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Peter Maxwell Davies: Taverner returns on new CD and in Glasgow concert

(October 2009)

The first recording of Peter Maxwell Davies’s opera Taverner is released on disc by NMC in November in honour of the composer’s 75th birthday year (NMC D157). The CD is drawn from a 1997 radio recording with Oliver Knussen conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra with Martyn Hill as composer John Taverner and David Wilson-Johnson as the White Abbot.

The opera is set in 16th century England amidst the religious turmoil of the Reformation, but the composer’s libretto also explores wider issues of creative truth and self-betrayal. The launchpad for Maxwell Davies’s early expressionistic period, Taverner was composed in 1962-68 and 1970 and premiered at Covent Garden in 1972 conducted by Edward Downes.

The score shows the composer’s assimilation of early music, building material from John Taverner’s In Nomine and Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas through parody techniques, and utilising a period ensemble as well as a modern orchestra. The second act forms a nightmarish variation of the first: the tables turn as Taverner’s former accuser is burnt at the stake but the composer has destroyed the better part of himself.

A concert performance of Taverner forms the culmination of the Maxwell Davies 75th celebrations at Glasgow’s Concert Halls (18 October – 8 November). Martyn Brabbins conducts the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra with Daniel Norman and Roderick Williams in the lead roles, and the concert will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s Hear and Now. Other events in the series include Oliver Knussen conducting the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in Symphony No.4 (30 October) and a Discovering Music invitation concert exploring the tone-poem A Reel of Seven Fishermen (1 November).

Visit the Glasgow Concert Halls Maxwell Davies festival website.

Forthcoming Maxwell Davies highlights include a new work for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and pianist Angela Hewitt, due for premiere at Carnegie Hall in New York on 6 February 2010. The commission is part of the orchestra’s Brandenburg Project and, as in Bach’s 5th concerto, the keyboard soloist is partnered by prominent parts for flute and violin.

Maxwell Davies’s official website, www.maxopus.com has recently been relaunched with fully updated information.

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