This is another recent disc from the excellent Naxos
reissue series featuring 1990s-vintage Collins Classics recordings of
Maxwell Davies's orchestral works. 2012 saw the release of five separate
volumes offering his first six symphonies - see reviews of the
First,
Second,
Third,
Fourth
& Fifth and
Sixth.
In 2013 Naxos have started on the concertos, this being the follow-up
to a disc that paired those for trumpet and piccolo (
review),
itself preceding two releases to date of the composer's so-called 'Strathclyde'
concerto series (8.573017, 8.572353). Now that the Collins originals
are only available second-hand or imported, these Naxos CDs become especially
collectible: in most cases they remain rather shockingly the only recordings
of these major late-20th-century pieces.
Many of Maxwell Davies's orchestral works are big ones, and the pair
heard here are no different - the opening movements alone of both run
to over a quarter of an hour. The Piano Concerto will not be a particularly
comfortable listen for those of more traditional tastes, though an appreciation
of, say, Prokofiev's concertos will take the listener so far. Kathryn
Stott is the soloist and dedicatee; with Maxwell Davies himself conducting,
this must be considered a pretty authoritative recording. Stott gives
a masculine performance, not because that is her style but because this
is a hard-boiled, quite aggressive work. Even the central slow movement
can hardly be considered reflective. For all that, it is not profane
but poetically profound. The fact that, a decade-and-a-half on, Stott's
remains the only recording, reflects rather badly on other pianists
and labels.
Worldes Blis is longer still, taking the running time up almost
to the full 80 minutes - the Naxos reissues are consistently much more
generous than those of the original Collins. Billed as a "motet for
orchestra", the archaic spelling of the title reflects the plainchant
sources the work draws upon. These are blended with moderate modernist
elements which, in all honesty, are decidedly more apparent than anything
medieval. At times
Worldes Blis, of the same vintage as the notorious
Eight Songs for a Mad King, will strike the average listener
as anything but blissful - frequently it is all but cacophonous. Critic
Paul Griffiths' assertion that it is "Widely regarded as one of the
great orchestral works of the 1960s" was always going to stoke controversy.
Indeed, as the accompanying notes recall, its premiere at the 1969 BBC
Proms was met with no small amount of audience disapproval, leading
in some quarters to a walkout protest. However, admirers of modernism
will recognise it instantly as a massive, blistering, almost exquisite
statement.
Like Stott, the Royal Philharmonic give a tremendously impassioned account
of both of these extraordinarily demanding works. Sound quality is very
good too. Naxos have still not adopted the good habit of supplying opus
numbers - the above are taken from the composer’s excellent
website.
Byzantion
Contact at artmusicreviews.co.uk
See also review by
Rob
Barnett
Maxwell
Davies on Naxos
