Peter Maxwell Davies: Black Pentecost & Stone Litany
Della Jones (mezzo-soprano) & David Wilson-Johnson (baritone)
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
Davies conducts performances of state-of-the-art vividness.
Peter Maxwell Davies: Black Pentecost & Stone Litany
Della Jones (mezzo-soprano) & David Wilson-Johnson (baritone)
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
Purchase product
Davies conducts performances of state-of-the-art vividness.
About
Both Black Pentecost and Stone Litany share a symphonic scale and an Orkney setting.
Premièred by Simon Rattle in 1982, Black Pentecost is an impassioned plea against environmental destruction, taking its words from Orcadian author George Mackay Brown’s novel Greenvoe, and cast in the form of a vocal symphony. Chamber-like restraint is matched by tense, dark writing that embraces threnody and cataclysm. Beautifully orchestrated and featuring elaborate melismas from the vocal soloist, Stone Litany, subtitled ‘Runes from a House of the Dead’, evokes the haunted landscape of a Neolithic burial mound plundered by Vikings.
Contents and tracklist
Awards and reviews
February 2015
Davies conducts performances of state-of-the-art vividness.
