passage Davies makes the greatest demands to date on the players. The range and rhythm of the trumpet parts are quite challenging, and, in the accompanying string parts, performers are to play notes beyond the first position (see Appendix). As a whole, the Klee Pictures are one of the most important and stimulating additions to the youth orchestra repertoire in years. Unlike most of that repertoire, however, they are also completely acceptable on a professional level as an important minor work by a major artist (Knussen, 1979, pp. 10-12). A break of 20 years separates the initial composition of Five Klee pictures from Davies’ next (and most recent) composition for young orchestral players, A welcome to Orkney, published in 1980. This work was written for an instrumental ensemble consisting of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, two string quartets, and double bass. The string quartet parts, however, “may be played by small string ensembles provided that care is taken not to destroy the balance and clarity of the music” (Davies, 1980, Composer’s note). The first performance of A welcome to Orkney took place on June 20, 1980 “at the St. Magnus Festival, Kirkwall, Orkney by pupil’s of Chetham’s School of Music” (Arnold, 1981, p. 9). Regarding this premiere, Clements (1980) wrote, With the accent of this year’s festival so firmly on youth, the opening concert in St. Magnus Cathedral was provided by Chetham’s School, Manchester, a specialist school with entry restricted to children of exceptional musical ability. . . Maxwell Davies’s Welcome to Orkney was billed modestly as a “fanfare,” but proved to be slightly more than that—a busy five minutes for the full Chetham’s complement, framed by an explosive horn call (recalling passages in The Martyrdom) and generating quite a lot of heat and some spiky, muscular textures. This work, the longest single movement in Davies’ published output for school orchestra, was also his first which was not written for non-specialist school children. It is therefore, the most technically difficult of the composer’s works in this genre. in his Composer’s note in the score (1980), Davies comments on the piece, and suggests a particu- lar seating arrangement for the players. 93 It features a prominent and fairly difficult solo horn part, and should be played in a festive and extrovert manner. Ideally, the two string groups should be placed well apart, to emphasize the antiphonal nature of their music, with the wind instruments between them. At the first performance the horn player was raised above the others, placed in a high pulpit, to one side, with good theatrical effect. This “theatrical effect” which Davies mentions is a new aspect of his orchestral music for school musicians, one which shows the influence of the dramatic works with which the composer was concerned for much of the 1960’s and 70’s. The form of A welcome to Orkney is that of a rondo, with three main thematic groups. There is also an introduction and a coda, thematically related to each other, which give a tenuous arch-like design to the piece. The introduction takes up the first 15 measures of the work. The interval of the 7th is important here, both in the outline of the horn calls, the structure of the string and wood- wind chords, and the oboe part beginning at measure 10 (which is derived from measures 78 in the horn) (Figure 36). Note the different performing devices between the two string groups, an effect that will be exploited elsewhere in the piece. As the first group plays held, natural harmonics, the second group performs the same pitches at a lower octave, with sustained trills. These different sounds would be further emphasized by separation of the string groups, as suggested by the composer. The first theme of the rondo appears in the flute and oboe at measures 16-21, with a staccato accompaniment in the other winds and low strings (pizzicato cello and bass doub- ling the bassoon) (Figure 37). As in the first movement of Five Klee pictures Davies indicates rhythmic divisions of certain measures in the score as an aid to performer and conductor (e.g., measure 17 in Figure 37). An exact repeat of the theme shown in Figure 37 occurs in measures 22-27, with the addition of a new counter-melody in the violas (Figure 38). This idea begins in String Quartet II at measure 22, and continues in the viola part of String Quartet l at measure 26, following intervening rests. 94 Allegro Jar l32(J’=Jiaempre) Flute Oboe Clarinet in Bassoon Horn in F 17’ Allegro J8132(oh=J’sempre) Violin l Violin 2 Viola :——String Quartet l—fi Violoncello Vlolln l Violin 2 Viola r——— String Quartet ll —--1 Violoncello Doublcbass Figure 36. A welcome to Orkney, meas. 1-15 1980 Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd., London All rights reserved Used by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. Ob. Cl.in A Hn. in Vla. Vl.2 Vla. Vc. Db. Figure 36 (cont’d.). 96 Ob. Cl.inA Bsn. Hn. in F Vc. Db. Figure 36 (cont’d.). L _ ......M _-_-‘7 V . ..' 97 _.Num— .mmoE .3575 8 2:06.95 < Hm oSwE k. .25. {Show . I L I! up F ~ -.. be: H h n U k L L L d ' I VJ .- 1...! F .1 ~ ~ E ~ ~ 3 I C : l I ~h .- .- dim-+9: In .- i : I U C < . 4 I ~ ~ t. 5 ix a H l. . J A L L ..- l .- J 11 a DA 9 n .5: 9553. I. 4L4~ W h M h n- “ - ~?1A~:_Iwb . .1: Z _ .m. (F ~ — .fl .1ulb ~ ~_ N N 4 i . u..- i’ to art It: . r14 fairfw D tLlF~At 4 L a A . 1 u . K. n. v R . HIMJ . L b A l A n Ni] N 5 Nu a N_ n b F J .‘M/ F lum~ . w H l 7 7w _ ~L~ _ : in : l! a l H i!‘ I Mini A E i. ~?.?_I _Ls _4L H . lj : Jri H on N dine-“NJ L tqui1 o L ~ I .i‘dln- ‘ h— o (A A ll‘ A I . (A C ' k. V. R .lh-J1IN: hail-J A. i 1 p I. . fl ~ 4 u L m L h p I . u N fill» ~ |1i .d» . i I I ~ u N H ~ H 4_ H : F E _ ~A m a a «a IV: E w r. a r1 W .1 L ._ .11.? u l. r .L . d 0 1 1<\ .. (.1 H 1_\ in a «-tdt. i ( i A .i A i . manna 98 Via. Vc. f v1.1 V1.2 Vla. Vc. Db. f v1.1 Vla. Vc. Db. Figure 38. A welcome to Orkney, meas. 22-27 99 The second theme is taken up by the first string group in measures 2833 (Figure 39). This is repeated in measures 34-39, with the addition of the viola part, playing a line which begins in a manner reminiscent of its part at measure 22. A restatement of the first theme occurs in measures 41-64, similar in presentation to its appearance at measures 22-27. At this point, however, yet another new idea is heard in the accompaniment in counterpoint with the main thematic material. Beginning in String Quartet II, and continuing in String Quartet l at measure 44, the first violin has a line to be played with trills on each note, while these same pitches are doubled an octave lower by the pizzicato second violin (Figure 40). The central episode of the rondo starts at measure 48, with the material from Figure 41 in the string groups. The simultaneous use of pizzicato and fl) strings on the same material, characteristic of Davies’ instrumental writing from the early William Byrd: Three darfces, is fully exploited here, as the material from Figure 41 becomes an ostinato through- out the rest of this section. These six measures are repeated three times; at the third repeat the string groups switch roles, with the second group playing a_rc2 and the first pizzicato. E 223 VLI V1.2 Vla. V1.2 Vla. Vc. Figure 41. A welcome to Orkney, meas. 48-53 100 mm-mm .82: .555 8 2:863 < .mm 23ml \S A k. ] H J _ththJ b r a , “- IIH H H l N U ] . D H NH H H H M w“: FH H Xi“: N .U H H H H F H|li_ H . l > H H whHhH m Hun HH w 4F." u «WV NH H41 H H H HH 1 J HH I: Hi > -.. a. .uituul... ...)...e r u.--- Lu... etc . 1% an ”a t. a .‘J A A (H. A H- SE D D .1. i» . .R Q a q I Ifh N—> I _> I N. I N“. I Nd .11 Ill— ) 1' l ] .l H b \’ —0 _.th h. «d H- l l». U -- .1 H H h H D H flu l I l ID 1 | I.) . i . H -1: 14HDLIDH1‘H 3 n H H 1: H i O ID If. I N H1H H1 i la- H1 H H N no: N_> , H I h H . «HdeH HH 4 N H H ' L H H L S n H 11 H Ra H H H H a: H H .- F ..N l H HH HH H N_> H H H Hr H .I [i .1 ' L G! H H G [ H H H HH HlH N h .A . Fri I — H L l I 1 1 '- fl 1 >1 l h Im 1 . H\ ill (IH I q HIML \E \- H H ] D H H ] H H ”JH be H fl. 1 'hr H H U .-h H H L H H _._> It 7 H4, . H J HH qui .H H H H HH F .1 H H . f: —_> H rd L I H. H! H L n L H u. H \u \— H ‘ (1 d ‘1‘ ‘ ‘ L HiH a ‘HlHHHH H 3 L ..‘A. I H J A j I\ ( I‘- II 101 2’ (pin) 1’ Via. Db. #‘w #bm ((rbm‘lrb '0- Vl.l Vla. Vla. Vc. Db. Figure 40. A welcome to Orkney, meas. 41-46 102 The oboe enters at the fifth measure of this section. Its expressivo melody makes use of leaps of a seventh, recalling the material in the introduction (Figure 42). Figure 42. A welcome to Orkney, meas. 52-59 The ending of this phrase is overlapped by the appearance of the flute with material which grows from and expands the penultimate measure of the oboe idea (Figure 43). l_'J[2 232] firm. /’\A t- tr _ = , Hit, it 1 r T Figure 43. A welcome to Orkney, meas. 59-65 The second-to-last measure of this phrase, in turn, is overlapped by the re-entry of the oboe, repeating the material from Figure 42. The flute continues with repetition of the melody, while the strings play the final repeat of the ostinato. Earlier material then returns in a straightforward fashion. The first theme is heard at measures 73-78, which repeats measures 22-27 exactly. The second theme, as performed at measures 34-40, returns in measures 79-85. The rondo plan is completed by a final appear- ance of the first theme at measures 86-92, which duplicates measures 41-47. The horn, 103 which has been silent since the introduction, joins in here with this material (Figure 44). Figure 44. A welcome to Orkney, meas. 86-91 A coda begins in measure 93, as the oboe recalls its own line from measures 54-59 and the flute and clarinet in octaves have material reminiscent of what happens in the flute part during measures 62-65. The horn line continues, including glissandi which once again out- line the seventh. A crescendo in the full ensemble leads to a lone written b-flat2 in the horn, fl, five measures before the end. One and one-half beats later the first string group repeats its opening chord in harmonics from the introduction, piano, followed by a sfzzp entrance of the second string group with its chords from measure 5 and by the winds with their notes from measure 10. The horn plays a written c3, the bass contrasts with these held chords in the rest of the orchestra with one snap pizzicato on Bb, and a diminuendo ensues, after which the winds drop out. The final two measures consist of the opening chords of the piece, pop, in the strings. A welcome to Orkney represents a continuation of Davies’ musical style as expressed in Five Klee pictures, particularly in regard to the suitability of contemporary harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic practices in music for young performers. The clear thematic outlines and contrasts of the piece contribute to an easily-understood formal design. While Davies’ instrumental writing in A welcome to Orkney, particularly in regard to rhythm and playing technique, is more difficult than that found in his previous works for school orchestra, this does not prohibit performance of this work by an accomplished group of young musicians. 104 The accessibility and directness of the music, characteristic of Davies’ work since his move to Orkney, combined with its extroverted nature contribute to the music’s appeal to the youthful performer. Ensemble Works Of the two ensemble works for young performers listed in the Arnold catalogue of Davies’ works (1981), Renaissance Scottish dances (1973) was the first to be composed. Although considered one of Davies’ works for young musicians, this set of pieces was originally written for and performed by The Fires of London, who premiered the work at the Dartington Hall Summer School on July 29, 1973. Renaissance Scottish dances is a set of arrangements of anonymous pieces found in Elliott (1957, 1967). As such, these dances are fine examples of some of Davies’ “realisa- tion” of pre-Baroque music (see Chapter Three). Davies’ adaptations follow the originals closely; Davies has added tempo indications, dynamic markings, and articulations. There are some changes of chord voicings from the original sources in order to make the music more idiomatic for the instruments at hand. A minimum of added material is used; when it is present, it is always stylistic. Renaissance Scottish dances is scored for the instrumentation of The Fires of London, i.e., flute, clarinet in Bb, guitar, violin, Violoncello, and percussion (glockenspiel [or other tuned percussion], marimba [or bass xylophone], tambourine, bunch of keys [or dried peas in a tin] , two woodblocks). The full ensemble, however, performs on only three of the seven movements; smaller instrumental groupings are employed in the other four numbers. Davies writes, in a note to the score (1978), The above instrumentation is that used by the Fires of London ensemble but may be adapted according to individual requirements. For instance, the Guitar part could be adapted for the harpsichord and the wind parts played on alter- native instruments. The opening movement of Renaissance Scottish dances, entitled “lntrada,” is melod- ically and harmonically an exact transcription of No. 15 in Elliott (1967), “Jhon come kisse me noue” (Figures 45 and 46). 105 Moderato Rule Violin Gun-Jr Vi. (3m! Fl. Vi. (jun H. \1. Gun Figure 46. Renaissance Scottish dances, “lntrada” 1979 Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. ll rights reserved Used by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. A»..- _ ~._ ...— 106 A {Al 1— 1 r"! 1 Fl 1 '1 A F5 _g' 1 Ith 1 I I r I [1'1 V J J #1 x 3*!— ~ 1 L ' . I z 1 A (I r'l T I L‘ I'L - - - 1 1 ‘Y I . 1 1L 1 ! _.1 rm. 7 41 - - 71A ‘ A 1‘ A l A v 1-v - - r I- ‘ r1 - v 1 [1,1 3' V v l 1 iv v v r; 1 1' W 11 fl . r a r :- r r ‘ .. I” Q; 41 I x J! xi 1 x i r 1 ’ J I r if *1 W .7 v ,1. r T; g {I K r 1*? r t i ii i; f; r a .1 IS A h - o Qf—i"——’;f% } I x L x 1L L x_LTl 1b} 2! x i I I‘I’TI—f rrL IL Tl r1 V V V V I 1 x I 4 Y J.- r I l 11 77 :1 Y I 1 I] ' M v 5'7 i’ f l' E i‘ f P f f i f Figure 45. “Jhon come kisse me noue” Davies’ version of this march-like piece is scored for flute, violin, and guitar; the guitar figures in the last halves of measures 9, 11, 13, 15, and the first half of measure 16 are Davies’ additions, as are the grace notes in the violin part. Davies is careful, throughout this setting, to retain open chord sonorities (i.e., no third) when such is the case in the original. The next movement, “Currant,” is based on No. 10 in Elliott (1967) (Figure'47). Figure 47. “Coranto” 107 Like the first dance, Davies’ arrangement retains the melodic and harmonic outline of the original (Figure 48). “Currant,” which is to be played by the flute, violin, cello, and glockenspiel, takes a free approach to the use of ornamentation. In discussing the use of such devices in the original Renaissance versions of this music, Elliott (1967) states that “the interpretation of these remains a matter of some dispute. . . ornament-signs often seem to be used for no other purpose than to draw attention to an accented note” (p. 25). The editor of the source of Davies’ material then, appears to be condoning, or at least accepting, some freedom in this matter. Other than some added grace notes and “Scotch snap” rhythms (measures 3 and 7 in the violin part), measures 1-10 of “Currant” are as in the earlier “Coranto.” Davies’ addi- tions to his Renaissance source include the glockenspiel line at measure 10 ff.; the contin- uation of the flute part at measure 15 ff.; the “Scotch snap” rhythms at measures 13 and 17; and a modest use of ornamentation. The third of the Renaissance Scottish dances is a duet for guitar and cello. The first twelve measures are an almost exact setting of No. 12 in Elliott (1967), “Sueit smylling Katie loves me” (Figure 49). Figure 49. “Sueit smylling Katie loves me” The original piece, written for cittern, “would sound well on the harp or guitar” (Elliott, 1967, p. 25). Davies’ setting for guitar, then, is most appropriate (Figure 50). The guitar part from measures 1-12 is repeated exactly in measures 13-24. The cello enters at measure 13 with material based on Elliott (1967), No. 14 (Figure 51). In this case, however, the original material has been rhythmically changed and fragmented in the arrangement. .—~-—_ HA _. “____.—_\—\‘-.—w _ 108 Allegro Flute Violin Violoncello (2nd time only) O Glockenspiel P Clock. Vi. Vc. Clock. Fl. Vc. Cluck. f Figure 48. Renaissance Scottish dances, “Currant” 109 Adagio Cu: 1 a r p-fi'empre Violoncello Gull. Vc. Gull. Vc. 13 Cuil. of; pizz. rib. Vc. J g‘,___l L_"—1 t——- J P sempre Guit. J , i J__; L.__.. L__:——J 9).—J Cult. Vc. J , i.___3_1 L_——J . :___J J-——-‘ Figure 50. Renaissance Scottish dances, “Sweit smylling Katie loves me” 110 j: J 1 I h : I J T I I6 7"" "———’“m“ ' " r I 4 - .. (:fi Tl'-’}'-flg=f——i=:: ..sz -3_:: ,_,__ :7:— Figure 51. “Till I be lullid beyond thee” Measures 13-16 in Davies’ cello part, for example, correspond to the pitches in measures 1-4 of Figure 51. Similarly, measures 17—20 (in the cello) relate to measures 5-8 (in the original). The outline of measures 21-22 in the arrangement is similar to the outline of measures 9-10 in the original, while measures 23-24 in the cello can be seen as a retrograde of measure 22 in the Renaissance source. This particular cello part represents Davies’ farthest departure from his originals in the Renaissance Scottish dances. “Last time I came over the mure,” the next dance in the set, derives from Elliott (1967), No. 17 (Figure 52). leg 13'} Z .i.—- ejLDjL-.. . Figure 52. “Last time I came over the mure” With the exception of an added glissando in measure 8, Davies’ setting is identical with the corresponding first eight bars of the original, which was meant to be played on the violin (Davies’ version is scored for flute, clarinet, and violin) (Figure 53). These first eight measures are repeated in bars 9-16 in the violin; the flute and clarinet enter in these measures with new accompanying materials which nevertheless show a distinct melodic and 111 Allegro Flute Clarinet Violin Fl. Cl. Figure 53. Renaissance Scottish dances, “Last time I came over the mure” 24 Figure 53 (cont’d.). 112 A._A A ‘ ,7. ...H‘ . WM” . . 77,7,——_—_.___—_—.—._.___m-__ __-A._ H_-~__. -. ._ . . . .H 7, ,. .__-...._~.\H. _. ”fl _._-2;; . 113 rhythmic relationship to the original. This same pattern continues throughout the rest of the dance: measures 17-24 are identical to measures 9-16 in the original; with the repeat of this material in bars 25-32 the flute and clarinet once again enter with additional, yet related, material. Finally, measures 32-40 in Davies’ arrangement correspond to measures 16-24 in the source; this single line is once again repeated with flute and clarinet accompaniment. ’ Essentially, what Davies has done in “Last time l came over the mure” is to repeat each of the three eight-measure periods of the original, adding an accompaniment (newly- composed) on each repeat. If these interpolated accompaniments and repeats were to be removed, Davies’ setting and the original version would be virtually identical. “Ane exempill of tripla,” the fifth of the Renaissance Scottish dances, is a setting of a four-part consort piece found in Elliott (1957). This is the first movement in Davies’ set of arrangements which calls for the full ensemble; once again, the transcription is virtually exact (Figure 54). The flute and clarinet, an octave higher than in the original, are assigned the two upper parts. The cantus firmus of the consort piece is given to the violin; Davies has added some grace notes and trills to this part, as well as some repeated notes in the second-to-last measure (as opposed to the sustained pitches in the original at the correspond- ing spot). The cello and guitar are doubled on the bottom line, with the guitar part filling in chords at certain places. The most radical departure from the original is Davies’ addition of a percussion part, to be played on a bunch of keys (or dried peas in a tin) for. the first performance of the piece, and on a tambourine for the repeat (which is to be taken at a faster tempo than the first time through). “Remember me my deir,” which follows “Ane exempill of tripla,” is a setting of a four-part song found in Elliott (1957, No. 46). The first 10 measures of Davies’ arrange- ment is a statement of the song, in the same key as the original, played by the solo guitar; some moving quarter-note passages (measures 2, 4, 8, 12) are used in place of held notes, as given in the Renaissance song (Figure 55). Also, Davies has changed the original four-voice 114 Quicklvery quick 2nd time) Flute f Clarinet Violin Violoncello Guitar 1 . (3nd time Tamh.) [lunch 01 Keys f Vc. Cuii. Kets Figure 54. Renaissance Scottish dances, “Ane exempill of tripla” 115 CL Vc. Gun Keys CL Gun. Keys CL Vc. Gun. Keys Figure 54 (cont’d.). ‘——-s -hugu. .. 116 Slow Guitar Guit. 0 Mar. Fl. Cl. Vc. Cuil, Mar. Figure 55. Renaissance Scottish dances, “Remember me my deir” 117 (iuil. Slur. FL \lc. blur. 28 Fl. llc. Ciuit. filer. Figure 55 (cont’d.). 1 18 texture in some spots in order to make the music more idiomatic for the guitar. In the original, the last four bars of the song are to be repeated (measures 9-12 in Figure 55). Davies also repeats these measures in his transcription, using the full ensemble for the repeat, with the marimba reinforcing the bass line (Figure 55, measures 13-16). The twelve measures of the complete song are then repeated by the full ensemble, without the guitar (Figure 55, measures 17-28); the solo guitar then repeats the last four measures of the song (Figure 55, measures 29-end). “Almayne” is the last of the Renaissance Scottish dances; the original is in Elliott (1967, No.9) (Figure 56). Figure 56. “Almayne” Measures 9-16 repeat measures 1-8 (in both the original and in Davies’ version) (Figure 57). In the arrangement, which is scored for the full ensemble, ornamentations are added to the clarinet part on this repeat; a percussion (wood-block) part is also added to the original. Measures 17 ff. in Davies’ setting repeats this pattern, i.e., a straightforward rendition of the original, followed by a repeat in the full ensemble, with added embellishments, parts, and 119 Allegro moderato Flute Clarinet Violin Violoncello Guitar 2 Wood blocks Fl. Cl. Vc. Guit. 2W8 Figure 57. Renaissance Scottish dances, “Almayne” [6 '3 Fl. Gull. 2W8. 2! Fl. Cl. Vc. Cult. 3 \V.B. Fl. Cl. Guil. 2 W.B. Figure 57 (cont’d.). 120 121 percussion. In a note to the score, Davies (1979) writes, “The final 8 bars may be played with the Flute and Clarinet exchanging octaves. The version given is, however, preferable. The Clarinet should improvise embellishments consistent in style with those between bars 9 and 16” (p. 11). The instrumental writing in Renaissance Scottish dances is highly representative of Davies’ style, particularly in the characteristic, knowledgeable, and sensitive writing for clarinet, violin, and percussion. Davies’ love and understanding of pre-Baroque music is evident throughout the work, even in its lighter moments. This set of pieces is most deserv- ing of study and performance by young musicians, fulfilling as it does a two-fold purpose: it provides appealing examples of Renaissance music, and it enables the performers to come into contact with one of the most resourceful of 20th-century composers. In 1975, two years after the composition of Renaissance Scottish dances, Davies wrote Three studies for percussion for Gosforth High School, Northumberland; the work was published in 1980. The composition of an extended work for percussion ensemble was most appropriate, for the use of melodic percussion in particular as an integral part of an instrumental texture had been characteristic of Davies’ music since the 1960’s, especially in the pieces written for The Fires of London. Three studies for percussion, composed in the same year as Stevie’s ferry to Hoy for piano, “came at a time when Davies’s thoughts were returning to music for children” (Griffiths, 1982, p. 95). Peter Swan, who commissioned the piece, writes, It was in the summer of 1975 that | first suggested to Peter Maxwell Davies that he might like to write a substantial work for percussion ensemble, to be performed by young people, who, in some cases while being musically very literate, did not have any technical ability on any other instrument. Percus- sion instruments have always formed a central core for classroom teaching and by the time young people have experienced say five years of such work, they are ready to tackle something outside the classroom. in my discussions with the composer before he began work on the Three Studies for Percussion, we talked about basics such as instruments available. A list was supplied which included some luxurious extras to the normal classroom instruments—tam tam, small tuned gongs, tuned metal plates, flexatone, etc., all of which Maxwell Davies had previously used in orches- tral and chamber works. However, the eleven instruments he chose, are, 122 with one exception (a concert xylophone), all normal classroom instruments of the Orff type. We also briefly discussed the nature of the work, and although it was obviously in retrospect totally unnecessary for me to say so, I suggested that he should in no way “water-down” the technical demands of the music. The work is scored for concert, soprano, alto, and bass xylophones; soprano and alto glockenspiels; bass metallophone; deep bass metallophone (for which a Vibraphone, without the motor, may be used); small wood block; small temple block; and small suspended cymbal. Eleven percussionists, one player per instrument, are required to perform the three movements, which last a total of five minutes. In his Note by the Composer which prefaces the score (1980), Davies writes, They make great demands on the rhythmic sensibilities of the players who are asked, for instance, to play accurate fives against fours, sevens against sixes, with syncopations, and to change rapidly from simple to compound metre and back, as well as negotiate complex bar-length changes within the same metre. . . The first is fast, the second slow, and the third very fast, superimposing the basic materials of the first two studies, which slot toge- ther to fix exactly. The studies remind me of nothing so much as three . obstacle courses, bristling with technical difficulties. However, I have found that young people are naturally gifted with extraordinary rhythmic skills which normally remain untapped. The Three Studies may be per- formed separately or together as a complete three-movement work. The first movement of Three studies makes use of the same basic materials as Davies’ Ave maris stella, composed in the same year. This latter piece “demands attention as one of Davies’ finest, most searching achievements, designed to engage the virtuosity of the Fires instrumentalists” (Griffiths, 1982, p. 72). According to Griffiths (1982), the organizing structure of Ave maris stella turns out to be a straightforward unfolding of a “magic square” of pitches and durational values as follows: C#1 E#6 B#2 E 7 B 3 G#8 A 4 F#9 D 5 A 6 G#2 B#7 G 3 B 8 F#4 D#9 E 5 C#1 D#2 B 7 A#3 D 8 A 4 C#9 G#S E#1 F#6 G 7 E 3 C 8 B 4 D#9 A#S D 1 A 6 F#2 Fx3 G#8 E#4 C#9 B#S E 1 B 6 D#2 A#7 D#8 B#4 C#9 A#S F#1 E#6 A 2 E 7 G#3 A#4 E#9 Cx 5 D#l B#6 G#2 Fx 7 B 3 F#8 D 9 F#5 C#1 A#6 B 2 G#7 E 3 D#8 Fx4 G#S D#l G 6 D 2 B 7 C 3 A 8 F 4 E 9 123 The grid of rhythmic values is readily obtained, starting from the 1 in the top left corner, adding five successively along the rows and down the columns while also subtracting nine whenever the total exceeds that figure. This pro- duces a square in which the same sequence is repeated in rows and columns with progressive rotation, a square which is derived, as David Roberts has pointed out, from the numerologist’s “magic square of the moon”. . . The construction of the pitch square is more complex. Each row is a transposition of its predecessor with, again, rotation by one position but in the opposite direction with regard to the duration square. . . Other features of the note square are also of interest. The rows exclude major seconds and tritones but are rich in thirds and fifths and, except where these are broken by rotation, each row, includes consecutively the notes of two major triads: those from D and E in the case of the first, for instance. From this the whole work gains a leaning toward diatonic consonance, and yet there is also a contradictory element, for the nine-note mode of each row can also be regarded as the “negative” of another major triad whose notes are excluded: that of D# in the case of the first (pp. 73-74). This magic square is employed in the first of the Three studies for percussion in the following manner: Rhythmic values from the grid are heard as number of eighth notes (or as durations equal to the corresponding number of eighth notes). The order of pitches duplicates that of the clarinet part in the second section of Ave maris stella: The clarinet, absent from the opening section, has the principal voice in the second and undertakes another journey from the C at top left to E at bottom right, but does so by reading along diagonals (C#—A—E#—D#—G#—B#—etc.) (Griffiths, 1982, p. 75). Thus, for example, measures 1-9 of the first movement of Three studies for percussion (Figure 58) contains the pitches and rhythmic values from this section of the grid: C#1E#6 B#2 E 7 B 3 A 6 G#2 B#7 G 3 D#2 B 7 A#3 G 7 E 3 Fx 3 This pattern, once established, continues throughout the movement until the quiet ending at measure 57, a 9/8 bar containing unison and octave E’s. While this magic square provides the basic organizational framework of the first move- ment, other ideas are heard. Figure 59 shows the beginning of an idea which continues for four more measures; it begins with a linear retrograde of the first six notes of the magic square, and continues by juxtaposing notes of major triads, another feature (previously cited) of the rows of the magic square. 124 Allegro LE] Concert Xylophone lf-f :l-f J-f Soprano Xylophone ‘f‘f 1’ :f Alto Xylophone Bass Xylophone Soprano Glockenspiel Alto Glockcnspicl Bass Metallophone Deep Bass Mctallophonc Small Wood Block Small Temple Block Small Suspended Cymbal {f mf 1' pp lip]; Figure 58. Three studies for percussion, l, meas. 1-9 © 1980 J. & W. Chester/Edition Wilhelm Hansen London Ltd. All rights reserved Used by permission of Magnamusic-Baton, lnc. 125 c. Xyl. s. Xyl. A. Xyl. B. Xyl. 5. Cl. A. 61. 8. Met. DB. Met. W_B. T.B. C yntb. Figure 58 (cont’d.). 126 DB. Met. V I ’ dolce Figure 59. Three studies for percussion, l, meas. ll Another idea (Figure 60), with its succession of seventh, sixth, and fifth intervals recalls the grace-note/primary-note figures of measure 4. Figure 60. Three studies for percussion, l, meas. 16-17 The material from both of these figures is explored throughout the rest of the movement, occurring along with the fundamental magic-square idea. The outlines of these additional ideas, both melodic and rhythmic, are recapitulated immediately before the end of the movement; the entire piece, then, also has some features of sonata form, most noticeably the statement, development, and recapitulation of thematic material. This combination of a magic-square basis and sonata-like form relates to yet another work of Davies’, his Symphony no. 1. Swan writes, At the time of my initial approach I was aware that Maxwell Davies was work- ing on what proved to be Symphony No. l, and by the time of that work’s first performance and publication in 1978, the relationship between the Three Studies and its very much “big brother” were evident and fascinating. A work of relatively small proportions is linked by thematic, harmonic, rhythmic and gestural similarities to another work of huge dimensions—one for young performers, the other for a large complex modern symphony orchestra. The formal relationship between the first movements of the two works is clarified by Davies’ comments on the opening movement of his éymphony no. 1: Although It has a ghost of a sonata form somewhere behlnd It, there Is no first or second subject as such, and any “devel0pment” consists of transformation 127 processes. These processes are various, and precisely definable according to their position and function in the overall scheme—but as yet there is no common vocabulary to describe such processes, nor to describe the harmonic processes unifying the transformations. However, the transformation processes themselves should ideally make immediate musical sense and be aurally satis- factory. . . Suffice it to say that there are magic squares involving pitches, note values and longer time spans (Griffiths, 1982, p. 159). The interrelationship between Ave maris stella, Symphony no. 1, and Three studies for percussion is carried on into the second movement of the percussion work. Figure 61 shows the first five measures of the middle movement of Three studies. Like the first movement, it begins with a loud C#; this note and the following pitches in the bass xylophone yield the first three notes of the Ave maris stella grid. A comparison between these measures and the opening page of the score of the second movement of the Symphony shows similarities of dynamics, texture, and style between the two pieces (Figure 62). Furthermore, this excerpt from the Symphony “starts with a statement of the Ave maris stella plainsong on alto flute” (Griffiths, 1982, p__._ 160). Fragments of the Ave maris stella magic square appear throughout the second move- ment of Three studies for percussion. The final chord of the piece consists of the notes C#—E#—B# (C), which are identical with the first three pitches of the original grid. They also form important tonal “goals” (Griffiths, 1982, p. 76) in the larger chamber work. In contrast to the first two movements, the third of the Three studies does not make use of changing time signatures, but is written in 9/8 throughout. The choice of this meter is significant in relationship to the importance of the number nine in both the derivation of rhythmic values and the dimensions of numbers of pitches in the Ave maris stella square. As cited by the composer in his introduction to the score, this movement consists of the basic materials of the first two movements superimposed upon each other. The xylophones play the material of the second movement, while glockenspiels and metallophones recall the primary ideas of the opening movement. The first three measures of the final movement are given in Figure 63. Of special rhythmic importance is the quintuplet figure found in the small suspended Concert Xylophone Soprano Xylophone Alto Xylophone Bass Xylophone Soprano Glockenspiel Alto Crlockcnspicl Bass Mctallophone Deep Bass Metallophonc Small Wood Block Small Temple Block Small Suspended Cymbal 128 Andante cantabile (J =c.92) A If A I} fit [l-qu Figure 61. Three studies for percussion, ll, meas. 1-5 VII-1m l thnll :I' —:—' V'mh ' ' a l l .a - Druhlehau - 129 thJ‘“tIUJ.Ju:1 ”~“ 2'i 33" =—=—_1 it; 3:23:31 ——_—__; —_—_it—='-‘—=:———:-—_—£i“—=:5 “*5 :1": :2; Hill-gig: :‘E—ffi‘fffil H’ 43>"? Figure 62. Symphony no. 1, ll, meas. 1-8 © 1978 Bossey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited, London All rights reserved Used by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited 130 Presto Concert Xylophone [1 dolce sempre Soprano Xylophone Alto Xylophone 171’ sempre Bass Xylophone Soprano Glockenspicl l’ dolcc sempre Alto Glockenspiel I’ dolcc sempre Bass Metallophone pp< ”'f >W< Deep Bass Metallophonc Small Wood Block Small Temple Block 14’ dolce Small Suspended Cymbal PP dolcc Figure 63. Three studies for percussion, lll, meas. 1-3 131 cymbal part at measure 2 of Figure 63. This idea occurs regularly in alternate measures of the unpitched percussion parts throughout the rest of the movement. The final chord of this last movement (G—F (E#)—A—E—C#—C) is significant on several levels. The pitches C#—A—E# recall the opening notes of the first movement, while the other three chord tones (G—E—C) (the first three pitches of the fourth row of the Ave maris stella grid) represent a transformation of the notes found in the bass xylophone at the beginning of the second movement. Additionally, the presence of the notes E (the final pitch of the first movement) and C—C#—E (which comprise the chord at the end of the second movement) brings to a conclusion the relationship between Three studies for percussion and Davies’ two larger works: The above precis of the work (Ave Maris Stella) has already revealed the importance of C#, C and E as goals, and here the properties of the “magic square” fit in nicely with Davies’s harmonic thinking in this work and many of its successors. For in the same way that the First Symphony has, according to the composer, “tonics” and “dominants” separated by a major third, so here the main poles may be seen as C# with a dominant of E# and C with a dominant of E: these four are the first pitches in the first row of the square, and they occur at other crucial points, directing the broad harmonic flow (Griffiths, 1982, p. 76). Three studies for percussion, then, represents Davies’ most complex formal structure used to date in one of his instrumental works for young performers. Among all of his music in this area it contains the most explicit relationships with his contemporaneous “adult” works. It is also one of his most technically challenging pieces for young people, but, according to Swan, The complexities of the Three Studies for Percussion, rhythmic and manipulative in particular, have never presented any major problems to the young musicians l have worked with, and the performances have had an intense excitement brought about by the sheer demands of concentration required. The music once again illustrates the fact that no composer needs to write “down” for school children. Indeed these miniature “obstacle courses” could provide some interesting work for seasoned professionals (p.l ). CHAPTER SIX Result§, Conclusions, and Recommendations for Further Research Playability of the Music Three general aspects of Davies’ music should be considered in regard to the specific technical demands made in the performance of his instrumental music for young people. First, in a comment on his Symphony no. 1, Davies has written, “As in my previous works, there is no ‘orchestration’ as such—the instrumentation functions simply to make the musical argument clear” (Griffiths, 1982, p. 161). This comment does not deny the impor- tance of instrumental sound in Davies’ music. What this statement does emphasize, however, is the fact that Davies does not write for mere effect. The composer’s choice of specific instrumental sounds and techniques is always based on its suitability to the music at hand, even in situations which make use of unusual playing techniques or timbres. Secondly, most of Davies’ music has been written for specific performers and/or for specific occasions. The level of performance technique demanded by each piece varies, therefore, according to the particular abilities and limitations of the performer(s) for whom the music was written. A comparison has been made between Davies and Stravinsky in the discussion of the former’s stylistic development. A point of similarity between the two is that Davies, like Stravinsky, is extremely careful in the preparation of his scores. Playing directions, dynamics, et. al., are fully indicated by the composer. Passages involving unusual techniques, such as controlled improvisation in Five Klee pictures, or unusual instruments, e.g., the tabor in William Byrd: Three dances, are explained in the score. Such consider- ations are helpful in the performance of Davies’ instrumental music. The criteria for the following comments are based on suggestions found in Hoffer (1973, pp. 282-285). Judgments on ranges (given in the Appendix) follow recommenda- tions made by Kennan (1970) and Blatter (1980). 132 133 Stevie’s ferry to Hoy (1975) 1. Keys: l—C-major; 2—A-natural minor; 3—G-major. 2. Scalewise passages: Limited use of accidentals is made in the first and third move- ments; horizontal movement in both right- and left-hand parts is primarily diatonic. 3. Range: No stretches or leaps larger than that of the octave are required. The left- hand part is notated in the treble clef in some spots of the first and third movements. Some crossing of hands (indicated by octave transpositions) is required in the first movement. 4. Amount of technique required: The opening movement is to be played legato throughout. in the second movement a staccato scalewise ostinato in the left-hand part is juxtaposed with a legato line in the right hand. The rhythmic motion in both parts grad- ually increases until the end of the piece. Staccato and legato articulations are again contrasted in the third number, which also makes use of 2/4 and 5/4 meter changes in the predominant meter of 4/4. 5. Comments: Stevie’s ferry to Hoy is specified as being for “beginners” in Arnold’s complete catalogue of Davies’ published works (1981, p. 53). The work was composed for the daughter of one of Davies’ neighbors on Orkney. Farewell to Stromness (1980) 1. Key: D-major. 2. Scalewise passages: The music is diatonic, with the central section of the piece modulating to the relative minor key and a short passage in B-major. 3. Range: The widest stretch is that of a major ninth in the right hand. 4. Amount of technique required: The piece is written in 2/4 meter and moves “At a slow walking pace” (Davies, 1980, p. 1). The basic pulse of the music is maintained by the left hand, above which the right hand is required to play syncopations and (at measures 17- 26 and 77-86) two-voice counterpoint. Consistent use is made of legato articulation. 5. Comments: Farewell to Stromness is an excerpt from a larger work, The yellow cake revue, a set of “cabaret songs for Eleanor Brun” (Griffiths, 1982, p. 121). The 134 composer was the pianist at the premiere of the work. The music, appropriate to a cabaret style, shows influences of popular melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic idioms. In speaking of The yellow cake revue, Davies states that “the music is very funny” (Griffiths, 1982, p. 121). Yesnaby ground (1980) 1. Key: Eb-major. 2. Scalewise passages: The music remains in Eb throughout, with some use made of the lowered seventh scale degree and (in measures 19-24 and 39-41) the parallel minor. Much of the writing for the right hand employs passages built in the Eb-major scale. 3. Range: No stretches or leaps wider than an octave are required. 4. Amount of technique required: Formally, Yesnaby ground is a set of variations on a ground bass which is stated in the left-hand part in the first six measures and repeated throughout the piece. The right hand is required to play syncopations, scalewise passages, and grace notes above this bass line. Articulation is legato throughout, and the dynamic level remains at piano during the entire piece. 5. Comments: Like Farewell to Stromness, Yesnaby ground is excerpted from fh_e yellow cake revue. The popular-music influence is apparent in Yesnaby grourfi, with the use of the lowered seventh scale degree giving a blues-like flavor to the melodic lines. Both of these piano works are published together in one volume, and the accessibility of their stylistic idiom and the relatively modest technical demands would make them appealing and worthwhile pieces for the pianist at the intermediate level of study. Renaissance Scottish dances (1973) 1. Keys: l—G-major; 2—G-major; 3—D-Dorian; 4—F-major; 5—C-major; 6—G- Dorian; 7—C-major. 2. Scalewise passages: Use of chromaticism in these straightforward transcriptions is quite limited; quicker movements especially are diatonic in nature. 3. Ranges: All of the playing ranges required are appropriate for high-school musicians. I35 4. Amount of technique required: The first movement should present no perform- ance problems to the three musicians involved. Double-stops and extensions beyond first position occur in the violin and cello parts of the second movement. There is a one- measure meter change from 6/8 to 9/8 (measure 10). Mordents are found in the flute and violin parts toward the end of the movement. In the third movement, a duet for guitar and cello, the guitarist must play chords, ascending and descendingli_g§g, and some grace notes. The cello melody, to be played pizzicato and with vibrato, moves in quarter and half-note triplets against the 4/4 guitar part. The fourth-movement trio for flute, clarinet, and violin employs glissandi of a minor-third range in all three parts. This technique is always used between the same two notes (D and F), and occurs only four times, in the first 16 measures of the movement. The next movement is quite fast, and is the first of the set to be scored for the full ensemble. The flute, and to a lesser extent, the clarinet lines move in guick note values, but are quite idiomatic. The violin part contains some double-stop grace notes, most of them on open strings. The cello part is written in tenor clef throughout. Both chordal and single-note playing is required of the guitarist in the slow sixth movement. The other parts have some sustained note values, but bowings and breath markings are such that no unusual demands are made on the players. Melodic embellishments, e.g., triils and mordents, figure prominently in the clarinet part of the final movement. The other voices are less elaborate, although the violin part has a few mordents. 5. Comments: Although Renaissance Scottish dances was originally written for The Fires of London, it is an appropriate work for use by accomplished high-school musicians. The entire work is scored for six instrumentalists; individual movements make use of different combinations drawn from the total group. The composer had condoned the substitution of other instruments for those in the original scoring, according to individual requirements. 136 Three studies for percussion (1975) 1. Key: The work is based on the same “magic square” as Davies’ Ave maris stella, I in which the notes C#, E#, C, and E provide the important pitch “goals.” 2. Scalewise passages: While the music is not tonal in the traditional sense, the construction-cf the basic materials is such that triadic shapes and outlines are quite common in the melodic material. 3. Ranges: All of the ranges are based on those of the concert xylophone and standard classroom Orff instruments. 4. Amount of technique required: The greatest challenge presented by these three movements is in the area of rhythm. Changes of meter, asymmetric meters, syncopations, and complex divisions of rhythmic values within measures are characteristic of all the parts. In many spots within the Studies great independence is demanded of the individual players because of the various layers of rhythmic activity which could be occurring simultaneously. 5. Comments: While Three studies for percussion was composed for high-school musicians, availability of instruments and capable performers may present problems in some schools. The work, both in terms of construction and execution, is probably the most challenging which Davies has written for young people. William Byrd: Three dances (1959) 1. Keys: l—G-major; 2—G-Dorian; 3—C-major. 2. Scalewise passages: The part-writing in this piece is almost entirely stepwise and/ or diatonic. There are very few leaps in the parts and, when these do occur, they are usually between chord tones. 3. Ranges: All of the ranges used are appropriate for junior-high musicians; in most cases they are also appropriate for the elementary-school level. The string parts are in first position at all times, although the double-bass part does extend down to written C, a note which is not available on most school instruments. Upward transposition by one octave could be used whenever this particular pitch occurs unless, of course, a bass with an 137 extension attachment is available. 4. Amount of technique required: Other than changes between pizzicato and arco in the string parts and some changes between 3/4 and 3/2 meters, the first movement presents no unusual difficulties. In the second movement the celli are divided into four parts; while the individual lines are not particularly difficult, ensemble and balance could be problematic here. Also in this movement is the four-measure passage in sixteenth notes played by the first oboe at bars 2932; another instrument can be substituted for the oboe if that player is unable to perform the line satisfactorily. The final movement presents no particular technical difficulties. 5. Comments: Davies is quoted as saying, A much safer way these days is discreetly to double your string parts on wind instruments and hope that they will tag along with the wind players, because the string players take so much longer to develop than the woodwind and brass players (Davies, 1963, p. 120). In this, the first of Davies’ orchestral works for school musicians, extensive use is made of doubling between strings and winds. Each section of the orchestra, however, is emphasized at various places in the music, and no one section or instrument plays constantly, thereby dominating the ensemble sound. The keyboard reduction included in the score, which can be used as a continuo part (especially effective when played on the harpsichord, as suggested by the composer), is independent of the rest of the arrangement, which is complete without that part. Five voluntaries (1960) 1. Keys: 1—D-maior; 2—D-maior; 3—E-Phrygian; 4—D—minor; S—D-major. 2. Scalewise passages: Horizontal motion in individual parts is characterized by con- junct motion and skips between chord tones, as in William Byrd: Three dances. 3. Ranges: Ranges of woodwind and brass parts are suitable for high-school or advanced junior-high musicians. The string parts remain in first position throughout although, like William Byrd: Three dances, the bass part’s lowest pitch is C. 138 4. Amount of technique required: The first two movements contain no unusual technical difficulties. Thirty-second note figures appear in both the clarinet parts and the first trumpet line in the third movement. The latter instrument has a solo in the last eleven measures of this movement; the part moves quite quickly, and can be doubled by the key- board reduction if necessary. In the fourth movement (Andante, 3/4 meter) legato phrases of two measures appear in the oboe and clarinet parts. Detached articulation of repeated eighth and sixteenth notes is demanded of the second trumpet in the last movement. Sixteenth-note scalewise runs are found in the first oboe line in the last half of this piece. 5. Comments: Extended ranges of parts, greater demands on player technique, and more independence of the strings than that found in William Byrd: Three dances make Five voluntaries a more challenging work than the earlier transcription. This piece would be appropriate for performance by a high-school or advanced junior-high ensemble. Five Klee pictures (1959, rev. 1976) 1. Key: Atonal 2. Scalewise passages: The movements of this piece are based on a half-step/whole- step motive. These intervals, their inversions, and the tritone are found consistently in the writing for individual parts. 3. Ranges: Playing ranges of which high-school performers are capable are found through all five movements, although it is worth noting that in some of the parts, in certain movements, narrow segments of the total range are emphasized. Third violin parts, provided in Davies' two earlier school-orchestra works for the benefit of less-experienced players, are not used in this piece. The bass part, incidentally, does not go below E (as opposed to the low C found in the two early transcriptions). 4. Amount of technique required: Wide melodic intervals are found in most-’of the parts of the first movement. Players must also be alert to constantly-changing time signa- tures. Metric changes are also present in the second movement, along with soft dynamic levels and fairly long phrases. The clarinets in particular are required to play softly on the 139 lowest notes of their instruments. In the third movement, percussion, piano, oboes, and first clarinet and trumpet are directed to improvise on given materials. Glissandi are present in the violin and viola parts. Performers must pay careful attention to the conductor in order to realize the gradual speed-up of tempo and growth of dynamics in Sections l-VI. The long phrases of the fourth movement would necessitate special attention to tone quality, particularly in the upper woodwinds and violins. The final movement is the most technically demanding of the set. Unusual requests are made of the pianist, who must play on the strings of the instrument. Other out-of-the-ordinary sounds called for include glissandi (with tremolandi) on the strings and a short passage in which oboes and clarinets are to play bells-up. Instances of clef changes occur in the trOmbone (to tenor clef), viola (to treble clef), and cello and bass (to tenor clef) parts. The trumpet lines in the coda extend to the upper limits of the ranges of most high-school musicians. Changes in tempo and meter demand careful attention on the part of the performers, particularly in the first 17 measures of the movement, which include quick, over-lapping entrances among all the sections of the orchestra. 5. Comments: Although this music is within the technical grasp of most high-school musicians, the unfamiliarity of the idiom may present some obstacles in performance, particularly in those sections demanding improvisation or unusual playing techniques. The conductor may want to explain the design and organization of the piece to his/her players; it would be effective to have reproductions of the Klee pictures upon which the individual movements are based. The quality of this music is such, however, that the piece has often been performed by ensembles other than school ones, including professional orchestras. A welcome to Orkney (1980) 1. Key: Non-traditional harmony. 2. Scalewise passages: There are few scalar passages as such in this score. The string writing tends to be lessangular than that for the woodwinds. Although intervals as wide as the seventh do occur, in general the individual part writing makes use of distance of the fifth 140 or smaller, with seconds and third predominating. 3. Ranges: The ranges encompass those recommended for high-school musicians, with the horn part requiring a player of advanced abilities. 4. Amount of technique required: The most striking feature of this piece is the challenging nature of the horn part, which demands a wide range and a good deal of tech- nical agility. This part is not heard throughout the piece, however; it occurs only at the beginning and the end. With the exception of one harmonic and some trills in the strings, the greatest challenges to the other players are in the areas of rhythm (changing time signa- tures; asymmetric time signatures; syncopations and divisions within measures) and in the reading of many accidentals. 5. Comments: Unlike Davies’ other instrumental works for young people, which were written for non-specialist school children, this piece was composed for advanced performers at a music school. While the piece can be played by a small orchestra, the original conception was for one performer per part, with a great deal of independence between individual lines. The rondo form of the piece would be helpful in preparation for performances, for once the student has mastered a limited number of musical ideas, these ideas recur throughout the work in regular fashion. The Instrumental Music for Young Performers and Davies’ Stylistic Development Davies’ instrumental music for young people presents a microcosmic view of his compositional development and characteristics. Considered as a group, these works contain representations of the important influences and techniques which have shaped Davies’ unique musical voice. William Byrd: Three dances and Five voluntaries, the two early transcriptions, give immediate evidence of Davies’ interest in and understanding of pre-Classical music. Although these pieces were composed out of necessity for Davies’ students at Cirencester, they can be seen as some of the earliest examples of the composer’s transcriptions and realisations of older music, many examples of which can be found in his catalogue of 141 published works. Five Klee pictures, written around the same time as these transcriptions, is a pivotal work in Davies’ instrumental output for school musicians. This was the first such piece in which he introduced avant-garde techniques for performers other than professionals. The logical and systematic construction of the individual movements arises from the post- Webern influences on Davies’ early style. At the same time, a new accessibility of manner, not marked in the composer’s earlier professional works, has appeared, a characteristic that would be carried on in Davies’ subsequent works. The sardonic humor of the third and fourth movements is another feature that has since become part of Davies’ style. The coda to the final movement, a later addition to the score, while not related motivically to the other movements, nevertheless is integrated in a unified manner with the rest of the piece, showing the essential continuity of Davies’ compositional development. Renaissance Scottish dances, chronologically the next work suitable for use by young performers, was written for The Fires of London. Davies’ association with this group has had a great bearing on his music since the 1960’s. By 1973, the year in which this work was written, the influence of the Orkney Islands on Davies’ life and music had begun to take hold. The choice of Scottish originals for these transcriptions is significant, in that the Ork- neys actually' constitute a county of Scotland. At this time Davies was anxious to become an accepted part of the Orkney community; Renaissance Scottish dances, related as they are to the ethnic heritage of these islands, is a manifestation of that desire. Also important is the fact that these dances are the first of Davies’ professional instrumental works deemed appropriate for performance by non-specialists. In Davies’ philosophy the clarification of the musical idea is of supreme importance. His instrumental writing is always based on the most effective manner of presenting a particular musical argument. If this can be done by using fairly simple technical means, the composer is not reticent to do so. In many ways the short Three studies for percussion sums up the sound and techni- que of Davies’ music through the mid-1970’s. In Davies’ instrumental writing, percussion is 142 used for much more than coloristic effect; in many of his works important musical ideas are presented and developed by these instruments. The composition of a work for percussion ensemble, then, is a logical continuation of a definite aspect of the composer’s individual style. By using the same “magic square” technique in the Three studies, Ave maris stella, and Symphony no. 1, Davies relates these pieces not only to each other but to his early medieval influences as well. I’d been using isorhythmic designs, based on medieval music, and transforma- tion processes where a contour will assume other contours step by step. They relate to the magic square technique, obviously, but that just codifies them very neatly (Griffiths, 1982, pp. 121-122). In speaking of another dimension of these pieces, Davies states, The harmonic aspect of all these pieces becomes much clearer when the listener becomes aware that he’s not got to listen to them in terms of a bass, but that there is a tenor, as in medieval and some renaissance music, with parts built above that, working at specific basic intervals which are referred to again and again (Griffiths, 1982, p. 122). An interrelationship between works, examplified by these three pieces, is character- istic of Davies’ music. In a transcribed interview with the composer (Griffiths, 1982), the following exchange takes place: This always seems to be the case, that whenever you finish a piece it’s left as the start of something else. Oh yes, as soon as I put the double bar at the end of a piece, I want to write something else and do that better (p. 127). The three piano works, Stevie’s ferry to Hoy, Farewell to Stromness, and Yesnaby ground, all relate directly to Davies’ involvement in his home community of Orkney. The three movements of Stevie’s ferry to Hoy all show, on a very small scale, the composer’s typical use of motivic development and transformation. The stylistic influence of popular music is heard in Farewell to Stromness and Yesnaby ground; this is a device used in other pieces by Davies, often for humorous, ironic, or satiric purposes. A welcome to Orkney relates to yet another aspect of Davies’ involvement with his present home, i.e., his work as director of the annual St. Magnus Festival. Griffiths (1982) 143 writes, If Davies was to feel himself part of the workingcommunity in the Orkneys, he naturally wanted to show his neighbors what he was up to. . . At the same time, the St. Magnus Festival provides opportunities for Orkney people to hear a great variety of other music, and it has quickly become accepted as part of the life of the islands, thanks in no small measure to the skill and generosity which Davies has shown in writing pieces for local amateur musicians and children to perform (p. 22). The composer himself has said, I suppose I see myself as having a responsibility to try and improve musical standards there, through the festival, through the schools, or in any way that I can. . . A composer has a very direct responsibility to the community (Griffiths, 1982, pp. 119-120). While the composer had previously written an operatic work for schoolchildren (The two fiddlers, 1978) for performance at this festival, A welcome to Orkney was his first instrumental work for the festival’s young performers. The horn writing in particular in this piece recalls similar passages in another Orkney-related work, The Martyrdom of St. Magnus. Pre-classical music, contemporary avant-garde techniques, a biting sense of humor, The Fires of London, the Orkney Islands and community: All of these have had a'direct influence on Davies’ music, and all are evident in his instrumental music for young performers. Each piece by Davies, however, is unique, having its own individual composi- tional and aesthetic features. This sheer range is surely why his music will always elude our attempts to categorize it or to limit it to one dimension. . . The one thing about Davies’s music which we can safely predict by this stage is its capacity for growth, change and renewal. In his music things are in a dynamic state of becoming- a mirror of whitening light. This is a western phenomenon, and at a time when many are aping the gestures of the East, Davies is an out-and-out Westerling, conscious and proud of the whole tradition of Western music and culture he has inherited, and passionately carrying that tradition forward on three fronts: rationalism, because he is cerebral and intellectual; mysticism, because his music comes from afar and is ultimately ecstatic in its nature; and humanism, because of the aspirations implied by the music itself (Pruslin, 1979, p. 3) The Instrumental Music and Davies’ Views on Music Education The primary concept which runs through Davies’ expressed thoughts on music education is his belief in the musical abilities, potentials, and levels of understanding of 144 schoolchildren. He feels that their natural creative capacities should be employed in the teaching of music, and that the composer should not condescend when writing music for performance by them. These ideas are exemplified in the instrumental works Davies has written for school-age musicians. Davies’ first experiences with using student creativity in the music education process actually took place in his orchestra rehearsals at Cirencester, where student input helped shape some of the arrangements he had made for the ensemble. Both William Byrd: Three dances and Five voluntaries grew out of his work in this area. The most obvious application of student creativity in Davies’ compositions is found in the passages employing controlled improvisation which occur in many of his school works, including the third movement of the instrumental Five Klee pictures. Davies does not change his compositional style when writing for children. The musical features which characterize his large, professional works are all used in his music for young people. It is not a matter, then, of the composer’s writing down to children. What does occur is a scaling down of form, length, and performance technique to levels appropri- ate to the musical understanding and capabilities of younger musicians. The composer of the hour-long Symphony no. 1 and the 30-minute Ave maris stella, for example, is immedi- ately and unequivocally recognizable in the five-minute Three studies for percussion. Renaissance Scottish dances, Farewell to Stromness, and Yesnaby ground, all of which use simple and traditional modes of expression, were not written originally for children, but for adult performers and audiences. On the other hand, such conceptually challenging pieces as Five Klee pictures, Three studies for percussion, and A welcome to Orkney were all composed for young performers; the first of these pieces has also been performed by professional musicians. This phenomenon is not very surprising, as Davies himself has said that adults are generally less receptive to unfamiliar musical idioms than are young people. Davies’ conviction that average, non-specialist school children can understand, enjoy, and benefit from music written in a contemporary style is largely dependent on one 145 variable, that of the individual teacher. In his writings on music education the composer has stressed repeatedly the importance of the teacher’s musical understanding and abilities, as well as the necessity for sensitive and meaningful communication with the students. Each of Davies’ pieces for young performers is based on simple, logical compositional devices. The full realization of the value of this music demands that the teacher understand these designs and communicate them to his/her students. Careful teaching, patience, and persistence on the teacher’s part have been shown to result in positive student reaction to and effective performance of this music (Arnold, 1982, p. 2). Among the contributions of major 20th-century composers who have taken an active role in writing music for young performers, Davies’ output is one of the most wide-ranging in scope. Other composers, such as Bartok and Britten, have tended to concentrate on certain categories, e.g., piano music by the former and vocal music in the case of the latter. Davies, however, has composed important works for young musicians in a variety of forms: dramatic works, orchestral works, choral music, chamber pieces, and solo instrumental works. Davies’ successes as a teacher, the number of works which he has written for young performers, and the number of actual performances of these works all bear witness to the fact that a contemporary composer can work with and write for children in an effective manner while still retaining his unique musical identity. Davies has written music for use by musicians at virtually every level of proficiency. This music, when used by a knowledgeable and sensitive teacher, can aid not only in the development of the student’s performance technique but also in the growth of his musical understanding. ln summarizing the impor- tance of Davies’ music for young people, Schlotel (1973) writes, Few living composers speak with a voice as original as his, and it is fortunate that his interest in education has resulted in a series of publications in which this originality can be explored by young performers (p. 14). 146 Recommendations for Further Research Davies’ activities relating to music education have largely been concentrated in the British Isles, where his teaching methods and music for young performers are well-known. In this country, however, there is not as great an awareness of his work in this area. It is suggested, therefore, that a careful study be made of Davies’ instrumental music in terms of suitability for young performers for use by American school children. While playability of the music should be examined, other aspects such as conceptual understanding and appeal should also be investigated. Finally, Davies is a very prolific composer. According to Griffiths (1982), Davies’s rate of production makes it difficult to keep up with his development and to present it within a manageable space: in terms of playing duration his output already rivals that of Schoenberg or Stravinsky (p. 12). Davies has consistently produced works for young performers, particularly since the mid- 1970’s. It is most probable that his output in this area will continue to grow, considering especially the stimulus of the St. Magnus Festival. It is strongly recommended that his future growth and development be carefully followed, as an understanding of his music for young performers is necessary for a total knowledge of his work as a composer. APPENDIX APPENDIX Playing Ranges in Davies’ Instrumental Works for Young Performers Instrument Written range by individual movement Piano Music Stevie’s ferry to Hoy 1_ 2 3 G-g4 A-e3 D-c3 Farewell to Stromness D-e2 Yesnaby ground BBb-db2 Ensemble Works Renaissance Scottish dances 1_ 2 3 4_ g Q Z Flute {#142 e1 a,2 ....... d1-a2 C163 f#1_d2 g1_g3 Clarinet (Bb) -------------------- c1-a2 f1 -a2 c1-a2 gl-f3 Guitar f#-g2 ------- g-e2 ------- e-c3 f-d2 e-a2 Viol in g-c2 g-d3 ------ f1-a2 g-a2 a-f1 g-c2 Cello D-e1 c—d‘ ....... g-c2 G-g g.d1 Glockenspiel ----- dl-fiit2 ------- ----- ------ ---- Marimba ----- ------- ------- ------- ----- c-b ------ Three studies for percussion (all movements) Concert xylophone Soprano xylophone Alto xylophone Bass xylophone Soprano glockenspiel Alto glockenspiel C1-C4 147 148 Bass metallophone F-C#1 Deep bass metallophone C-a Orchestral Works William Byrd: Three dances 1_ 3 3 Flute I g1-e3 d2-g3 d2-g3 Flute II gl-c3 dl—g2 d1-g2 Oboe I die? (II-d3 (ll-g2 Oboe II b-e2 cl1 -d2 log2 Clarinet l (Bb) g-g1 c1-bb2 g-g2 Clarinet ll (Bb) d-g1 f-bb1 e-c2 Bassoon G-g F-d1 G-e1 Horn g-d1 c-g d-d1 Trumpet I (Bb) a-d2 g-a1 g-g1 Trumpet II (Bb) Trombone G-d G-g G-c1 Guitar ------- g-g2 b-g2 Violin I 8'82 We 91:82 Violin II g-d2 b-d2 b-c2 Violin Ill g-d1 ------- g-g1 Viola Cl-El1 Of] 0'31 Cello D-dl c-dl G-c1 Bass G-g C-dl G—o1 Five voluntaries Flute I Flute II Flute Ill Oboe l Oboe Il Oboe III Clarinet I Clarinet lI Bassoon Horn 1 Horn ll Trumpet l Trumpet ll Trumpet llI Trombone l Trombone II Timpani Violin I Violin II Violin lII Viola Cello Bass 149 F#-b A/d -. ..... fraz d1_aI F#-a A/d Five Klee pictures Flute 1 Flute 2 Oboe 1 Oboe 2 Clarinet 1 (Bb) Clarinet 2 (Bb) Bassoon 1 Bassoon 2 Horn I (F) Horn 2 (F) Horn 3 (F) Horn 4 (F) Trumpet 1 (Bb) Trumpet 2 (Bb) Trombone 1 Trombone 2 Piano Violin I Violin 2 Viola Cello Bass f#]-a1 eb1-g2 f#1-a1 eb1-g2 f#1-a1 ab-b C-d # (U) db3 be-db3 el-db2 BBb-Bb BBb-Bb fbl-abbz dbl -be E-fb E-abb c1-eb1 gb-g bb-db2 bb-db’ A-eb eb-eb1 A welcome to Orkney Flute Oboe Clarinet (A) Bassoon Horn (F) String Quartet l Violin 1 Violin 2 Viola Cello String Quartet ll Violin 1 Violin 2 Viola Cello Bass 151 dblr3 bb-c3 fibbb] go—eb1 dblo3 bb-g2 dogl Gb-eb1 Gball Note: All ranges are derived from the full scores, in which transposing instruments are written in C LIST OF REFERENCES LIST OF REFERENCES Arnold, J. Letter to Kenneth A. Kleszynski. (12 October, 1982) 2 p. Arnold, J. Notes on The Two Fiddlers by Peter Maxwell Davies. London, Judy Arnold, 1982. Arnold, J. Peter Maxwell Davies: The complete catalogue of published works. London: Judy Arnold, 1981. Arnold J. Peter Maxwell Davies: The complete catalogue of works for young performers. London: Judy Arnold, 1981. Arnold, J. Peter Maxwell Davies: Some programmed events, September 1982 - April 1983. London: Judy Arnold, 1982. Blatter, A. Instrumentation/orchestration. New York: Longman,1980. Borwick, D.B. Invocation and revelation (original composition) and Peter Maxwell Davies’ “Antechrist”: An analysis (Doctoral dissertation, University of Rochester, 1979). Dissertation Abstracts International, 1979, 40, 6059A. (University Microfilms No. GAX80-07670) _— Break for younger listeners. The Times Educational Supplement, 19 June, 1981. Chanan, M. Dialectics in Peter Maxwell Davies. In S. Pruslin (Ed.), Studies from two decades. London: Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd., 1979. Clements, A. Cinderella. Financial Timeg, June, 1980. Davies’ Klee pictures. Music and Musicians, 1976,_2_5, 7-8. Davies, PM. Cinderella. The Orcadian, 1980. Davies, PM. Cinderella. London: Judy Arnold, 1982. Davies, PM. Composing music for school use. Making Music, 1961 ,fi, 7. Davies, PM. Farewell to Stromness. London: Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd., 1980. Davies, PM. Five Klee pictures. London: Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited, 1978. Davies, PM. Five voluntaries. London: Schott & Co., Ltd., 1969. 152 153 Davies, PM. Jacket notes for Davies, Eight songs for a mad king (Nonesuch H-71285, 1973). Davies, PM. Jacket notes for Davies, Second fantasia on John Taverner’s “In nomine” (Argo ZRG 712,1973). Davies, PM. Music composition for children. In W. Grant (Ed.), Music in education. London: Butterworths, 1963. Davies, PM. Pax Orcadiensis. Tempo, I976, £9, 20-22. Davies, PM. Problems of a British composer today. The Listener, 1959, 62, 563. Davies, PM. Renaissance Scottish dances. London: Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd., 1979. Davies, PM. Revelation and fall. In S. Pruslin (Ed.), Studies from two decades. London: Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd., 1979. Davies, PM. Sets or series. The Listener, 1968,22, 250. Davies, PM. Stevie’s ferry to Hoy. London: Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited, 1978. Davies, PM. Symphony. In S. Pruslin (Ed.), Studies from two decades. London: Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd., 1979. Davies, PM. Symphony no. 1. London: Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited, 1978. Davies, PM. Taverner—a synopsis. In S. Pruslin (Ed.), Studies from two decades. London: Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd., 1979. Davies, PM. Three studies for percussion. London: Chester Music, 1980. Davies, PM. The two fiddlers. London: Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd., 1982. Davies, PM. A welcome to Orkney. London: Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd., 1980. Davies, PM. 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Tempo, 1980,1_33, 96. Northcott, B. Peter Maxwell Davies. Music and Musicians, 1969, 11, 34. Peter Maxwell Davies. Musical Events, 1962, 11, 17. Peter Maxwell Davies. Musical Events, 1969, 34, 24. Peter Maxwell Davies. England: Herbert Fitch & Co., Ltd., 1975. Porter, A. Some new British composers. In P.H. Lang & N. Broder (Eds.), Contemporary music in Europe: A comprehensive survey. New York: WW. Norton & Company, Inc., 1965. 155 Preheim, MC. The choral music of Peter Maxwell Davies. Unpublished doctoral disserta- tion, University of Cincinnati, 1972. Pruslin, S. Jacket notes for Davies, Renaissance and Baroque realisations (Unicorn- Kanchana KP 8005, 1981). Pruslin, S. Nel mezzo del cammin—In mid-flight. In S. Pruslin (Ed.), Studies from two decades. London: Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd., 1979. Pruslin, S. Peter Maxwell Davies. In J. Arnold, Peter Maxwell Davies: The complete catalogue of published works. London: Judy Arnold, 1981. Pruslin, S. Peter Maxwell Davies. In J. 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Saint Louis: Magnamusic-Baton, Inc. Walsh, S. Davies, Peter Maxwell. In S. Sadie (Ed.), The new Grove dictionary of music and musicians (Vol. 5). London: Macmillan Publishers, 1980. Waterhouse, J.C.G. Towards an opera. In S. Pruslin (Ed.), Studies from two decades. London: Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd., 1979. Wilson, C. Davies scores with new opera. The Scotsman, June 19, 1978. Woodward, I. The pied piper of Pimlico. Evening News, December, 1978.