Back in 2013, when I was first getting used to this website creation malarkey, I had ambitious plans to create a bunch of websites, each dedicated to a different topic. This was complete madness – I didn’t understand how much work maintaining a single website could be and I wasn’t even prepared to really put in the work to do that. This was how we got: Kirsty Morgan Music, Kirsty Morgan Music Blog, Snark [music] Notes, Ethnomusicology: St Mary’s Singing Group, 50 Book Challenge, and my greatest non-starter, the website we’re going to talk about today, A-Z of Giuseppe Verdi (which I have just deleted).
2013 was the bi-centenary of Verdi’s birth, so having just started a music degree and seeing some of my classmates had their own music websites, I wanted to get involved. I decided to create an A-Z of Verdi operas, posted fortnightly (26 letters, 52 weeks of the year). Not a bad idea in theory (if I do say so myself), but I should have decided which operas to write about for each letter right from the start – or at the very least checked that there was an opera for each letter (spoilers: there isn’t).
On top of this, I was busy with university courses, and hanging out with friends, and I started having health problems. And the weeks slipped by. I might have been able to play catch-up but then I’d have to write 2, 3, 10 posts a week just to break even. It was a disaster. In the end, I wrote 1 post: A is for Aïda.
And…. it’s not the best post in the world. There’s no conclusion. I found out some stuff about the opera and wrote it down. Most of it contains a plot synopsis that can be found in better forms elsewhere. But I also kinda like it, in a weird nostalgic sort of way. So, in the interest of centralising everything onto the ONE blog (which, yes, I ought to have been doing from the start), here is my single blog post, that I’m posting today to commemorate the 120th anniversary of Verdi’s death.
A is for Aïda, Verdi’s twenty-fourth opera. It was composed very quickly, at the request of the Khedive Ismail Pacha of Egypt. When Verdi was offered the job, he was working as a farmer and had no desire to compose anything, especially not for an Egyptian (the horror!).
Fortunately for music lovers, Verdi’s nationalism was won over by the substantial payment offered – over 15,000 francs for the Egyptian performances alone (at a time when 10 francs were considered a large salary). After several delays caused by the 130-day siege on Paris by the Prussians, Aïda premièred in Cairo on Christmas Eve, 1871.
The première was hugely successful. Aïda’s Egyptian influences appealed to the native audience, as Italian critic, Filippi, explained, with all the tact befitting a nineteenth-century white guy:
“The Arabians, even the rich, do not love our shows… it is a true miracle to see a turban in a theatre in Cairo. [Yet] Sunday evening the opera house was crowded before the curtain rose.”
Story Set against the backdrop of a bloody war between Egypt and Ethiopia, Aïda is a tragic story of the love between the Egyptian Pharaoh’s favourite soldier (Radamès) and a young Ethiopian slave-girl in the Pharaoh’s court (Aïda). The conflict between true love and patriotic loyalty (for both Aïda and Radamès) drives the plot.
Shortly before leaving for war, Radamès accidentally reveals his love for Aïda, slave-girl to the Pharaoh’s daughter (Amneris). Amneris, insanely jealous, tricks Aïda into admitting that she returns Radamès’s affections. The princess vows to make the slave-girl even more miserable than she already is.
Radamès returns from war victorious with a slew of Ethiopian prisoners, one of whom is Aïda’s father and king of Ethiopia (Amonasro). Amonasro is dragged to the Pharaoh’s dungeon in chains and Aïda’s grief at her father’s fate is exacerbated further when the Pharaoh announces that, as a reward for his valour in battle, Radamès is to marry Amneris, the princess.
On the eve of the wedding, Amneris prays at the temple of Isis that Radamès will love her. Taking advantage of the princess’s absence, Aïda meets her father outside the temple. Amonasro explains that the Ethiopians are ready to fight once more and suggests that Aïda convince Radamès to abandon Egypt and join her in Ethiopia. Radamès, however, has other plans. He knows that he will be sent to battle once more and, if he defeats the Ethiopians a second time, the Pharaoh will be hard pressed to refuse his requests to marry Aïda instead of the princess.
Aïda manages to persuade Radamès to run away with her but, when he realises that she is the daughter of the Ethiopian king, Radamès despairs, calling himself a traitor and a coward. The lovers are discovered and, as Aïda escapes with her father, Radamès gives himself up to the custody of the Pharaoh’s priests.
Refusing Amneris’s offer to help him, Radamès is brought to trial for his treachery and sentenced to be buried alive. Aïda hides in Radamès’s crypt, choosing to die at her lover’s side rather than live alone. She dies in Radamès’s arms and the opera ends: “Peace, peace, peace.”
Musical Analysis – Triumphal March The Triumphal March, also known as the Grand March, has been described as “the most celebrated tune in the opera.” Its popularity out of context can overshadow the fact that Aïda, for all its showiness and glamour, is truly an intimate opera. Almost all of the music for the three principal characters – Aïda, Radamès and Amneris – is accompanied by minimal orchestration in order to focus the audience’s attention on the magnificent vocals. However, the spectacular march of Act II Scene 2 – celebrating Egypt’s victory over the Ethiopians – is a vivacious and highly enjoyable affair.
After twenty-four bars of lively (yet majestic) orchestral introduction, the chorus explodes into a splendid tune “Gloria all’ Egitto” which impressed the Khedive of Egypt so much he decided to make it the Egyptian National Anthem.
While writing Aïda, Verdi initially intended to use authentic Egyptian instruments. However, after examining an ancient Egyptian flute in a Florentine museum, he changed his mind, dismissing the flute (with all the tact befitting a nineteenth-century white guy) as “a reed with four holes in it like the ones our shepherds have.”
Instead, Verdi requested that six trumpets – three in A flat and three in B – be made to his specifications. These long, straight instruments were designed to emulate Verdi’s vision of Egyptian trumpets and were crafted in Milan then shipped to Egypt.
The trumpets in A flat play the march tune in unison before immediately being taken over by the remaining three trumpets which repeat the march in their key of B. This sudden key change is one of the most exciting and effective moments in the entire opera.
After a lively balletic movement, the chorus returns and builds to the climax – the triumphant entry of Radamès. “Gloria!”
Bibliography Bacon, Mary Schell Hoke. Operas Every Child Should Know (New York, 1911) Osborne, Charles. The Complete Operas of Verdi (New York, 1969) Steen, Michael. Great Operas: A Guide to Twenty-Five of the World’s Finest Musical Experience (London, 2012)
The music of Kaija Saariaho’s beautiful opera, L’amour de Loin (2000), is gorgeous but, like so many operatic romances, the plot is more than a little bizarre…
—
[Act I]
Jaufre, a prince and troubadour, sings of his love for a girl he’s never met and doesn’t know exists.
Hoo, boy. This’ll be good… I dislike him already.
A pilgrim tells him about the Countess Clemence, who lives in a distant land.
Pilgrim, allow me to introduce you to the can of worms you just opened.
Jaufre realises this is the same woman from his songs.
Of course he does. #sarcasm, #That’sNotPossible, #what?!
He presses the pilgrim for information about her, and immediately becomes infatuated.
Jaufre? What are you doing? JAUFRE! STAHP!!!
The pilgrim tiptoes away, leaving Jaufre to his songs.
Smart move, pilgrim. I’d give this guy a wide berth, too.
After a while, Jaufre notices that the pilgrim has left and curses her for having told him of a seemingly perfect girl he’s never to meet.
Hey! Back off, Jaufre! I like this pilgrim! Besides, you’re the one who’s apparently lovestricken with a girl who you know practically nothing about! Heck, you don’t even know her name!
[Act II]
The pilgrim has traveled to the distant land where the Countess Clemence lives.
No wonder, I too would have fled to a distant land to get away from Jaufre.
The Countess Clemence stops the pilgrim to ask of her homeland, across the sea.
Which just so happens to be the same country where Jaufre lives. Coincidence? I think not!
The pilgrim tells her about Jaufre, who has been singing of his love for her.
Why would you DO that, pilgrim? Are you some kind of mischievous troll? Are you TRYING to make this plot go haywire?
The Countess Clemence is offended but curious.
Valid responses. I like this woman… for now.
[Act III]
Back in Jaufre’s land, Jaufre presses the pilgrim to tell him what the Countess looks like.
Why am I not surprised?
The pilgrim protests, saying she has already described the Countess twenty or fifty times.
Dude! Let it go already! You have a problem!
The pilgrim advises Jaufre to think about things other than the Countess, warning that some people are saying that he is going mad.
Yes! Jaufre, listen to the pilgrim! She knows what she’s talking about!
Jaufre is infuriated, and demands to know whether the pilgrim believes he’s mad.
Yes. Yes she does. We all believe your current obsession is super unhealthy!
The pilgrim replies: “If one says to a man ‘you are mad’, it is because one does not think so. When one thinks he is, one contents himself with complaining behind his back.”
I love everything about this line. The tactfulness; the way it doesn’t actually answer the question; the humour; the actual sentiment. This is a beautifully crafted line.
The pilgrim tells Jaufre that she has told the Countess about him.
I guess he was gonna find out sooner or later…
Jaufre is horrified, especially when he learns that the pilgrim has bastardised his romantic ballads when repeating them to the Countess.
“Dammit, Jaufre! I’m a pilgrim – not a singer!”
He decides that he must see the Countess for himself, and sing her his love songs the way they were meant to be performed.
Of COURSE he does! #seriously? #ThisCannotEndWell #NeverMeetYourHeroes!
Back in Tripoli, the Countess admits that she has fallen for her distant admirer.
NOOOO! And you were doing so well, Countess! You have doomed at least one of you to a terrible death!
[Act IV]
Travelling on a ship to see the Countess Clemence, Jaufre is plagued by nightmares and worry.
Well, no wonder. He’s going to see the stranger of his obsessions! Who WOULDN’T find such a situation nightmarish?!
Not even the pilgrim can quell his nerves.
Yeah, because “go to sleep and don’t think about it” isn’t the MOST helpful piece of advice the pilgrim could have given.
Jaufre suffers from some kind of breakdown before collapsing unconscious into the pilgrim’s arms.
I’m sorry, Jaufre. But you totally brought this one on yourself.
[Act V]
The Countess, waiting for Jaufre to arrive, doubts how sensible it was to have invited this obsessive individual to meet her.
Oh, now you see sense! If he murders you in your sleep, don’t say you weren’t warned!
The pilgrim enters, and tells her that Jaufre is ill and close to death.
Love doesn’t kill people; obsession to the point of illness kills people.
Jaufre is carried onstage in a stretcher.
While I do now feel a little bit sorry for the guy, it’s probably lucky for the Countess that he’s too weak to do her any harm.
The two lovers meet and sing about how much they love each other for a good twenty minutes or so.
Just die already! (Look, Saariaho, I know this is opera, but it’s also the twenty-first century. The era of short attention spans! Is it really necessary for you to draw out a death scene for a whole twenty minutes?)
Eventually Jaufre actually dies.
THANK you.
The Countess cries to God that she’d hoped God would grant them “an instant, just one instant of true happiness, without suffering, without illness, without the approach of death.”
…Steady on, Countess! What’s wrong with you? You didn’t know Jaufre any better than he knew you!
The pilgrim is also upset, but more controlled.
Well, yeah. Because the pilgrim is the only level-headed character in this opera.
Despite having just shouted venomously at God, the Countess concludes she does not deserve another man’s love, and decides to enter a convent.
Um, I don’t really follow the logic, but I can certainly agree with the conclusion. This woman probably shouldn’t be marrying anyone any time soon.
In the convent, the Countess prays, telling God that He is now her distant love.
That’s actually quite a nice parallel. I can appreciate that parallel… so long as she’s not thinking God’s going to die because he loves her too much, like Jaufre did… Oh. Wait.
Moral of the story: the only safe long-distance relationship a girl can have is with God.
BETTER MORAL OF THE STORY: Don’t fall in love with people you’ve never met. That’s seriously messed up, a little bit stalker-ish, and it most likely won’t end well!
When I was studying for my BMus at the University of Aberdeen, I wrote this essay on Peter Maxwell Davies’s music. I quite like it; I hope you do as well.
Introduction
The compositions of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies have been very influenced by his feelings towards the musical establishment of the time. At university he went out of his way to learn about music that was not taught in lectures and as a younger composer he used modernism and the avant-garde to rail against the snobbery of the musical elite. As he got older and gained more renown as a composer, his musical style shifted into more universally accessible territory and from 1970 onwards he was greatly influenced by the culture of Orkney and the music of Sibelius.
Combining Medieval/Renaissance Music with Modernism/Serialism
Peter Maxwell Davies read music at Manchester University from 1952 to 1957[1], and while he was there he developed an interest in music that was not on the syllabus.[2] In his own time, he studied renaissance and medieval polyphony, for which he had a particular fascination,[3] and he also shared an enthusiasm for the new music of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg with some his university classmates,[4] though many of his peers and lecturers were more dismissive of the new forms.[5] He wrote several pieces during his time at university that utilised his understanding of new music. The Sonata for Trumpet and Piano, Op. 1, followed the classical serial forms more closely than anything that Davies would write after it;[6] and the set of Five Pieces for Piano, Op. 2, contains polyphonic passages that indicate influence from the sonatas of Schoenberg and Boulez,[7] and its distinct rhythmic cells draw inspiration from Messiaen and Indian music.[8] Much of Davies’s familiarity with serial music, however, comes from his studies in mainland Europe and the influence of the compositions of Luigi Nono and, less directly, Berg and Mahler.[9]
Alma Redemptoris Mater, also written while Davies was at university, was the first of his published compositions to integrate material from a medieval source.[10] Paul Griffiths and other musicologists have conjectured that the work is based on a motet written by John Dunstable,[11] and David Roberts, although he regards that interpretation as too derivative,[12] has demonstrated how the oboe section from the third movement comes from the Sarum plainchant antiphon Alma Redemptoris Mater.[13] The notes of the oboe line are a quotation of the pitch classes used for the word ‘Alma’ in the Sarum antiphon, with the first three pitch classes of the antiphon being restated at the end of the oboe line, as can be seen in Figures 1 and 2.[14]
Figure 1.The opening of the Sarum plainchant ‘Alma Redemptoris Mater’.[15]Figure 2.The oboe line in the third movement of Davies’s ‘Alma Redemptoris Mater’.[16]Although Roberts would disagree, Griffiths also cites the structure of Davies’s Alma Redemptoris Mater as following that of Dunstable’s motet 40 and argues that the form of the cantus firmus in Davies’s presto mirrors the duo in the motet.[17] But regardless of whether Alma Redemptoris Mater was based on Dunstable, the medieval influences are indisputably very much present in the work,[18] and in this regard it can be viewed as the precursor of other more substantial works of Davies’s early career, [19] such as the opera Taverner and the ‘motet for orchestra’ Worldes Blis, which is an avant-garde work based on an English song from the thirteenth century.[20] Davies continued to nurture his love of old and new music and a great deal of his compositional technique brings together and combines medieval chant-like melodies with post-tonal expressionism.[21]
The avant-garde (up to 1970)
Peter Maxwell Davies was from a northern working-class background and as a young man he was appalled by the backwards snobbery of the British music scene.[22] His avant-garde compositions of the 1960s were often used to ridicule the music establishment of the time.[23]
Eight Songs for a Mad King
The titular mad king in Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King is based on George III, who experienced raving fits in the years after the American Revolution.[24] It was said that George III would spend days on end at his organ teaching his birds to sing. In a parody of the ‘mad scene’ staple of opera, Eight Songs for a Mad King features the singer who plays the king running frenetically between the players – a flautist, clarinettist, violinist and cellist – who are performing from inside big plastic birdcages.[25] It is an uncomfortable work, placing the audience in the role of voyeurs and forcing them to confront their macabre fascination with the grotesque portrayal of the mentally ill.[26]
In Eight Songs for a Mad King, Davies used quotation, directly borrowing and reworking the music of other highly regarded composers,[27] in order to deride the primarily middle- and upper-class audiences.[28] The seventh song in the work, ‘Country Dance’, places Handel’s Messiah as the butt of the joke. The opening tenor recitative of Handel’s composition ‘Comfort Ye, My People’ has become a farce, with the lyrics being set against discordant musical lines.[29] There is even a direction in the midst of the opening passage that instructs the music to be sung ‘like a horse’.[30]
Figure 3.Excerpt from Eight Songs for a Mad King, Song Seven ‘Country Dance’, with the musical direction ‘like a horse’.[31]This work was written for The Pierrot Players, a group of virtuoso performers that Davies had set up with his university friend, Harrison Birtwistle.[32] Being more familiar with the abilities of this small group of talented musicians allowed Davies to write music that was more challenging than would generally be expected. The vocal requirement for the King is particularly demanding, with complex gibbering and a range extending to over five octaves.[33] The percussionist, not placed in a cage, has a wide variety of instruments to play, including some unconventional ones: a digeridoo, an anvil, a scrubbing board, a football rattle and toys that make bird noises.[34]
Vesalii Icones
Another avant-garde work written for The Pierrot Players was Vesalii Icones.[35] This group of fourteen dances, each named after one of the fourteen stages of Jesus Christ on the Cross,[36] was composed in 1969, the same year as Eight Songs for a Mad King,[37] and like Mad King it uses parody and quotation to mock the musical styles of the elite.[38] But, more significantly, it also targets the insincere, sanctimonious religious practices of the Christian Church. This is clear from the offset, as the work features a naked dancer and a cellist dressed as a choirboy as the soloists.[39]
Davies has stated that he views the Victorian practice of sanitising hymns, and religious material in general, “almost the ultimate blasphemy,”[40] so Vesalli Icones contains irreverent imitations of the offending musical style. In the sixth dance of the work, entitled ‘The Mocking of Christ’, a mangled nineteenth-century hymn is played on an out-of-tune piano by the naked dancer,[41] and it contains clumsy doubling of harmonies and clunky, heavy fingering[42] that mimics an amateur player fudging the accompaniment. Meanwhile, the second number, ‘The Betrayal of Christ’, includes a “sickly sweet”, sycophantic melody of feigned adoration.[43]
This subject of the betrayal of Christ runs throughout the work, and Davies borrows from some of his earlier compositions that deal with this theme: Missa Super l’Homme Armé and Ecce Manus Tardentis.[44] The former of these pieces was based on a fifteenth-century mass,[45] which, in turn had derived from the medieval song, l’Homme Armé.[46] This indicates that even Davies’s most experimental compositions were affected by his interest in early music. Portions of the earlier compositions occur in various forms throughout Vesalli Icones, and both can be heard in the eighth number, ‘St. Veronica Wipes His Face’.[47] The l’Homme Armé is played by the live instruments while a tape recording of Ecce Manus Tardentis is collaged over the top of it.[48] It seems likely that this crackly tape, which ends up taking over from the live performers, represents the fact that bad recordings cheapen the sublimity of religious music.
The final number of Vesalli Icones changes the original ending of the Passion story. In Davies’s version, it is not Christ who rises from the tomb, but an indistinguishable copy: the Antichrist.[49] Both the Antichrist figure and the foxtrot that he dances were typical features in Davies’s compositions around that time.[50] Playing with the foxtrot style gave Davies the opportunity to expose the “fake nostalgia” for the declining music genre, and he used it to symbolise hedonistic corruption in several of his other compositions, including a pair of arrangements of music by Purcell, and his popular modernist piece St. Thomas Wake.[51] The figure of the Antichrist occurs again in a few of his later operas, Resurrection and, the next work that will be discussed here, Taverner. [52]
Taverner
The opera Taverner is based on Edward Fellowes’s inaccurate account of Taverner’s life[53] in which the renaissance composer converts to Protestantism and becomes a religious zealot, denouncing all of his previous musical creations.[54] It was completed in 1970, having taken 14 years to write.[55]
Davies incorporates material from some of his earlier compositions into Taverner. The opening three-note motif of his trumpet sonata, op. 1, is employed as the first idea in Act 1 of the opera[56] and Davies even went so far as to compose two fantasias on Taverner, and a later chamber work named Seven In Nomine, which allowed him to ruminate on and experiment with the musical material that would be moulded for the full opera.[57] These three compositions hold up as works in their own right, despite containing a lot of the same material as the opera.[58] For example, the precursor works all feature a chord with the notes D – F# – E – G#, which went on to be used in the leitmotif for the court jester who appears as a symbol of death in Taverner.[59] Perhaps unsurprisingly, the chord became known as the Death Chord.[60]
In Taverner, Davies uses the full orchestra to resemble the titular character’s thought patterns,[61] perhaps implying that in renouncing all music Taverner is fighting against his own nature. Indeed, the difference between the orchestral writing in the two acts is striking. Where the orchestra was smooth and melodic in the opening of Act I, when Taverner is still a Catholic composer, the same musical material is sped up, simplified and more percussive for the start of Act II, which takes place after Taverner’s conversion to Protestantism.[62] The process of Taverner’s transition begins in the final scene of Act I, and the orchestra is used again to reflect the intensity of Taverner’s different thoughts. In particular, the orchestral accompaniment becomes very sparse in sections when Taverner doubts himself,[63] as if to show that his doubts are less fierce than his convictions.
The connection between the orchestra and Taverner’s inner thought pattern is emphasised in Act I, Scene 3. Taverner is not present so the orchestra falls silent leaving only a few viols and a lute to accompany the singers.[64] The use of period instruments here is just one of the ways Davies links his music to the era that the opera is set in. The music for this scene, which takes place at the Royal Court, combines Davies’s own harmonies with elements from dances that would have been common amongst the upper classes at the time, the pavane and the galliard.[65] Much of the music in the opera comes from reworking music written by Taverner himself. The renaissance composer’s In Nomine appears in various forms, building up to be revealed in a recognisable format at the end of the opera.[66] Even the libretto, written by Davies himself, primarily consists of spliced together quotations from diaries, sermons, biographies, court records of heresy trials, and other documents from Taverner’s time.[67]
The more classical composer (from 1970 onwards)
The year Taverner was completed, 1970, was a pivotal year for Davies with regards to his compositional process. Richard Taruskin has argued that the lukewarm reception of audiences towards his more outlandish pieces prompted Davies to turn away from the avant-garde in favour of a more classical music style,[68] positing that Davies completely cut himself off from the modernist movement in frustration because his compositions failed to shock audiences the way he intended.[69] While there is undoubtedly a general trend towards Davies becoming a more traditional composer, Taruskin’s narrative seems like an oversimplification. Both Vesalii Icones and Eight Songs for a Mad King had received mixed receptions, and while half of the audience were appalled, the other half was ecstatic.[70] Likewise, although Worldes Blis had been met with angry reviews,[71]St. Thomas Wake, which included several pastiches of foxtrots that made the work more accessible, was one of Davies’s most popular compositions at the time.[72]
What’s more, Davies did actually write some modernist music after 1970, and the trend towards a classical style seems to have been a gradual one. 1975 saw the completion of Ave Maris Stella, a considerably less pioneering piece than some of the works mentioned previously,[73] but which used a serial-like technique to ascribe each of the notes of a plainsong hymn to a number in a ‘magic square,’ which Davies then transformed into a nine-pitch series that was expanded into nine movements for this piece.[74] Similarly, his short avant-garde opera, Resurrection, was completed significantly later in 1987.[75] It features a child (played by a dummy) with an exploding head,[76] a cat that transforms into a dragon with rock music accompaniment,[77] the onstage removal of the child-mannequin’s brain, heart and genitals,[78] a staged shooting of members of the audience,[79] and the non-sequitur appearance of the Antichrist, who rises dramatically from a tomb at the close of the opera amidst a flashing disco light show.[80] This is hardly the type of production that would be expected from a man who had completely turned his back on modernism seventeen years previously. However, Warnaby suggests that Resurrection was, in fact, the point in Davies’s compositional progression where “the fractured manner of the 1960s had been exorcized.”[81]
Orkney Inspiration
1970 was also the year when Davies left his secluded cottage in Dorset and moved to an even more secluded home on the isle of Hoy in Orkney.[82] The rustic landscape and local legends and literature had a profound effect on his compositions.[83] He wrote several lyrical piano works inspired by places in and around Orkney, including Stevie’s Ferry to Hoy, Farewell to Stromness and Yesnaby Ground;[84] his Orkney Saga, based on a series of tapestries in St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall, utilises the twelfth-century Hymn to St Magnus;[85] and the narrative orchestral work Reel of Seven Fishermen was inspired by a George Mackay Brown poem about the dangers of the sea.[86] As well as being inspired by the Orcadian geography and culture, Davies became very involved in the local community. He was part of the group that formed the St Magnus Festival,[87] and wrote music, which often included local references, for school children and choirs to perform.[88]
This was also the point where his music really entered the public’s favour[89] and Davies received an increased number of commissions for his compositions.[90] This meant that he was being paid to write music that would appeal to a wide audience.
From Berg to Sibelius
Davies’s compositional style has been affected by his writing for specific performers. Having worked with Mary Thomas, her virtuosic vocals shine through in many of Davies’s compositions for solo soprano[91] and Alan Hacker’s primal sharpness on the clarinet can be heard in pieces like Hymnos (1967).[92] In the later portion of his career, the similarities between Davies’s and Berg’s compositions dwindled, but in its place Davies’s work grew to be closer in style to that of Sibelius, who Davies has acknowledged was an influence on his writing.[93]
The Symphonies
The influence of Sibelius can be seen in how Davies’s approach to classical structures in his symphonies has developed over time.[94] His earlier symphonies are much closer in form to classical symphonies than some of his later ones.[95] They contain distinct, if ghostly, movements.[96] The movements of the more recent symphonies blend together, one movement moving into the next, and the overall macrostructure of the work takes a larger role.[97] Placing a greater emphasis on the overall shape of the work allowed Davies to discretely introduce the material of the upcoming movement early on, and the piece is always preparing for the arrival of the next part before the previous part has properly departed.[98] This creates a ‘smudging’ effect as the movements flow into each other.[99]
This idea of the architecture of a piece was nothing new for Davies. The importance he placed on the overall form of a work can be traced back to his university days and the early piano works that he wrote during that time,[100] however his symphonies naturally demonstrate a more mature approach, and the blending technique was developed through the increased exposure to Sibelius.
Conclusion
Peter Maxwell Davies’s compositional style has always been affected by the attitudes of the contemporary music scene, whether that be to work with them or fight against them. In his early career he was a bit of a rebel, writing parodies and quotations that poked fun at the highbrow elitism prevalent in the music scene at the time. At university he had studied medieval polyphony and serial modernism of his own accord, even although the formal opinion of the time was that these styles were not important enough to be taught in detail. His interest in these genres has had a huge impact on his compositions throughout his musical career and he used his modernist, avant-garde compositional style to confront and explore the social, religious and ethical issues that he found important. As he matured as a composer he gained more of a public backing and his compositions gradually moved towards a more classical, lyrically pleasing style. The influence of composers like Sibelius became more apparent and after his move to Orkney his involvement with the local Orcadian culture was reflected in his compositional output.
Davies is a much more complex composer than might be ascertained if his most recent output were to be viewed in isolation; he has gone through the hot-headed rebellion stage and come out of it with a greater appreciation for the more classic aspects of music. Some of his earliest ideas about musical form, such as the importance of the overall architecture of a piece, have remained with him throughout his career while other compositional techniques, like using lewdness and sensationalism to provoke an audience into giving a reaction, have been left behind. That is not meant to undermine the music he produced as a younger man, much of which was extremely thoughtful and worthwhile, rather to define the transition from young revolutionary to respected classicist. The latter could not have existed without the former, and in both stages, Davies created interesting, important and aesthetically pleasing music. Read More »
In Peter Maxwell’s Davies’s short avant-garde opera, Resurrection (1987), a mute child is indoctrinated by our evil modern society, with weird reprocussions.
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[Prologue]
A mute child, played by a larger-than-life-sized mannequin, is being indoctrinated by various authority figures, including family, teachers, a vicar and a doctor.
My, what a terrible world we do live in(!)
Intermittent ‘alchemical dances’, in which a rock band accompanies a cat who transforms into a dragon, represent the omnipresent commercialism (rock bands, television, advertisements etc.) that we are constantly bombarded with in the modern world.
“but I WANT a cat that can turn itself into a dragon while awesome rock music plays in the background…”
The action passes between the indoctrinating authority figures and the rock-band accompanied dragon-cat.
Still struggling to see how a dragon-cat with its own rock band is a bad thing…
Eventually, the mannequin-child’s head explodes.
Oh. Well, okay then. Apparently, the awesomness of such a concept is just too much for one mannequin-child to process.
(Although, I expect Peter Maxwell Davies wants you to believe the mannequin-child went insane due to being stretched too thinly between all the different ideologies that it is expected to follow… or something.)
[Main scene]
The mannequin-child has been taken to an operating theatre to be cured of its ‘anti-social tendencies’.
I see what they did there – an opera set in an OPERAting theatre! Very good… please tell me this pun was the reason that this entire work even exists.
More stock characters attempt to fix the mannequin-child, including a capatilist, a trade-unionist, a rabbi, more Christian ministers, a politician and a gospel-preacher.
Tell me, Peter Maxwell Davies, is there anyone in a powerful role who you do trust? I mean, kudos for sticking it to the man and all but… evil indoctrinating trade-unionists?!
The new stock characters remove the mannequin-child’s brain, heart and genitals…
…and replace each with a sanitised, ‘safer’ substitute.
I don’t think I even WANT to know what those would be… Okay, Peter Maxwell Davies, you’ve made your point. Now I’m scared and I want to go home.
The unhappy, now-indoctrinated mannequin-child, having been forcefully stripped of all of its individuality, rebels and guns down the operators and the audience using a machine gun.
Not a REAL machine gun, obviously… It isn’t a real machine gun, is it, Peter Maxwell Davies? ‘Cause, I mean, I’m seriously a little concerned about your mental stability at this point.
The mannequin-child disappears…
Oh, good… I think?
…and in its place the Antichrist rises theatrically from a tomb amidst a flashing disco light show!
WHAT?!!!!
End of opera.
[beat] …what.
Moral of the story: modern day commercialism is a BAD THING.
BETTER MORAL OF THE STORY: avant-garde is weird.
…Now, where can I buy a dragon-cat?
—
I drew a dragon-cat, which I guess is the next best thing to owning one.
In the first part of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle, Das Rheingold (1852), the unthinking actions of a Dwarf, a God and some Giants spark events that will eventually lead to the apocalypse.
—
Overture: Fast, flowing cellos represent river Rhine.
Rhine maidens guard magic gold that grants ultimate power.
Why does that gold exist? Why has it not been destroyed? There’s not even been any singing yet, and it’s clear things are gonna go badly, badly wrong!!!
Alberich the dwarf wants the gold.
(TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY: Denounce love, get gold.)
Alberich denounces love in order to get gold:
“Thus I curse love”.
Nope, totally don’t see how this could possibly go wrong.
Fashions gold into a ring.
SAURON STYLE!!!
Wotan (Odin) has commissioned giants to build a huge castle (Valhalla).
He offers his wife’s sister as payment to the giants.
Wait, WHAT?!!!!!
Wotan’s wife intervenes.
Wotan, put Freia down. You cannot sell the Goddess of Love to some random Giants…
Giants still want to be paid, so Wotan then tricks Alberich into turning himself into a toad.
No, Alberich! Don’t turn yourself into a toad! Wotan’s gonna steal your…
Wotan steals Alberich’s ring.
[FACEPALM]
Understandably, Alberich is a bit miffed, so he placed a curse on the ring!
Evil Curse!!!
Curse: anyone who owns the ring will be blinded by its power!
[DOUBLE-FACEPALM]
Wotan gives ring to giants.
Wotan? What are you doing? WOTAN! STAHP!!!
Giants fight over ring, one dies.
Well done, Wotan. Well done.
[SPOILER WARNING: You’ve just triggered the apocalypse]
Moral of the story: greed and power-hungriness are bad.
BETTER MORAL OF THE STORY: Never hang around with Norse Gods.
Or Giants.
Or Dwarves…
Towards the end of last month, my father and I went to see Scottish Opera’s production of The Trial – a Philip Glass opera based on the Franz Kafka novel of the same name. I meant to write a review of the magnificent performance, but time passed and instead I decided to draw the following comic about my lack of review writing and inability to understand the precise meaning of the word “Kafkaesque”.