Peter Maxwell Davies: Black Pentecost / Stone Litany

1. Black Pentecost, for mezzo-soprano, baritone and orchestra, J. 158
Composed by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
with BBC Philharmonic Orchestra , Della Jones , David Wilson-Johnson

2. Stone Litany: Runes from a House of the Dead, for mezzo-soprano & orchestra, J. 115
Composed by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
with BBC Philharmonic Orchestra , Della Jones , David Wilson-Johnson

Peter Maxwell Davies: Black Pentecost / Stone Litany,Sir Peter Maxwell Davies,Della Jones,BBC Philharmonic Orchestra,David Wilson-Johnson,Collins Classics,Classical,Classical Music

Average customer rating: Some notes on Stone Litany Some notes on this work

Peter Maxwell Davies: Black Pentecost / Stone Litany Manufacturer: Collins Classics ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music General | Classical | Styles | Music Similar Items: Peter Maxwell Davies: The Lighthouse Davies Quartets 1 & 2 Peter Maxwell Davies: Naxos Quartets Nos. 5 & 6 Peter Maxwell Davies: Naxos Quartets Nos. 3 & 4 ASIN: B000003VXJ Release Date: 1993-08-24

Tracks:

1. Black Pentecost: I. Adagio-Allegro Molto - BBC Phil/Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
2. Black Pentecost: II. Black Star. Operation Black Star Was How They Described It. - David Wilson-Johnson
3. Black Pentecost: III. Bella Budge Presided Over A Diminishing Republic Of Hens, - Della Jones
4. Black Pentecost: IV. It Is A Pity That The Whole Life And Economy Of The Island... - Della Jones
5. Stone Litany: Runes From A House Of The Dead: Molto Lento-Andante - BBC Phil/Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
6. Stone Litany: Runes From A House Of The Dead: Recitativo Lento - Della Jones
7. Stone Litany: Runes From A House Of The Dead: Allegretto - BBC Phil/Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
8. Stone Litany: Runes From A House Of The Dead: Andante Flessibile - Della Jones
9. Stone Litany: Runes From A House Of The Dead: Allegro Molto - BBC Phil/Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
10. Stone Litany: Runes From A House Of The Dead: Moderato - Della Jones
11. Stone Litany: Runes From A House Of The Dead: Recitativo Lento Molto Flessibile - Della Jones

Customer Reviews:

Some notes on Stone Litany.......2002-10-01

After adopting the Orkney islands as his home, composer Peter Maxwell Davies immersed himself in the local culture and folklore, producing a number of works inspired by the customs, landscapes, and legends of the rustic islands off of Scotland's north coast. Of all these works, Stone Litany: Runes from a House of the Dead is rooted most deeply in Orcadian soil and history -- almost literally so, in fact. The piece was inspired by Maeshowe, an underground stone structure on Orkney's main island that dates to before 2700 B.C. It served as a kind of observatory or temple, its long underground entrance specially constructed so that on the winter solstice the sun passes through the tunnel and penetrates the darkness of the inner chamber. The structure was also a burial mound, and was apparently filled with lavish treasures. These were plundered by Vikings in the twelfth century who inscribed messages, including boasts of their ill-gotten booty, on the walls of the tomb. The inscriptions are written in a 16-character alphabet from a variant Old Norse dialect, one unique to ancient Orkney.
In incorporating the runic inscriptions into a piece for voice and orchestra, Davies reasoned that, as an extinct language, the words themselves would offer little dramatic impulse, but rather would add a provocative sonic element to the instrumental soundscape. In this sense, the work seeks not to depict the inscriptions themselves, but instead to convey the sense of mystery and awe one would feel in entering the ancient mound of Maeshowe and encountering the cryptic messages left by visitors from centuries before. The nimble and angular lines and colorful inflections of the mezzo-soprano soloist thus depict the sheer curiosity and antiquity of the inscriptions more than the contents thereof.

The work is structured in four continuous sections, each consisting of an instrumental interlude followed by a musical rumination on a different text extract. The opening interlude immediately assumes an ethereal tone, the tranquility of the sustained tones in the winds and strings intermittently disturbed by wandering glissandi and the neurotic tremble of the flexatone. The singer enters, intoning the runic alphabet with surreal articulatory exaggeration. Brass and percussion thicken in the subsequent interlude, developing into sharply counterpoised melodic lines and rolling waves of bells and chimes. The vocalist returns to memorialize "Ingibjorg, the fair widow," her lines at once more lyrical and anxious, executing wide repeated intervals and a chilling ascent to the top of her range. Both voice and instruments grow more violent still in the third section, "Lothbrokar's Sons," which describes the plundering of the mound; flutes move in parallel dissonances, cymbals and gongs rattle, and the singer declaims the text with agitated huffs and stutters. The final section returns to a more restrained texture, set against the otherworldly hum of rubbed wineglasses. The singer ends with a curious and perfunctory message, extracted by Davies from the runes as his own clever musical signature: "Max the Mighty carved these runes." -- J. Neal (from the All Classical Guide)

Some notes on this work.......2002-10-01

Though many of Peter Maxwell Davies' musical odes to his adopted home of Orkney (a group of islands off the north coast of Scotland) are composed in a light, accessible style -- An Orkney Wedding, Wth Sunrise for example -- one event in the region elicited from Davies a particularly dark and intense composition. Black Pentecost, a symphonic song cycle from 1979, referred to a corridor of uranium discovered running beneath the soil of the main island, near the town Stromness and beneath the scenic cliffs of nearby Yesnaby (both later memorialized in Davies' piano pieces Farewell to Stromness and Yesnaby Ground). A proposal for open-pit mining of the uranium caused an uproar among the islanders, who feared that the kind of environmental contamination that had occurred near mines elsewhere in the world would devastate their way of life and forever cripple their local agrarian economy. Davies himself voiced his opposition through the composition of Black Pentecost, an hour-long, four-movement work for baritone, mezzo-soprano, and orchestra.
The work was one of several collaborations between Davies and writer George Mackay Brown. In 1971, Brown had published Greenvoe, a fictional but highly prophetic book telling the story of an imaginary island in the Orkneys whose residents are forced to leave to make room for a mysterious and environmentally disastrous project known as Operation Black Star. So closely did the story resemble the dispute over uranium mining that Davies took several excerpts from Brown's novel as the text for his Black Pentecost.

The Adagio and Allegro that comprise the first movement of Davies' score seek to depict, by instrumental means alone, with no contribution from the singers, the sights and sounds of the pristine islands. A series of fearful tremolos in the strings and marimba introduce the second movement and after this interlude the baritone describes the destruction of the island: "The houses collapsed before clashing black jaws...Piecemeal the village died." The mezzo-soprano describes the beautiful landscape of the island, particularly the loch of Ernefea and the river that descends from it to the sea. The baritone then resumes, his line, punctuated by violent jabs in the strings as he describes the pollution from Black Star running out to sea, poisoned haddock floating belly-up in its wake.

In the third movement, the mezzo-soprano introduces Bella Budge, a simple islander whose home is bulldozed as she boards a boat to leave the island for the first time in her life. In the fourth movement, the remaining villages and farms on the island are gradually overtaken by Black Star. Throughout, Davies rarely unleashes his rage, combining Brown's prose text with subdued orchestral textures and quiet, simmering dissonances. When the baritone assumes the role of the Black Star official, however, his vocal inflections suddenly become shrill and grotesque (much in the manner of Eight Songs for a Mad King), marking the disturbing climax from which the work's somber denouement proceeds. -- J. Neal (from the All Classical Guide)

Track Listings:

1. Peter Maxwell Davies: Trumpet Concerto/Symphony No. 4
2. Peter Maxwell Davies - Worldes Blis, for orchestra, J. 79; The Turn of the Tide, J. 253; Sir Charles his Pavan, for orchestra, J. 255
3. Peter Wispelwey Styles
4. Piano Works 2
5. Piano Works, Volume 3
6. Pieces Rompues
7. Rítmicas
8. Romantic Works for Flute & Harp
9. Sacred Music from Venice & Rome
10. Salon Music of the 19th Century

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