Foxtrot for orchestra «St. Thomas wake» by P.M. Davies: a prayer or a burlesque?

Abstract

Peter Maxwell Davies’s Orchestral piece «St. Thomas Wake» on a Pavan by John Bull was commissioned by the City of Dortmund in 1969 and premiered there by the City of Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestra under the composer as a conductor. The piece is based on St. Thomas Pavan by an English composer John Bull (1562-1628) which is transformed in diverse and exciting ways using different genres, compositional techniques, experiments with sound even ethical approach. P.M. Davies used incredibly wide range of sources in his compositions (their genre range is not fewer): from medieval and Renaissance ideas though Indian music (the subject of the composer’s dissertation) to up-to-date calls.

Foxtrot was one of memoirs from his childhood: little Max was listening to foxtrots on the gramophone while air raid on his native Manchester in 1940. We all know that childhood experiences are the most vivid ones. Suppose after the commission from a German city Max recalled that war time episode.

«St. Thomas Wake» is just a parody, it is an important step in a process of searching new sound, style and technique All those is analyzed in the article from various points of view: what was the initial idea, how it is embodied, why the sound of the foxtrot makes listeners laugh or clamour, what is the meaning of this work in a vast composer’s heritage.

Keywords: Peter Maxwell Davies, Manchester School, postmodernism, the School of London

For citation: Agisheva Y. I. Foxtrot for Orchestra «St. Thomas Wake» by P.M. Davies: a Prayer or a Burlesque? [Electronic source]. In: Sovremennye problemy muzykoznaniya / Contemporary Musicology, 2019, No. 3, pp. 92–106. (In Russ.) DOI: 10.56620/2587-9731-2019-3-092-106