IDAGIO | Maxwell Davies: Symphony No. 1 - Mavis in Las Vegas 747313234875

Featuring

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
BBC Philharmonic

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Compositional Technique

An unusual feature of the orchestra in the First Symphony is its percussion section, which consists only of tuned instruments like glockenspiel, crotales, marimba, tubular bells, celesta, harp, and timpani.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Peter Maxwell Davies dedicated his First Symphony to William Glock, as a mark of friendship and appreciation for Glock's work for contemporary music as Music Controller at the BBC.

Composition History

The First Symphony by Peter Maxwell Davies was initially conceived as a single movement orchestral work, but he withdrew it before performance as he felt it was incomplete.

Compositional Technique

The First Symphony's second movement features a transformation from a lento to a scherzo, a device inspired by the first movement of Sibelius's Fifth Symphony.

Composer Biography

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, the composer, lives in the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland, where he writes most of his music.

Composition History

The piece 'Mavis in Las Vegas' was inspired by an incident during a BBC Philharmonic tour where Peter Maxwell Davies was mistakenly registered as 'Mavis' at a Las Vegas hotel.