The prominent British composer and conductor Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (1934–2016) was known for his adventurous, often avant-garde music. However, and this may seem paradoxical, 'Max' was also deeply wedded to British musical traditions.
Over the course of his decades-long career, Maxwell Davies created a huge and hugely varied body of music, including operas, symphonies, choral works, and chamber music. With that blend of adventurous experimentalism and a passion for older musical forms, he's now recognised as one of the most important composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries.
When was Peter Maxwell Davies born?
Born in Salford, Lancashire on 8 September 1934, Maxwell Davies attended the Royal Manchester College of Music (now Royal Northern College of Music). There he became part of the so-called 'Manchester school', a centre of avant-garde classical music in the 1960s. He later took up a fellowship at Princeton, where he studied under Milton Babbitt and Roger Sessions, and became a leading figure in the world of contemporary music. IN 2016, Maxwell Davies was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal. Previous recipients of this prestigious award include classical giants such as Brahms and Vaughan Williams.
Knighted for services to music in 1987, he served as Master of the Queen's Music from 2004-2014, though he was controversially not commissioned to compose a work for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2011.
Maxwell Davies was also an experienced conductor and guest-conducted orchestras around the world. He had particularly close relationships with the BBC Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic, where he was associate conductor and composer for ten years, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, where he was composer laureate.
'Max', as he was widely known, moved to the Orkney Islands in 1971, where he lived for the rest of his life. In 1977 he founded the St Magnus Festival which takes place annually in the Orkney Islands. Alongside performances from international artists, the festival prides itself on involving members of the local community in performances. The festival chorus - 130 singers from across the islands - performs each year.
Peter Maxwell Davies: his major works
Eight Songs for A Mad King (1969), a startling depiction of insanity, 1969. Maxwell Davies's early works often have an experimental, modernist style, featuring dissonance, unusual orchestration and more. Infleunces at this time range from Medieval and Renaissance music to 20th-century pioneers such as Stravinsky and Schoenberg. Eight Songs for a Mad King is a prime example of this pushing at the boundaries of musical and dramatic expression, in its depiction of the mental breakdown of the British king George III. It is considered a landmark in 20th-century music for its innovative use of voice and instrumentation.
Taverner (1972), an opera based on the life of British composer John Taverner, 1972.
The Lighthouse (1980), a chamber opera that takes the mysterious disappearance of three Scottish lighthouse keepers as a jumping-off point to explore psychological and supernatural themes.
'Farewell to Stromness' (1980), a short, intensely melodic and lyrical piano piece composed as part of a larger work, The Yellow Cake Revue. The latter was a protest, in musical form, against plans for a uranium mine in the Orkney Islands, where Davies lived for much of his life. Stromness is a town on Orkney, which would have seen severe environmental effects if the mining project had gone ahead.
An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise (1985). One of 'Max's best known orchestral works, this is a colourful musical portrayal of a traditional Scottish wedding. Famously, in a nod to Max's adopted homeland of Orkney, it ends with a solo from a bagpiper.
Peter Maxwell Davies: a life in brief
1934 - Peter Maxwell Davies is born in Salford, England to father Thomas, a manufacturer of optical instruments and mother Hilda, an amateur painter.
1953 - Begins his formal studies at the Royal Manchester College of Music having initially started to compose at the age of eight.
1960 - Takes up Head of Music post at Cirencester Grammar School, writing O Magnum Mysterium for its pupils.
1971 - Settles in the Orkney Islands and founds St. Magnus Festival often premiering new works using local school orchestras.
1987 - Begins association with fellow composer James MacMillan helping to bring his second Strathclyde Concerto (of ten) to children in Ayr.
2004 - Appointed Master of the Queen’s Music.
2009 - Made an honorary fellow of Homerton College, Cambridge.
2014 - World premiere of his Symphony No. 10 at the Barbican Hall, London.
'The choices of musical language are so infinite': an interview with Peter Maxwell Davies
Here is an interview with 'Max' from 2012.
What do you think are the challenges for composers trying to make a name for themselves?
There are commercial pressures, because everything these days seems to be part of the market – of the music industry – when I was younger it was a profession, it wasn’t an industry, and I think this can have a very bad effect. The choices of musical language are so infinite, from minimalism through to the greatest complexity, from tonal to modal to atonal, and you have to make choices at a very young age. You have to know, to some extent, what your direction is. I’ve seen this with young composers that I’m teaching – when I say teaching I think I learn far more from them than they do from me!
How important is it for young composers to get their music recorded?
Having music which you can circulate like that is essential. A lot of them do this themselves on the web anyway and a lot of people these days are approaching music through the web rather than going to concerts. It’s a whole new game. Live performance remains essential but for so many people these days, their access to music is not through the concert hall.
Has the internet improved things for young composers?
I think it has, to a limited extent, but to really get notice taken of you, you have to burst out of that. Of course this does bring into question the whole role of publishers, and of record companies. To find a real publisher, which for my generation wasn’t that hard, is very difficult for so many of these young people. So many publishers have actually thrown established composers out in recent years: they say ‘no we can’t make any money publishing that sort of stuff anymore.’
Getting a piece performed once is difficult enough. How can a young composer make sure that their music continues to be performed after the premiere?
This is the difficult one. You can get one, perhaps two performances, but it’s very difficult to get a third and fourth… It’s very frustrating, particularly if you don’t have a publisher to circulate it around orchestras, choruses, opera houses. At least these days, composers can make recordings themselves, or have them made for them, so they can listen to the piece and learn from it, which when I was young of course you couldn’t. But you did have more chance of having more performances I think.
Are you glad that you forged your career in less challenging times?
I think they were challenging, but in very different ways. Just to get your head above the general run of composers in those days was much easier, because there were far, far fewer of us. Commercial pressures make things very difficult for emerging composers today, getting a publisher is extremely difficult and getting third, fourth performances is very, very tough.
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