I was a brash lower 6th former at Cirencester Grammar School when PMD was hired by a very progressive headmaster (J.V. Barnett) following Max's studies in Italy. He gave one class a week to the traglodytes studying 6th-form sciences so we had some sort of Arts exposure. He delighted in the task and bobbed around the classroom restlessly as he shared his vision of music being at the heart of our humanity. 'There are two disciplines, the study of which can lead one to orgasm...one is Music, the other Mathematics !' I chose to ignore one and celebrate the other throughout life! I regret leaving the School for University solely because I missed the opportunity to be part of the school orchestra formed by Max and appearing in the Bath Festival (Menuhin). He had such faith in youth and ceaselessly encouraged their participation in contemporary musical genres. At the end of the school day he would throw a long scarf around his neck, Italian-style, and walk in CharlieChaplin style down Victoria Rd to his loft at the edge of town. What a gentle, profound character and a great teacher.
Max was such a beautiful man, every British person should explore his work even if tougher pieces, he was one of the last 'real' composers in the same line as the greats like Bach through to Stravinsky. Got to hang out with Max and his partner Colin for many many brilliant times, a true friend and genius and thoroughly nice chap! Max didn't believe in anything but if there is anything, his soul will live on! God bless Max X
Strangely enough, I photographed an Orkney wedding at sunrise on midsummer's day 2017. The couple were married at the Ring of Brodgar stone circle with a good congregation gathered around them, and as they said their vows, the sun rose over the hills opposite the lake. Very beautiful and moving. I wasn't the wedding photographer (there wasn't one) and I was just doing my news photography job as it happens. Got it in The Times.
we were visitors and remember an amazing experience. Honey caks and mead in the bitter cold. Do you remember it was an overcast morning so sunrise was more imagined than witnessed.
Tonight the SCO played this again at Usher Hall in Edinburgh with Maxim Emelyanychev conducting. Just as entertaining and characterful nearly ten years on!
Now they tell me! Annoyingly too busy to go anyway. Think I saw the UK premiere and have seen it a few times since, but the piper's entrance is one of the great moments in music, and never fails to move me. Met Max (v briefly) a couple of times. Lovely guy
Absolutely magnificent! Great to see PMD enjoying his composition and those around him celebrating his accomplishment. A wonderful performance by the orchestra which was obviously enjoying this music. Does not get much better than this, and thank you.
What a pleasant surprise to find this piece on You Tube. I performed the bagpipe solo with The Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra twice in 1995 and twice again in 1996, Bob Bernhardt conducting. Was great fun and enthusiastically received each time we played it. I communicated with Mr. Davies by letter and he was gracious enough to answer. It's nice to be able to put a face with the name after all these years. I wish that someone within driving distance would perform this piece, as I would like to see and hear it in person.
The LexPhil is doing it this Friday, April 14th in Lexington. Cool piece. I used to see a lot of Bob Bernhardt since he conducted here in Louisville so many years and times since. It's been a while though.
Good Bye Sir Davies, an amazing and stirring piece of great composition, especially for Great Highland Bagpiper. Thank you for the great music. You would be forever in our heart.
Sorry, but when knighthoods are awarded as honours in the UK, the "Sir" is attached to the first name, not the family name. So Peter Maxwell Davies was known as "Sir Peter" not "Sir Davies".
Very fine music indeed. I like Sir P. M Bavies his 'Farewell to Stromness'. ]An Orkney Wedding With Sunrise] has in my view the same brilliant writing. Very fine played and recorded.
Had the privilege of chatting to Sir Maxwell Davies in the interval of a Bath concert the year before he died. A lovely man indeed. This is a great piece and I am working to understand his major compositions
Probably a heretical statement but I find the entrance of the piper as thrilling as the end of Wagner's Götterdämmerung. (I was in the audience at this performance. The conclusion of his Strathclyde Clarinet Concerto - earlier in the evening - is also very haunting, in its quieter way.)
I love this piece as it entirely describes to my mind. what an Orkney Wedding at Sunrise would be like. Terrific! RIP PMD. The picture is in the music...
thank you for posting this video which reminds us of the music of Peter Maxwell Davies, Lullaby for Lucy, who is our friend Lucy Rendall from Hoy, Orkneys
I had the privilege of playing this piece in my senior year of college. I played either Horn 2 or 3. I liked the solos and LOVED the swelling horn parts at the very end.
Wonderful article about Maestro Davies (RIP) in last month's BBC Classical Magazine. And - a terrific post on Composers Datebook (National Public Radio) today featuring this piece. Fantastic music!
@@arongunner1522 I have a CD of it - we listen to it quite frequently. This was the gateway piece that brought me to like PMD, but I also really love Symphony Number 8, the Antarctic. Hoy i would like to visit someday - the Antarctic, not so much:)
@@jessipeterson5844 That's interesting. Well I play the song last week. Well I miss the Antarctic too. do you like music and what are your favorite bands?
PMD was a considerable force in British music in the '60s and '70s and brilliant orchestrator. I was luck enough to attend the Pierrot Players/Fires of London concerts on the northern universities circuit from 1969 for a few years. Birtwistle and 'Max' on top form with some of the finest players and singers of the time and an integrity of ensemble trust I have witnessed nowhere else. It is very sad that PMD swerved to a conventional and even 'populist' style which did not de-value his earlier works but raised questions of artistic integrity. This work is a rag bag from the change era and not at all well played here.
Watching, when the piper comes on stage near the end - his fingers not not match the the sound being played. Was he really playing or was it recorded with him miming ?
Splendid. Sad that Duncan Wilson can't upload it in the correct aspect ratio. Everything looks ridiculous, stretched vertically. A bit insulting to the musicians.