Peter MAXWELL DAVIES (b.1934)
Music for Brass
March: The Pole Star for brass quintet (1982) [3:44]
Litany for a Ruined Chapel between Sheep and Shore for trumpet solo (1999) [10:31]
Sea Eagle for horn solo (1982) [8:31]
Tallis: Four Voluntaries arranged for brass quintet (1982) (Veni Redemptor gentium I [1:55]; Ex More Docti Mistico [1:56]; Ecce Tempus [1:24]; Veni Redemptor gentium II [2:13])
Fanfare for Lowry for two solo trumpets (2000) [3:53]
Brass Quintet (1981) [34:40]
The Wallace Collection (John Wallace and John Miller (trumpets), Paul Gardham (horn), Simon Gunton (trombone), Robin Haggart (tuba))
rec. 23-25 January 2001, St Marylebone Church except Litany, 3 September 1999, Dukes Hall, Royal Academy of Music, London.
NIMBUS NI5936 [68:54]
Maxwell Davies has always had a special feeling for brass instruments.
His Op. 1 was a trumpet sonata. He has written concertos for horn, trumpet
and the two together. Listeners to his orchestral music have become familiar
with his characteristic use of brass: intricate, often screamingly high trumpet
lines, unbelievably agile and chromatic horn parts and a free-ranging tuba,
or sometimes two, in the depths below. Perhaps his trombone writing is less
distinctive but the instrument imposes its own character on all composers.
So a collection of his brass works for smaller forces is very welcome.
The core of this collection is works for the quintet of two trumpets with
one horn, trombone and tuba, which he clearly sees as the brass equivalent
of the string quartet or the woodwind quintet. Most of this music dates from
the early 1980s, when the composer wrote his Brass Quintet, his major
work for this ensemble. The other works of the period can be seen as satellites
to this.
We begin with The Pole Star. This starts as if it were another vigorous
march in the tradition of Elgar and Walton, though with some surprising harmonies.
However, its syncopations and rhythmic dislocations go beyond what one could
actually march to, so it becomes, in a manner analogous to Chopin’s
waltzes, more a picture of a march than a march itself. It is a fine and exhilarating
work.
Throughout his career Maxwell Davies has written works for solo instruments.
I still cherish hopes that they will all one day be gathered onto a single
CD, but anyway here we have the two for brass. Litany for a Ruined Chapel
between Sheep and Shore was suggested by the location of his new home
on the Orkney island of Sanday, to which he moved in 1999. He says he imagined
it being played in the ruin, ‘open to the skies, in the vast stillness
of that haunted land and seascape’. This is actually a three movement
sonata for solo trumpet. I detect a faint influence of Messiaen’s clarinet
writing in Abīme des Oiseaux, the solo clarinet piece from the Quatuor
pour la Fin du Temps, also perhaps of the flexible and lyrical use of
the trumpet in jazz, though I write here under correction. There is little
or none of the fanfare and declamatory writing which is more usual for the
trumpet. The writing is very varied and it sounds extremely technically demanding.
John Wallace delivers it with panache.
In his first Orkney home Maxwell Davies was able to observe sea eagles. This
is a large and majestic bird — technically the white-tailed eagle, Haliaeetus
albicilla — and his work is intended to convey something of this.
This is also a three movement sonata, but quite different from the previous
piece. The idiom here is closer to that of the solo horn in Britten’s
Serenade or even to the cor anglais solo in the third act of Wagner’s
Tristan, but rethought in a more cheerful mood.
The Tallis voluntaries are arranged for brass quintet from keyboard
works in the Mulliner Book, which comes from the middle of the sixteenth century.
They are based on plainsong, introduced by the trombone in three of the four
pieces, and then elaborated by the other instruments. They are grave and beautiful
works.
The Fanfare for Lowry for two trumpets is an occasional work, written
for the Lowry Arts Centre in Salford, where both Lowry and Maxwell Davies
hail from. It is effective within its own terms but is much the slightest
work here. There is a Lowry as the cover picture for this CD.
So to the Brass Quintet, the composer’s major work for this
combination. This is written in his densest and most serious style. I must
confess that the first time I heard it I could make nothing of it. However,
when I tried again and concentrated on the principal line, as led mainly by
the horn, the rest fell into place. It helps to follow with the score, which
is published by Chester. This is in fact a lyrical work, though with wider
intervals than in most actual vocal music. The two trumpets contribute mainly
fantastically elaborate decorations, while the trombone occasionally alternates
with the horn in taking the lead. The tuba, while usually providing the bass,
has adventures of its own. The writing is quite bold, for example including
flutter-tonguing and trills on all the instruments, but there are no extreme
techniques beyond these. I should here point out that Paul Griffiths’
generally helpful sleeve-note, in discussing this work, keeps referring to
the second trombone and the two trombones. There is in fact no second trombone;
the ensemble is the brass quintet as set out above.
All these works receive fine and confident performances in a generous acoustic
from The Wallace Collection or members of it. The composer was present at
the recordings. Readers will notice that the recording dates go back at least
fourteen years and may wonder what has been going on. In fact, most of these
performances used to be available as downloads or custom-burned CDs from the
original version of the composer’s website Maxopus. This was a wonderful
innovation which I wish other contemporary composers would copy; I bought
several CDs from the site myself. When, after an interval, the site was re-launched,
this facility was, sad to say, no longer offered. So when The Wallace Collection
was itself re-launched in May 2014, it got itself together with Nimbus and
has produced these recordings as a normal commercial CD. We should all be
grateful and hope that others of the composer’s works which used to
be available from the Maxopus website will also find commercial release.
Stephen Barber
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