Location: Morris Performing Arts Center (574) 235-9190

Peter Maxwell Davies
An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise

Peter Maxwell Davies was born in Salford, England in 1934. He composed this work in 1985 on a commission from John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra, who premiered the work the same year. The score calls for solo bagpipes, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings.

“Eclectic” seems too mild a word to describe the wildly diverse music of Peter Maxwell Davies. He has composed symphonies, concertos, operas, string quartets, and all manner of solo and chamber works. His music is capable of being modernist at one moment, medieval the next, and Mahlerian the next; he is a composer of unusual connectivity and cultural awareness.Davies was born in Salford, near Manchester, England, and his musical development had the strong encouragement of his parents. His grammar school had little to offer him as far as musical studies went, so he had to make do on his own: he took piano, studied scores, and listened to the radio avidly. When he attended the Royal Manchester College of Music, he found that the school lacked awareness of twentieth-century music, so he once again continued an independent course. Since then he has composed over 300 works in every genre, including many educational works intended for children. Davies’ interest in the writer and poet George Mackay Brown led him to discover the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland. He now resides there, on the island of Hoy.

An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise was composed for John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra in 1985. Davies writes, “It is a picture-postcard record of an actual wedding I attended on Hoy in Orkney. At the outset, we hear the guests arriving at the hall out of extremely bad weather. This is followed by the processional, where the guests are solemnly received by the bride and bridegroom, and presented with their first glass of whisky. The band tunes up, and we get on with the dancing proper. This becomes ever wilder, as all concerned feel the results of the whisky, until the lead fiddle can hardly hold the band together anymore. We leave the hall into the cold night with echoes of the processional music in our ears, and as we walk home across the island the sun rises, over Caithness, to a glorious dawn. The sun is represented by the highland bagpipes, in full traditional splendour.”

The precise role of the bagpipes in Davies’ work is too delicious to spoil here; suffice to say that unless you hail from Scotland, you’ve never experienced a “sunrise” like this one!

Max Bruch
Scottish Fantasy for Violin & Orchestra, Op. 46

Max Bruch was born in Cologne in 1838 and died in Friedenau (near Berlin) in 1920. He completed this work in 1880, and it was first performed by Pablo de Sarasate at a Bach festival in Hamburg the same year. The score calls for solo violin, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, and strings.

In many ways, Max Bruch is the “forgotten” Romantic composer. We hear his beautiful Kol Nidre for cello and orchestra every so often and his G-minor Violin Concerto gets some play. Yet this is but a thin slice from a long and productive career. Bruch began composing at the age of 11, won a prize for a string quartet at age 12, and continued his creative effusion until his death at 83. Along the way he produced three operas, three symphonies, dozens of songs and choral works, and a great deal of chamber music. He was also a talented conductor and respected pedagogue. In his own time he was considered to have a similar stature to Brahms; today, not so much.

If you explore his music beyond the usual fare, you soon discover that Bruch had a lively interest in the folk and ethnic music of the world: some of his most attractive pieces make use of traditional Hebrew, Celtic, Swedish, and Russian melodies. Bruch spent two years in England while the prose and poetry of Walter Scott were all the rage, so it’s no surprise that he became drawn to Scottish folk melodies, too. For his Scottish Fantasy Bruch mined The Scots Musical Museum, a collection of 600 Scottish folk songs published in six volumes between 1787 and 1803.

The Scottish Fantasy begins with a slow and somber Introduction, chordal and stately, with the soloist playing free-sounding music above. This leads directly into a first movement based on the song “Auld Robin Morris.” Bruch gives this lovely tune a reverent setting, with a prominent harp and the soloist in double-stops.

The next movement is the Fantasy’s scherzo, a sprightly setting of “Hey, the Dusty Miller.” Here the violin dashes and swoops with a great deal of flair. Another nostalgic Scottish air follows, this time based on the song “I’m A-Doun for Lack o’ Johnnie.” The Finale is a treatment of a song sung (according to legend) by Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn, “Scots Wha Hae.” This march-like music inspired Bruch to unleash the violin’s pyrotechnics at last—impressive, but also jolly good fun. We hear in a sweet interlude a recollection of the first movement, then the soloist leads us to the end with panache.

Felix Mendelssohn
Symphony No. 3 in A minor "Scottish" Op. 56

Felix Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg in 1809 and died in Leipzig in 1847. He completed this symphony in 1842 and led the first performance with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra the same year. The score calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings.

“We went, in the deep twilight, to the palace where Queen Mary lived and loved. There is a little room to be seen there, with a winding staircase leading up to it. That is where they went up and found Rizzio in the little room, dragged him out, and three chambers away is a dark corner where they killed him. The adjoining chapel is now roofless; grass and ivy grow abundantly in it; and before the ruined altar Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland. Everything around is broken and moldering, and the bright sky shines in. I believe I found the beginning of my Scottish Symphony there today.”

So Mendelssohn wrote during his tour of Scotland in 1829. Rizzio was an Italian musician whom Mary Stuart elevated to the post of “private foreign secretary,” and who was rumored to have been Mary's lover. The Scottish nobles were envious and wary of Rizzio’s influence; in March of 1566 several of them hacked him to death and defenestrated his body.

Though the title “Scottish” did not appear on Mendelssohn’s score, he continually referred to it as “my Scottish symphony.” No doubt he avoided an official title because he abhorred programs and felt no need to explain his music. Many have claimed that the symphony pictures the Scottish countryside and incorporates derivatives of Scottish tunes, but the composer’s own words refute this: “No national music for me! Ten thousand devils take all nationality!”

The symphony begins with the ten bars of music Mendelssohn jotted down the day of his visit to Queen Mary’s ruined chapel. Variations on this theme are used in lieu of contrasting material and the movement is unified strongly by the adherence to this central motive. The Scherzo’s main tune, announced by the clarinet, is clearly related to the theme of the first movement though some have heard an old bagpipe melody in it. The Adagio employs two main ideas, a broad melody in the violins and brooding chords in the winds. The Finale—a movement for which the word “vigorous” is simply too weak—again uses a derivative of the symphony’s initial motive in its second subject, here presented by a clarinet and two oboes. The imposing coda can also be traced back to this theme.

The murder of Rizzio has inspired countless poets, painters, and playwrights, and it had no less effect on the young and romantic Mendelssohn. Whether the “Scottish” Symphony is literally descriptive or merely evocative makes no difference: it is captivating and hugely enjoyable