Maxwell Davies: Mr Emmet Takes a Walk on CD(April 2007) Peter Maxwell Davies's chamber opera Mr Emmet Takes a Walk has just appeared on disc for the first time, in a recording by Psappha with the cast from the work's premiere in 2000.
Buy the CD from the Psappha website. "With a pithy libretto by David Pountney, a cast of three and a versatile ensemble of just 10 players, the piece delivers a scary yet ultimately poignant portrait of psychological crack-up... Psappha and their conductor Etienne Siebens are brilliant in support, and the booklet presents the full text in an admirably clear format. Recorded with maximum attention to clarity and atmosphere, this is an exemplary release." Gramophone "Pountney's text for Mr Emmet is certainly both dramatically potent and deeply mysterious: the forlorn purpose of the walk that his hero takes - down a railway embankment to the line where he will take his own life - only gradually becomes apparent, while during his journey memories and incidents from his life, some not fully explained, crowd in... It all lasts 55 minutes, yet haunts the mind far longer." BBC Music Magazine "This is a work as dark or bright, sad or amusing, naïve or ironic as any of Peter Maxwell Davies's earlier music theatre works... This version is immaculately presented, giving warmth and bitter wit to an unfortunate tale." The Scotsman "...a journey deep into the psyche of a man as he approaches his railway-line suicide. Using as his building materials excerpts from Bach, Schumann, Gabrieli and Mozart, and drawing deeply on his capacity for parody and for gallows humour, Davies tells it how it often is — methodical, unemotional, almost mundane, but terribly lonely — cleverly blurring distinctions between memory, imagination and reality on the way." Sunday Times > Further information on Work: Mr Emmet Takes a Walk > News Search |
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