European American Music Distributors Company is a member of the Schott Music Group

World Premiere of Peter Maxwell Davies's Symphony No. 10 with London Symphony Orchestra

Jan. 31, 2014

World Premiere of Peter Maxwell Davies's <em>Symphony No. 10</em> with London Symphony Orchestra

"I told myself: You've got your Tenth Symphony to write and you're damn well going to do it." Peter Maxwell Davies introduces us to his newest work, which premiered to great acclaim on February 2 at the Barbican Center with Antonio Pappano leading the London Symphony Orchestra. Commissioned by the LSO, the work is written for baritone, chorus and orchestra, and features anonymous Italian verse as well as texts by Francesco Borromini and Giacomo Leopardi.

Maxwell Davies celebrates the premiere of his Symphony No. 10 after being diagnosed, in 2013, with leukemia. Of the piece, Davies said, “I think it kept me going.” The Symphony No. 10 showcases Maxwell Davies’s return to Rome – the place of his studies in the 1950’s. It features glowing sonorities and harmonic directness, with texts that highlight the composer’s thoughts on creativity and an artist’s view of the past, as well as mortality.

In his review of the premiere for The Guardian, Andrew Clements hailed the work as "a major new symphony":

[Symphony No. 10 is] put together with an unfailingly sure touch. The orchestral writing is vivid and, for the brass especially, often fiercely virtuosic. The baritone part is effectively a dramatic scena, overlaid on the mostly serene and homophonic choral writing... It's one of the most movingly personal of Davies's recent scores, and a major new symphony.

Throughout the day, the London Symphony featured Maxwell Davies in a “Discovery Day”, where audience members were immersed in all things “Max,” as they attended open rehearsals in the morning, and observed the composer during an informal chat and chamber music concert.

Maxwell Davies turns 80 this year and as he steps down from his post as Master of the Queen’s Music, Queen Elizabeth II has named him Companion of Honour in her 2014 New Year's Honour list.

Learn more about Peter Maxwell Davies at www.schott-music.com.

For more concert information, visit the lso.co.uk.

Peter Maxwell Davies
Symphony No. 10 (2014)
text (It) by Francesco Borromini, Giacomo Leopardi and Anonymous
for baritone, SATB chorus and orchestra
pic.3.afl.3.3.bcl.cbcl.3(3.cbsn).cbsn-4.4.2.btbn.1-timp.6perc-str
45'

News