Music has the power to bring about emotion, and I think perhaps sometimes we need that as a release. I get that from some songs, with a feeling which is a mix of loving remembrance and loss. I hope you're doing ok.
If that is the case, thank you for a beautiful and thoughtful performance. I have just bought the music for this today and have started to learn it. It's a moving and evocative piece and you did it justice.
Simple but lovely piece Sir, thank you if you played this! A simple meal is always the most difficult to get right but tastes amazing - this is that for the ears!!!!!!
I'm just about on the right side of 74 and reviving my urge to play again after over 60 years. I learned to play the piano accordion at 9 but had to give up at 14 when my father became ill and we had to sell the accordion (to eat!). I bought a second-hand electronic keyboard after my husband died just over 3 years ago but only just feeling the need to play. This is will be my go to piece. It's just glorious. I live on a Scottish island and look our of my window down the loch to Iona. What more could I need?
I wish you well. There is so much joy to be had from music. I play rather poorly but my son is a very accomplished musician currently studying at the RNCM and I have had even more joy following his progress as a musician. Although I am English, I have always loved Scotland and the Highlands in particular. My other son is studying at St Andrews and I am looking forward to the end of lockdown so my wife and I can visit Scotland again.
You already have it all Music is in the deepest part of your heart Please don't let pain cause you to leave it behind as I did In fact, your post has inspired me to go back Will you join me?
@@joshuarosen6242 I have had several attempts to play the piano, even got to Grade 4 but gave up when my teacher moved. Keep practicing she said but........now its all forgotten. Have the urge to try again but at 94 I may have left it a bit late. However......???
Simon, Stromness was my mother's favourite place on earth. When one of her friends who is a musician suggested we use this piece to remember her, I listened to many versions and chose yours as my favourite. We used this video at her Zoom funeral in December 2020, and it brings a tear - and sweet memories of visiting Orkney with her - again many months later. Thank you so much.
This so beautiful in it's simplicity and awakens a longing in me to go back to Scotland which is so much part of my long gone family and past. How is it that 6 people cannot 'like 'it? Bizarre....
I've had the sheet music to this piece sitting in my hard drive for 3 years without ever realizing how beautiful a piece it is. After listening to this I'm looking forward to learning how to play it
Beautiful music beautifully paced helping us through these painful days. I’ve searched everywhere to find this music. This is the most delicately realised I have found.
I've had to find Farewell to Stromness on U-tube as no one mentioned this piece in all the items about Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. it is so very simple but I have loved it for years. Thank you for such beauty. A Scot
Of all the performances of this piece on RU-vid, this is the best. Captures the pain, the anger and the yearning of the prospect of losing such a special place as well as the specialness of the place itself.
@@katydid2k yes that's possible too, though they were referring to how PMD created this piece as a protest song against uranium mining in Orkney. Pretty much the soundtrack to Andrew Yang's "Get to Higher Ground" and Brad Pitt's "Movement is Life - Movimiento es Vida" in World War Z for me (if World War Z is set in a Jane Austenian universe facing climate crisis.) Farewell to Florida. Farewell to Antarctica. Farewell, Tropical Islands!
I first heard this beautiful piece played just after HM Queen Elizabeth II died last year, 8th September 2022. We were all still in shock, and it was played with such sensitivity. It's importance wasn't lost as Peter Maxwell Davies was Master of the Queen's Music.
I just hear this on desert island discs today. Thanks to the lady who selected it and thanks to the BBC. How could anyone threaten such a beautiful thing.
Just heard this closing PM on Radio 4 , 5.55pm 10th March 2020. They played it as an antidote to all the bad news going on at present, Coronavirus etc. Like all good music you hear for the first time, I heard it in the background and I had to stop and was transfixed. Absolutely beautiful. It must be on the soundtrack of a film somewhere.
Glyn, I heard this piece for the first time at the end of PM today too. It started just as I got home but I had to sit in the car and listen to it right through. What a lovely piece of music - think I will ask to have it played at my funeral!!
Well just over 1 year since my post and what a year. Working from home, great, spending time with wife and home schooling grandkids, great, walking around the local moors, great, silliest quiz every week with my friends and realising we're still kids at heart, great. A year of late night RU-vid surfing great Lost my job in Dec, not so great, not seem family, not so great. 1st Jab on Wednesday (24th March). Mercifully we've all stayed Covid free (I think). Whose going to believe us in 20 years time? Hope your all safe.
A través de un programa de tv, descubrí al compositor Maxwell Davies y, concretamente, esta pieza. Me ha parecido muy hermosa, además, conociendo el lugar, el paisaje en la que se inspira tiene aun más sentido. Contiene la majestuosidad, la belleza del Mar del Norte y sus playas salvajes. Maravillosa .
I never got as far as Stromness but this piece always reminds me of leaving St Andrews never to return. I suppose that's the power of really great music, it could be saying farewell to anywhere, or anyone, really.
Never mind beds and electrics - this has to be one of the most beautiful pieces of music composed over the last 50 years or so - and played here with such delicacy! Thanks for posting this
TheMinisigi It IS haunting. And the rocking of the waves is so evoked in the opening and closing sections. But you have to go there - Stromness and the Orkneys are wonderfully strange and contradictory. One day clear pellucid waters - the next seaweed being hurled against your windows from the harbour. But a lovely lullaby and farewell for George Mackay Brown.
autolycuscus I'm sorry - I didn't really mean to run down your own associations. So many pieces of music we love with particular associations of times or places - and those things are valuable even if they don't mean a lot to anybody else! One day I must indeed go to Orkney.
Hoy estoy escuchando esta pieza gracias al libro "Un año para maravillarse" de Clemency Burton-Hill, recomendadísimo. A mí me está descubriendo obras que de otra manera no habría conocido nunca. Preciosa pieza, sin palabras.
Yo también estoy escuchando esta pieza gracias al mismo libro, que me parece una maravilla, si te gusta la música. La pieza también me parece maravillosa.
Peter used to regularly frequent the hotel I worked summers in whilst I was studying. He didnt like being called 'Sir Peter' instead we all called him Max. Was a really humble and pleasant guy, I remember a funny story one of the other staff told me: At a bit of a fancy event, a few guests who were quite obnoxious and clearly fancied themselves were showing off their expensive watches in front of everyone. Max turned around and told them his watch did everything theirs did (told the time) but only cost him £12. Apparently it shut them right up 🤣.
The music is a part with the land, the sea, the sky. It is quintessentially Scots, Celtic. My opinion is it strikes so close to the heart because it mimics so closely the language and the rhythm of the people - for me it's very female and maternal... Anyhoo I can't hear it without wanting to run far and fast to Scotland Enjoy your listen x
Beautiful piece. Beautifully played. I wish I was sitting on the harbour wall at Stromness eating a deep-fried Whooper Swan Supper watching the sun set. What a guy Peter was! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Maxwell_Davies#Personal_life
Music is so much poorer in 2016. Late last year we lost Pierre Boulez, this year we have lost David Bowie, Keith Emerson, George Martin and now Max. All ground breaking innovative musicians in their own way. Thankfully their influence is forever there
