Any account of recent British musical history is inconceivable without the towering legacy of Peter Maxwell Davies (1934–2016). A handful of iconic works – Eight Songs for a Mad King, Vesalii Icones and the opera Taverner – dominate accounts, although one does not need to scratch far beneath the surface to unearth a tremendous wealth of creative endeavour, from string quartets, to symphonies, concertos, choral works, and music for amateurs. Davies, the irreplaceable British modernist, left his mark on every major musical genre.
Throughout his prolific musical career, Davies attracted scholarly interest – particularly in the field of music analysis. Indeed, the high complexity of many of Davies's compositions invites analytical reading alongside the substantial and tantalizing sketches, which afford abundant insights into the compositional process. He enjoyed dedicated studies from early career scholars as far back as 1972 (a study of his choral music by M. C. Preheim was completed when Davies was still in his thirties) and a wealth of doctoral dissertations, some of which were to launch distinguished academic careers.Footnote 1 The ability to grapple with Davies and his musical contexts is highly valued.
Recent years have witnessed the publication of Perspectives on Peter Maxwell Davies (2000), Peter Maxwell Davies: A Source Book (2002), Peter Maxwell Davies Studies (2009), and British Musical Modernism (2015), which complement older biographies of Davies by Griffiths (1982), Seabrook (1994), and Smith (1995).Footnote 2 The scholarly field more generally is dominated by articles and book chapters: Davies's music has been paid particular attention in the journals Tempo and The Musical Times. It is surprising, though, that recent book-length analytical studies of his music do not exist, particularly given the proliferation of doctoral dissertations. This is something that Nicholas Jones and Richard McGregor seek to address in The Music of Peter Maxwell Davies (henceforth MPMD), which claims that ‘this current book is the first of its kind to provide an encompassing, global view of Davies's entire output’ (2).Footnote 3
Jones and McGregor are prolific authors within the field of Peter Maxwell Davies studies, contributing twenty-two items between them to their book's bibliography, which encapsulates years of extensive research endeavour.Footnote 4 Crucially, the research underpinning MPMD could not have been undertaken without Jones's preceding Peter Maxwell Davies, Selected Writings.Footnote 5 Furthermore, Jones and McGregor were granted privileged access to Davies's diaries – currently under embargo – in order to capture invaluable insights. It is hard to imagine a study of Davies without reference to such abundant source material; he is noteworthy in this respect, not only for the substantial volume of talks, lectures, interviews, radio broadcasts, and programme notes, but also for his detailed record keeping, which took the form of voluminous private journals and diaries in addition to copious musical sketches. For the study of any composer, the wealth of materials is a gift.
Consciously or otherwise, composers draw upon a vast range of influences to inspire their work. In the case of Davies, owing to his constant self-reflection and record keeping, it is possible to survey influences in persuasive detail. Indeed, one of the most fascinating aspects to Davies is precisely the depth and variety to his contexts (Chapter 4 begins with John Warnaby's contentious claim that ‘no contemporary composer has demonstrated a deeper understanding of music history than Peter Maxwell Davies’, one that several other composers would contest). Jones and McGregor survey an impressive range of external stimuli, from Indian and Aboriginal music to magic squares, architecture, quotation and pastiche, politics, environmentalism, literature, and place (particularly the Orkneys). The ending of Chapter 6 reaches a compelling conclusion, summarizing that the multitude of cross-references ‘became so embedded in his musical consciousness that he probably was not even aware that they were present’ (250). This notion is further confirmed by a poignant entry in Davies’ diary shortly before his death, ‘my LIFE – in all ITS diversity – & my WORK – in all ITS – are EFFORTLESSLY one!’ (309). Further resonance may be found in Davies's revealing interview with Tom Service where he reflects:
I've often said that music knows something you don't. Like my 6th Symphony: it knew that George Mackay Brown [the great Orcadian poet, a close friend of Davies's] was very ill and was going to die. He died at the very moment I completed the piece. And I think that listening to something like Mahler's 6th or 9th symphonies, you realise that the music knows what the author doesn't. You can hear the jackboots of the first world war in Mahler 9, even though Mahler died in 1911, and you can hear all sorts of things, if you're that way inclined – which I am – in the music that Schoenberg and Stravinsky were writing before the first world war, like the Rite of Spring.Footnote 6
A comprehensive analytical study of Davies's music poses a daunting challenge given his output of almost 550 compositions. Jones and McGregor base their approach on themes ‘drawn from the compositional practice of the composer’ (2). Understandably, it is not possible to cover over five hundred musical works within a single text, so the authors select indicative examples, which are chosen in the main from a generous cross-section of Davies's music without marginalizing a particular group. Furthermore, MPMD is one of the first texts to foreground the importance of Davies's juvenile works.Footnote 7
Jones and McGregor attempt the challenging feat of dividing Davies's music into discrete ‘periods’, which include ‘juvenilia up to 1952; student works written in Manchester and Rome; the 1960s; works written on Hoy, including symphonies and concertos; and works written on Sanday, including chamber music and choral works’ (5) (within which, a late style is suggested).Footnote 8 Attempts to divide Davies's music into discrete periods hark back to the Beethoven legacy (which might relate to why Davies was determined to complete his Tenth Symphony, much of which took place in a hospital room) and to the historiographical urge to categorize.
Davies held the act of musical analysis in high regard, particularly when concerning the training of young musicians.Footnote 9 However – and crucial to the layout of the book – there is an avoidance of analytical methods external to Davies's approach. There is no emphasis on voice-leading reduction or set theory, for example. There are several reasons why this may be the case: 1) the methods that Davies used to create his music, including the generative potential of magic squares, come with a ready-made, unique theory; 2) there is a rich abundance of letters and commentaries on the music by the composer; and 3) there is a further wealth of sketch material held in the British Library evidencing the compositional process. It is noteworthy, however, that Davies held the analytical writings of Heinrich Schenker and Erwin Ratz in high esteem, to the point where he synthesized and parodied a Schenkerian analysis within one of his own compositions, namely the eight part of Vesalii Icones, which bends the Ecce Manus ‘to resemble a Schenker analysis’.Footnote 10 Though Jones and McGregor uses Davies's own approach to analyse his music, one is left to ponder on the opportunity to apply existing methods, such as those mentioned previously, perhaps to examine processes such as emergent tonalities and voice-leading patterns. What might the potential be for a variety of analytical methods in providing insights into his music, particularly given Davies's claim that ‘the music knew something I didn't’? (304).
Importantly, criticism of Davies's music is not overlooked (Andrew Clements's description of the Strathclyde Concertos as ‘quite dreadful’ hits home as particularly blunt) (82). A provocative question is posed: Did Davies's remarkable productivity have an effect on the quality of his work? In a subsection entitled ‘The price of Compositional Fluency?’, McGregor uses the reception of A Dance on the Hill for mezzo soprano and orchestra (2002) to launch an overview of a variety of negative perspectives around the theme of quantity over quality. It includes, for example, the cutting review of Richard Whitehouse that A Dance on the Hill would become ‘another of the many “also-ran” works that are the price for Maxwell Davies's compositional fluency over the past quarter-century’ (205–7). A response to these criticisms is not offered in the text, so the question of quality versus quantity is left to the reader to consider.
MPMD is now the leading analytical study of Davies's work. The authors boast a masterly knowledge of Davies's profuse output, drawing together a vast range of works to paint a vivid picture of his unique and compelling oeuvre. One of the many achievements of this indispensable book is the collection of so much data – recollections, conversations, observations, notes, and diaries, alongside a staggering number of musical examples. There are rich and tantalizing insights throughout. For example, there is an exploration of several works from Davies's juvenile period – long overdue, and a crucial context to understanding Davies's subsequent approach. That Davies was not the first composer to use magic squares, a matter so abundantly mined within analyses of his music, but rather took the principle from Gillian Whitehead, is a revelation (72). It is furthermore inspiring to performers, composers, and teachers alike to read about his tireless endeavours at Cirencester Grammar School. Davies's passion for solvitur ambulando opens a window into his working processes, invoking a sense of place to solve a compositional quandary. More whimsically, one learns that Davies, for a time, walked around with a copy of Sibelius's Fourth Symphony in his pocket (91).
There are clues and opportunities promoted in the text to encourage further investigation. For example, it is not yet clear where the source for the pitch material for the Seventh Symphony originates (91); the impact of Davies's valued theoretical sources – including Ratz's Einführung in die musikalische Formenlehre (1951), D'Acry Thompson's On Growth and Form (1917), and Hans Sedlmayr's Die Entstehung der Kathedrale (1950) – on his compositional approach would also warrant further exploration.Footnote 11
In the main, MPMD examines Davies's music by itself, with occasional recognition of key resonances (such as composers of ‘pastoral’ music, Sibelius and the symphony, and the importance of several twentieth-century composers including Messiaen and Bartók). Composers also receive mention via Davies, such as a quotation from his diaries regarding composers using colour for musical purposes, or his use of Monteverdi as a compositional stimuli (173–4 and 191, respectively). Though he was undoubtedly an original, unique musical voice, one wonders whether there could have been opportunities to enrich the analysis through more comparison with other composers. Davies's use of Italian structure in the Third Symphony for example (171), begs engagement with other works inspired by architectural proportion throughout the Western canon – perhaps a possibility for further study. Furthermore, what of other composer perspectives on Davies's music?
It would have been fascinating to hear about how Davies has influenced future generations of students through his various posts such as the Dartington Summer School and the Royal Academy of Music, and how they have contributed to his legacy. His collaborations with instrumentalists – such as the Maggini Quartet, or trumpeter John Wallace – would have provided further context for the commissioning and dissemination of his music, and how Davies furthered the technical boundaries of instrumental writing through collaboration. Davies worked in the heyday of British contemporary music, when championing organizations such as the Society for the Promotion of New Music and the Classical Music Subsidy enabled one to earn a modest living as a composer.Footnote 12 The decline of this climate towards the latter stages of Davies's output would have added further context for the analysis of some of the later works.
MPMD is timely as memory is still fresh concerning those who knew and encountered Davies directly, and those associated with specific performances and recordings. One expects this indispensable text to lay the foundation for, and encourage, future critical study as Davies's music takes its place among the vital contributions to Western contemporary music.
