The Symphony No. 4 by

Peter Maxwell Davies Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (8 September 1934 – 14 March 2016) was an English composer and conductor, who in 2004 was made Master of the Queen's Music. As a student at both the University of Manchester and the Royal Manchester College of Music ...

was commissioned for the

Scottish Chamber Orchestra The Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) is an Edinburgh-based UK chamber orchestra. One of Scotland's five National Performing Arts Companies, the SCO performs throughout Scotland, including annual tours of the Scottish Highlands and Islands and So ...

by Christian Salvesen plc and composed in 1989. It is dedicated to the memory of the violinist John Tunnell, who had been

leader Leadership, is defined as the ability of an individual, group, or organization to "", influence, or guide other individuals, teams, or organizations. "Leadership" is a contested term. Specialist literature debates various viewpoints on the co ...

of the orchestra, and was premiered at the

Royal Albert Hall The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London, England. It has a seating capacity of 5,272. Since the hall's opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the world's leading artists from many performance genres ...

on a BBC Promenade Concert on 10 September 1989, with the composer conducting the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Character and materials

The Fourth Symphony differs from its predecessors in several respects, but particularly for combining the conventional four

movements Movement may refer to: Generic uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Movement (sign language), a hand movement when signing * Motion, commonly referred to as movement * Movement (music), a division of a larger c ...

into a single unit, similar to

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...

's Chamber Symphony No. 1, Op. 9, only on a larger scale. On the other hand, like Davies's earlier symphonies, the symphony stems from a mixture of a

plainchant Plainsong or plainchant (calque from the French ; ) is a body of chants used in the liturgies of the Western Church. When referring to the term plainsong, it is those sacred pieces that are composed in Latin text. Plainsong was the exclusive for ...

source on the one hand, and a moment in the composer's personal experience on the other. The plainchant "Adorna thalamum tuum, Sion", for a Feast of the

Purification of the Virgin Mary Purification is the process of rendering something pure, i.e. clean of foreign elements and/or pollution, and may refer to: Religion * Ritual purification, the religious activity to remove uncleanliness * Purification after death * Purification ...

(a processional chant with candles) is transformed by the composer into different but related sets of seven, nine, and ten notes, which are used as the basic pitch materials of the symphony. Such transformational treatment of plainchant melodies has been a characteristic of Davies's music since the 1957 sextet ''Alma Redemptoris Mater'' The second source was the haunting sight of a golden eagle taking flight at sunrise, which the composer did not attempt to portray literally.

Instrumentation

The symphony is scored for a scaled-down orchestra of two flutes (2nd doubling piccolo and alto flute), two oboes (2nd doubling cor anglais), two clarinets (2nd doubling bass clarinet), two bassoons (2nd doubling double bassoon), two horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings. These forces reflect Davies's exploration at that time especially of the symphonies of

Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn ( ; ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions ...

and

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age ...

, in his capacity as associate conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Analysis

The symphony is in four movements, though they are played without break: # Moderato # Allegro # Adagio # Andante – Allegro The symphony begins with a sort of "ghost

sonata In music a sonata (; pl. ''sonate'') literally means a piece ''played'' as opposed to a cantata (Latin and Italian ''cantare'', "to sing"), a piece ''sung''. The term evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms until th ...

" with a disguised recapitulation. A short Adagio transition at the end seems to be preparing for a following slow movement, a forecast contradicted by the actual nature of the second movement—a musical '' trompe-l'oeil'' or "contradictory anticipation". It is the first of a series of "one-sided parentheses" refracting the structure toward a series of three short, concentrated statements at the very end of the symphony. The second movement unexpectedly proves to be a

scherzo A scherzo (, , ; plural scherzos or scherzi), in western classical music, is a short composition – sometimes a movement from a larger work such as a symphony or a sonata. The precise definition has varied over the years, but scherzo often r ...

instead of the slow movement forecast by the transition from the end of the first movement. However, the Adagio third movement occurs instead of the expected central trio, and the scherzo "forgets to come back", being replaced by the finale.

References

Sources * * * * * *

Character and materials

Instrumentation

Analysis

References

Further reading