New Works by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies

Over the next two weekends, two new works by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies will receive their world premieres.  On Sunday 15th June The Choir of Wells Cathedral conducted by Matthew Owens will perform his Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis “The Wells Service” for SATB choir and organ in Wells Cathedral, Somerset.  The performance will be part of the new music wells 68-08 festival and follows Max’s commission to write a Mag and Nunc (“The Edinburgh Service”) for Matthew Owens and the Choir of St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh in 2004.  These two liturgical works further add to the substantial body of choral music by Peter Maxwell Davies in the Schott catalogue.
 
The following Sunday (22nd June) will see the premiere of the eagerly anticipated Sonata for Violin and Piano at the St Magnus Festival in Orkney by internationally renowned performers Ilya Gringolts (violin) and Aleksander Madzar (piano).  Maxwell Davies, who lives in the Orkney Islands, describes his one movement sonata as tracing “an imaginary traffic free walk across Rome, taking its inspiration from a fantastic proposal in the book Progetti Frammenti di Architettura Italiana, by my oldest Roman friend, the architect Giuseppe Rebecchini.”  Harmonically rich with virtuosity writing for both instruments and a sweeping cadenza promise to make this a highlight of the festival.  Further performances are already planned at the Cheltenham Festival on 8 July, the Dvořák festival in the Czech Republic on 17 August and in Crear in Scotland on 31 August.

The recent months have been a hugely busy period of composition for Peter Maxwell Davies and there will be two further premieres in July.  Max’s Sonata for Cello and Piano (Sequentia Serpentigena) will be premiered in Siena, Italy by Vittorio Ceccanti, cello and Bruno Canino, piano on 10 July and Last Door of Light for chamber orchestra will be premiered at the Carinthischer Summer Festival in Austria by Camerata Salzburg with the composer conducting on 23 July.

• Peter Maxwell Davies - profile
• St Magnus Festival