Peter MAXWELL DAVIES (b. 1934)
The Naxos String Quartets (2002-2007)
CD 1: String Quartet No. 1 [27.42]; String Quartet No. 2 [42.55]
NAXOS 8.557396 [72.39]
rec. 30 September-2 October 2003, Potton Hall, Suffolk
CD 2: Quartet No. 3 [31.16]; Quartet No. 4 [25.05]
rec. 28-30 September 2004, Potton Hall, Suffolk
NAXOS 8.557397 [56.10]
CD 3: Quartet No. 5 Lighthouses of Orkney and Shetland [20.33]; Quartet
No. 6 [34.53]
rec. 26-28 September 2005, Potton Hall, Suffolk
NAXOS 8.557398 [55.39]
CD 4: Quartet No. 7: Metafore sul Borromini [53.44]; Quartet No. 8
(Dedicated to her Majesty the Queen on her 80th birthday) [18.51]
rec. 13-15 June 2007, Potton Hall, Suffolk
NAXOS 8.557399 [72.35]
CD 5: Quartet No. 9 [36.56] ; Quartet No. 10 [26.58]
rec. 2-3 June 2008, Potton Hall, Westleton, Suffolk
NAXOS 8.557400 [63.54]
Maggini Quartet (Laurence Jackson (violin 1); David Angel (violin 2); Martin
Outram (viola);
Michal Kaznowski (cello))
Each of the five CDs available separately but also as complete boxed set
NAXOS 8.505225 [5 CDs: 72.39 + 56.10 + 55.39 + 72.35 + 63.54]
It was an extraordinary idea; ten quartets to be composed within a period
of about five years for one ensemble. Each was to be performed once and then
immediately recorded. This was a Naxos brain-wave which also chimed in with
Maxwell Davies’s wish to ‘get more into chamber music’. Surely only Maxwell
Davies could have fulfilled such a strenuous task and made it so consistently
fascinating as he had done with the series of also ten Strathclyde Concertos
in the early 1990s.
In fact these were not his first works for String Quartet. Looking through
his catalogue I note a Quartet movement of 1952 and a rather cerebral full-scale
quartet, if my memory serves me correctly, of 1962. The Naxos project was
not officially announced until Maxwell Davies was under way with the Third
Quartet. By then he could write his notes and know where he was heading.
This First Quartet sets the tone. The composer in his distinguished
but somewhat musicianly notes talks of architectural planning, of seeing the
ten works as a whole and indeed of using those pesky magic squares he’s always
going on about. But architecture has played a real part before. The Third
Symphony of 1984 had on the front cover of its LP recording, a drawing of
the floor plan of the Church of St.Lorenzo in Florence of Brunelleschi. The
composer is also thinking of an overall plan for the ten quartets as, apparently
he was for his (first) seven symphonies – not something I had been aware of.
This quartet ends half way through the rather elfin Scherzo, which is to be
picked up again, Maxwell Davies wrote in 2002, in the Third Quartet - obviously
an architectural design was already formed in his mind. The two previous movements
are of equal length. The first is rather dramatic and based loosely on sonata-form.
The second is often very still and quiet, a real Orkney landscape. It is broken
into, by some wild Ivesian tempo-clashes of fortissimo noise, with those mad
descending cello figures I recall from the ‘Missa Super L’homme Armé’ of 1968.
The work makes a startling opening to the project.
The Second Quartet is a much tougher nut to crack but it’s well worth
it. Consisting of four movements it ranks as one of the longest of the ten.
The outer movements are of practically equal length with two shorter ones,
a slow movement consisting of recitative and arioso and a scherzo and trio
in between. The opening movement is in a complex sonata-form which despite
the composer’s detailed notes to help the listener through, is still quite
difficult to follow. The finale represents a mood of quiet desolation and
stillness, a wintry landscape of impenetrable beauty. Even the final shivering
F major chord contrives to end with an atmosphere of total bleakness. It is
a movement, indeed a quartet, best heard, without any outside distractions.
The Magginis surely have its complete measure.
To my mind the Third Quartet sets itself too many compositional problems
so that its final aim seems fuzzy and unfocused. The composer willingly admits
to setting himself “creative problems whose intricacy and complexity posed
new and formidable challenges”. These involved the use of several magic squares
connected with Saturn, Mars and Venus and the plainchant for St.Cecilia’s
feast day ‘Audi filia et vide’. Also an influence is the commencement of the
Iraqi war which produced an opening ghostly and frightening March; reminding
me of Alban Berg at times. A second movement called ‘In Nomine’ uses, but
only at its half-way point, the melody from the Benedictus of Taverner’s ‘Gloria
tibi Trinitas’ mass as so many renaissance composers had done. Indeed Maxwell
Davies himself had done this with his ‘Seven In Nomine’ of 1963. The ‘Inventions
on a Hymn’ picks up the truncated Scherzo of the First Quartet and turns it
into a gross Burlesque on a hymn tune (not identified). It is marked to be
played ‘cloying/nauseating’. This instruction is superbly carried out by the
Magginis whose use of vibrato and quarter-tones made me feel quite sick. The
‘Fugue’ finale which uses complex polyphony does not really amount to a fugue
at all – at least not as we know it. All of this compressed into the space
of half an hour seems disparate and an attempt by the composer to prove to
himself that he can do anything. To the listener none of it matters as technique
because that’s the composer’s business. If at the end you feel that the work
has been a satisfactory experience then fine; for me I was glad to move on.
By the composer’s own admission the Fourth Quartet was written with
a view to “something lighter” to get away from the worries of the conflict
in Iraq. Its title ‘Children’s Games’ seems appropriate. The inspiration is
a rather busy picture of that name by Brueghel. It dates from about 1560 and
was found in Vienna. It depicts about 250 children indulging in every imaginable
game with all sorts of toys. Yet this quartet is not a roller-coaster of happy
chaos. I say this despite the occasional almost fiddler-led whirly-gig of
a dance tune that passes across the musical canvas. For much of its time it
is in fact somewhat quiet and reflective. The reason is, I think, that if
you look carefully at the faces of the children they are in fact adults. The
moralising Brueghel is probably warning us not to fritter away our lives as
if it were some childhood game. I have the same problem with this quartet
as I have with the painting. I’m not sure if I should view it close up or
from a distance or even from an angle. Its single movement structure could
be divided into several parts or one could take in its fleeting changes of
mood and tempo and see them as a patterning across the otherwise unvaried
canvas. It’s a disturbing painting and a disturbing quartet. The composer
admits that the Iraqi conflict was at the back of his mind - it being “impossible
to escape into innocent childhood fantasy”.
The Fifth Quartet was the one in the cycle I first heard. Its subtitle
Lighthouses of Orkney and Shetland immediately captures the imagination.
Its two movements encapsulate the broad sweep of a dramatic seascape pierced
by flashes of light. Wind, rain and calm proceed in exciting succession. I
found it impressive in 2005 and I still do. Far better this than the earlier
attempts at making political statements. At this half-way point the composer’s
notes need mentioning. He often mentions key, for example in this work the
B flat with which it begins. He talks of “where in our (musical) journey we
are in relation to the tonic and to its dominant and subdominant”. Later he
tells us that the coda “takes us to the key of C minor - the wrong key”. Now
it may well be me - I am a composer myself and I admit I do not have perfect
pitch - but I struggle to hear these tonal relationships and perhaps others
will too. The composer may well say that these technicalities are really the
composer’s business but if so why mention them. On reading his notes many
will be put off and baffled. Instead some more general background about the
inspiration would have been more helpful. This criticism applies not just
to this work but to all of the liner-notes.
It’s helpful to know that the Sixth Quartet was written between December
2004 and January 2005 because it uses in its pizzicato second movement - a
Scherzo - an Advent plainchant ‘Domenica Tertia, Adventus’. In its peculiarly
sotto voce fifth movement there’s a Christmas melody, making a sort
of carol written on Christmas Day; just in case you wondered what Maxwell
Davies did with his Christmases. He admits to having been studying Beethoven’s
late quartets. Perhaps he was thinking of the Op. 130 B flat Quartet when
he couched this one also in six movements. He even admits to using a key signature:
four flats for F minor at the end of the fourth movement. This is a key often
associated with Beethoven and used by the great man for example in the third
movement of this same B flat Quartet. Maxwell Davies starts with an agitated
Allegro which often has sudden, brutal and Beethovenian dynamic contrasts.
Then follow two consecutive Scherzos, a pizzicato one and a slightly longer
and rather wild Presto and trio. The ensuing long Adagio is one of Maxwell
Davies’s most beautiful slow movements. It’s very lyrical and almost Romantic
apart from a violent central outburst. It culminates in wonderful cadenzas
for each instrument. The fifth movement is the carol and the sixth balances
the first in mood and speed. I don’t know if it’s the effect of his Beethoven
studies but this quartet seems much more humane than anything in the first
three. In a way it is a little less earnest. Its attractively contrasting
material makes it an especial favourite.
Experimentation with form and structure was a sign that Maxwell Davies was
growing into his vast task of writing these works. It is also desirable as
it militates against the concerns and criticisms of those who might remark
that the Naxos Quartets were actually one work written ten times. The Seventh
Quartet is quite a development especially in its length. Running to over
fifty minutes, it is a challenge to performers and listeners. The fact that
all seven movements are either Adagio or Lento, with little speed variation
within them is also a challenge. The inspiration behind the quartet is, as
with the First Quartet, architecture. This time it’s the seventeenth century
genius Francesco Borromini (d.1667). Whilst in Rome - Maxwell Davies was also
a student there - in April 2005 he revisited the Borromini churches and one
secular building, the Palazzo Falconieri. He has attempted to turn the stone
into sound. This he has done by the symbolistic use of plainchants which are
then passed through various magic squares. For example the first movement
uses ‘Quae est. ista, quae ascendit sicut” (Who is she, who looketh forth
as the morning?). This has been channelled though the magic square of the
sun to enhance “its ecstatic impetus”. The second movement uses an idea by
the Roman composer Stefano Landi (d.1639) “who might have known Borromini”.
Amongst the buildings which form the inspiration for Maxwell Davies’s sound-spaces
is the huge ‘S. Giovanni in Laterano’. It’s the only one I, or most tourists,
know as one of the major basilicas of Rome possessing medieval artefacts.
However, being by Borromini, it is totally baroque, Maxwell Davies quotes
medieval melodies which are destroyed and never allowed to grow. The notes
tell us in great detail how the composer put these movements together. For
example, in the finale we are brought into the dark closing moments of Borromini’s
life with his suicide. The troubled surface of the music ends by taking a
couple of minutes to ease us back into our own world. It’s an intriguing work,
and in some ways the most complex of the entire cycle.
Maxwell Davies comments about the Eighth Quartet that it “is very much
the ‘intermezzo’ of the set”. Its shortish length was “determined … so that
two quartets should fit snugly onto one compact disc”. I was expecting a fairly
light work especially when I read that it was “a tribute to the lutenist and
composer John Dowland”. He tells us that “the models were the first and last
movements of Beethoven’s 'Eroica' where the main theme is only joined up consecutively
to make its identity clear at the final climaxes”. On this occasion Maxwell
Davies uses Dowland’s ‘Queen Elizabeth’s Galliard” which appears in various
mainly inaudible guises until it is fully realized very near to the end. To
my way of thinking Britten’s ‘Lacrymae’ for strings which also starts quietly
and eventually betrays its Dowland melody is the obvious model. I was also
expecting a work that brooded less and had more tempo variations, even a fair
bit of fast music. I was wrong and found myself wondering if Maxwell Davies
is not at his best when he allows himself to be ‘unbuttoned’ as it were. I
only wish that he would let in a little Mediterranean sunlight sometimes:
the grey of the upper northern hemisphere seems to be unavoidable. Because
the quartet uses a Galliard dedicated to the first Queen Elizabeth and possibly
because of its shorter length the composer might well have hopes that her
present Majesty might listen to a work dedicated to her on her eightieth birthday,
and which as the Master of the Queen’s Music seems a diplomatic thing to do.
The dedication of the Ninth Quartet to Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw is
significant; she is described as “mathematician extraordinary” and is famed
for a book catchily entitled “Constructing pandiagonal magic squares of arbitrarily
large size’. As you can imagine, this constitutes a significant part of Maxwell
Davies’s bedtime reading. Equally importantly, she was Lord Mayor of Manchester
in 1975 and she is now almost 100. Maxwell Davies is, in this work, also remembering
the Manchester of the war years – the years in which he grew up. He admits
to inserting into the piece “violent interruptions” linked with the “raw sounds
... of air-raid sirens, the glissandi of falling bombs, the tearing apart
and crashing into buildings”. These memories have been “disciplined” into
this six movement work. Although these very noises can be heard in movement
three the whole piece is suffused with tension and drama. As relief we are
also aware of dance-music rhythms of the 1940s in a couple of the movements.
All of this makes this quartet especially gripping. Why six movements? I asked
myself. The opening two make up two-thirds of the quartet and the next three
could be seen to constitute what the composer has called an “independent miniature
quartet within a quartet”. These are followed by a fiery finale. Unusual as
it is, a pleasing balance has been achieved, and the score’s heading quoted
from the ‘Book of Wisdom” is appropriate: “Thou has ordered all things in
measure, and number and weight”.
The composer was anxious that as he had “enjoyed writing the Naxos quartets
so much” there would not be a sense of a full-stop indeed there’s a double
bar at the end of the finale of the Tenth Quartet. His conclusion was
to do something different again - a series of five movements linked historically
to the baroque suite but with Scottish Dances. Instead of Gavottes and Minuets
Maxwell Davies writes a (Broken) Reel, a Passamezzo (here, oddly a very slow
melancholic piece, full of regrets) and at the end an (unfinished) Hornpipe
which stops in mid-air. As he says this could “lead straight back to the opening
of Quartet 1 or into something as yet unwritten”. It’s altogether a fascinating
quartet and one that I will return to more often than some of the others.
The Maggini Quartet are the real heroes. Their herculean task over a five
year period cannot be underestimated. Maxwell Davies is indeed very fortunate
both in the Naxos commission and in the commitment of the performers. I wonder
which one of the ten they might most enjoy or be thrilled to play again. The
recordings really cannot be faulted either. It remains now to be seen how,
or whether, these works get on in the repertoire which is so full and constantly
being added to. For myself Quartets 2, 5, 6 and 10 are the ones which have
made an especial appeal to me. These seem to have something quite new to add
to the evolution of the form. It would be interesting too, despite the superb
advocacy of the Magginis to see if one of top international quartets is willing
to tackle at least one of these works and even offer us an alternative recording.
Now that the five discs are boxed together so neatly with all of composer’s
notes and for such a modest outlay I can only recommend that you take the
plunge and purchase. There is much food for thought locked in this set.
Gary Higginson
Take the plunge and purchase. There is much food for thought locked in this
set. ... see Full Review