Maxwell Davies: Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis
Michael Bonaventure (organ)
Choir of St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh, Matthew Owens
There’s no better introduction to the productive tensions that have fuelled Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s career as a composer…this new recording – performed with a high degree of competence by...
Maxwell Davies: Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis
Michael Bonaventure (organ)
Choir of St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh, Matthew Owens
Purchase product
There’s no better introduction to the productive tensions that have fuelled Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s career as a composer…this new recording – performed with a high degree of competence by...
About
In the 1960s few would have predicted that Peter Maxwell Davies would eventually write a set of Evening Canticles; yet religious texts have always been of fundamental importance to the composer, as this disc vividly demonstrates by bringing together sacred masterworks from both ends of his career. Tough, uncompromising and of surpassing beauty, Davies’ major contributions to the Anglican repertoire are given thrilling voice by these fearless champions of contemporary liturgical music.
Contents and tracklist
- Rosha Fitzhowle (treble), Simon Nieminski (organ), Andrew Stones (alto), Ashley Turnell (tenor), Ben Carter (bass)
- Choir of St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh
- Matthew Owens
- Peter Innes (treble)
- Choir of St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama
- Matthew Owens
Awards and reviews
There’s no better introduction to the productive tensions that have fuelled Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s career as a composer…this new recording – performed with a high degree of competence by all concerned – is even more welcome than it would otherwise be. The Edinburgh choristers…make light of the music’s demands.
The Master of the Queen’s Music would not find many more sympathetic advocates of his compositions in all Her Majesty’s Realm.
16th February 2014
Davies is a composer with a religious sensibility who doesn’t believe in religion, and that tension of heart and mind informs his writing. It takes extreme form in works for actual liturgical use, such as the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis...recorded here, impressively, by the choir that commissioned them.
