Perspectives on Peter Maxwell Davies

As a composer one forgets, in time, the fine detail of composition processes which produced past work... it must be left to scholars to recreate, slowly and painstakingly, earlier creative processes. Peter Maxwell Davies.In the eight essays presented here, leading scholars of the music of Peter Maxwell Davies explore some of the composer's creative processes. David Roberts, Peter Owens and Richard McGregor examine Davies's employment of pitch-class sets and other models evident in his sketch material, while Joel Lester looks at the serial elements that produce structure and effect in the work Ave Maris Stella. The political, literary and musical influences evident in the 1987 opera Resurrection and in subsequent orchestral works come under scrutiny from John Warnaby. Davies's use of older dramatic forms and ritual is the focus of Michael Burden's examination of his music theatre.The composer's own descriptions of his compositional process contain distinctly modernist overtones as Arnold Whittall suggests in the concluding essay in the volume. The sustained textural multiplicity evident in much of Davies's music points to this modernism. It is a multiplicity mirrored in the variety of approaches taken by the commentators in this volume. The differing points of view on offer complement and contrast each other, allowing the reader to appreciate the different levels on which Davies's music works.

Michael Burden is Director of the New Chamber Opera which he founded with Gary Cooper in 1990 Joel Lester is Dean of Mannes College of Music in New York City Richard McGregor currently lectures in music at St Martin's College Peter Owens is now a director and Head of Publishing at Peters Edition Ltd David Roberts is currently an editor of Early Music magazine. John Warnaby. He currently works as a music critic and as a part-time tutor with the University of Wales Extra-Mural Department Arnold Whittall is Emeritus Professor of Music Theory and Analysis, King's College, London.