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- Peter Maxwell Davies
Naxos Quartet No. 3 (2003)
- Chester Music Ltd (World)
Commissioned by the Naxos Recording Company
Programme Note
The intention with Naxos Quartet No. 3 was to create a work exploring the compositional potentialities of a magic square of Saturn (3 x 3) within one of Mars (5 x 5) within one of Venus (7 x 7) - all this alongside an independent square of the Moon (9 x 9), with the associated isometric disciplines, based upon the plainsong proper to the celebration of St. Cecilia on November 22nd, 'Audi filia et vide'. In this way I set myself creative problems whose intricacy and complexity posed new and formidable challenges. This concentrated attempt at virtuoso composition owed much to a restudy of Bach's two and three part keyboard inventions, and was intended, eventually, to be an honest contribution to musical literature honouring its patron Saint. However, during the course of composition, March and April 2003, external events affected the Quartet's unfolding.
The first movement, 'March', starts with a short exposition (C minor), followed by a varied repeat: there is little hint thus far of any music suggestive of the title. The following development, however, gradually transforms the material into a military march of a fatuous and splintered nature, after which there is, in place of any expected recapitulation, a brief, slow meditation, then by way of a coda, a ghost of the march, in a very slow tempo, drained of all energy, forms a tonal resolution in the correct key: the bones of the march are now exposed as a strict mensural canon. The movement dismisses this with a brief 'maestoso'.
The second movement, a slow 'In Nomine', doesn't at first make use of the 'Gloria Tibi Trinitas' plainsong common to Renaissance In Nomines, but draws heavily on their polyphonic techniques, while exploring further ramifications of the plainsong with magic squares encountered in the first movement. When the music comes to a resolution on a low G major chord, the violins take up the argument left hanging in the air at the close of the first Naxos Quartet - there it evaporated into the highest ether and silence. Now, in the course of this material's swift descent from upon high, we are prepared for the appearance of the 'In Nomine' melody in its original form, going back to John Taverner's early sixteenth century 'Gloria Tibi Trinitas' Mass and the organ transcription in the contemporaneous 'Mulliner Book' which uses that section of the Mass setting the words "Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini" - blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord: - this 'In Nomine' is quietly distorted and dissonant - i.e. very much not 'in Nomine.'
The third movement, 'Four Inventions and a Hymn' stands in for a Scherzo. It takes up the thread left from the first Naxos Quartet in the previous movement, borrowing more of the techniques of Bach's Inventions, but the character is burlesque, becoming even grotesque towards the end, where the short Hymn is marked "stucchevole" - cloying, nauseating.
The finale, 'Fugue', begins with successive instrumental entries in period style, recalling the typical procedure of the form. This is soon interrupted and replaced by quicker, more dynamic music, suggesting the Italian 'fuga' (flight) rather than the form Bach perfected. The movement ends with a return to the initial slow tempo, with part only of a cumulative stretto - one has to imagine that the period-style fugue will, meantime, have (silently!) progressed thus far. This is another mensural canon, recalling the March's ghost towards the end of the first movement, the 'In nomine' quoted at the close of the second and the Hymn which ends the third. Here, in unison with the 'cello line, I imagine a baritone voice, quietly intoning Michaelangelo's words:
"Mentre che'l danno e la vergogna dura;
Non veder, non sentir m'è gran ventura:
Però non mi destar, deh, parla basso."
(While damage and shame persist, it is my great fortune to neither see nor hear - so please do not disturb me, and speak quietly.)
The closing measures, however, show that it is just impossible to neither see, nor hear.
The Quartet is dedicated to my oldest school-friend, Eric Guest.
The first movement, 'March', starts with a short exposition (C minor), followed by a varied repeat: there is little hint thus far of any music suggestive of the title. The following development, however, gradually transforms the material into a military march of a fatuous and splintered nature, after which there is, in place of any expected recapitulation, a brief, slow meditation, then by way of a coda, a ghost of the march, in a very slow tempo, drained of all energy, forms a tonal resolution in the correct key: the bones of the march are now exposed as a strict mensural canon. The movement dismisses this with a brief 'maestoso'.
The second movement, a slow 'In Nomine', doesn't at first make use of the 'Gloria Tibi Trinitas' plainsong common to Renaissance In Nomines, but draws heavily on their polyphonic techniques, while exploring further ramifications of the plainsong with magic squares encountered in the first movement. When the music comes to a resolution on a low G major chord, the violins take up the argument left hanging in the air at the close of the first Naxos Quartet - there it evaporated into the highest ether and silence. Now, in the course of this material's swift descent from upon high, we are prepared for the appearance of the 'In Nomine' melody in its original form, going back to John Taverner's early sixteenth century 'Gloria Tibi Trinitas' Mass and the organ transcription in the contemporaneous 'Mulliner Book' which uses that section of the Mass setting the words "Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini" - blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord: - this 'In Nomine' is quietly distorted and dissonant - i.e. very much not 'in Nomine.'
The third movement, 'Four Inventions and a Hymn' stands in for a Scherzo. It takes up the thread left from the first Naxos Quartet in the previous movement, borrowing more of the techniques of Bach's Inventions, but the character is burlesque, becoming even grotesque towards the end, where the short Hymn is marked "stucchevole" - cloying, nauseating.
The finale, 'Fugue', begins with successive instrumental entries in period style, recalling the typical procedure of the form. This is soon interrupted and replaced by quicker, more dynamic music, suggesting the Italian 'fuga' (flight) rather than the form Bach perfected. The movement ends with a return to the initial slow tempo, with part only of a cumulative stretto - one has to imagine that the period-style fugue will, meantime, have (silently!) progressed thus far. This is another mensural canon, recalling the March's ghost towards the end of the first movement, the 'In nomine' quoted at the close of the second and the Hymn which ends the third. Here, in unison with the 'cello line, I imagine a baritone voice, quietly intoning Michaelangelo's words:
"Mentre che'l danno e la vergogna dura;
Non veder, non sentir m'è gran ventura:
Però non mi destar, deh, parla basso."
(While damage and shame persist, it is my great fortune to neither see nor hear - so please do not disturb me, and speak quietly.)
The closing measures, however, show that it is just impossible to neither see, nor hear.
The Quartet is dedicated to my oldest school-friend, Eric Guest.
Media
Naxos Quartet No. 3: March
Naxos Quartet No. 3: In Nomine
Naxos Quartet No. 3: Four Inventions and a Hymn
Naxos Quartet No. 3: Fugue
Scores
Sample Pages
Reviews
... the Third Quartet possitively spits and snarls with unbridled fury.
... the final 'Fugue' is another fractured reference to Iraq with its boiling anger and unresolved tension.
... the final 'Fugue' is another fractured reference to Iraq with its boiling anger and unresolved tension.
12th October 2009
[Maxwell Davies] makes the process of four voices developing and resolving an argument appear astonishingly productive, without ducking the complexities that a 21st-century composer must confront in such a well-established form.
12th October 2009
"It's not often that the Wigmore Hall audience is roused to anti-establishment protest. But Peter Maxwell Davies's introduction to the world premiere of his Third Naxos Quartet - a piece composed, he said, in response to the invasion of Iraq, which he called "one of the greatest disasters of our time" - inspired an explosion of applause.
The piece began life earlier this year as an esoteric study of the relationships between different sets of musical pitches. But this austere process was transformed by Davies's impassioned anti-war feelings. He has turned the string quartet, the medium that supposedly embodies abstract musical logic, into a vehicle for violent imagery.
At the end of the second movement, In Nomine, tremulous violin lines hovered above an austere drone, a "beating of angel's wings", according to the composer. This ethereal music was brought shudderingly to earth with an acerbic transformation of the In Nomine chant as it were to an anti-In Nomine, in other words, "not in our name". In the final Fugue the Magginis - who played with compelling insight - created a dialogue between ancient and modern, as an archaic-sounding texture was traduced by jagged, dissonant music. In the last moments of the peformance, that contrast was amplified, as hollow, stabbing chords exploded over quiet, sinewy lines.
The way Davies transforms his political sentiments into musical structure gives the whole piece a coherent architecture. If anything, his technical manipulation is almost too sophisticated: in the first movement, he composes what he describes as an "empty, grotesque" march, but in the Magginis performance, the music was expressively intense, but always refined.
This is music of mysterious power that does not easily give up its secrets."
The piece began life earlier this year as an esoteric study of the relationships between different sets of musical pitches. But this austere process was transformed by Davies's impassioned anti-war feelings. He has turned the string quartet, the medium that supposedly embodies abstract musical logic, into a vehicle for violent imagery.
At the end of the second movement, In Nomine, tremulous violin lines hovered above an austere drone, a "beating of angel's wings", according to the composer. This ethereal music was brought shudderingly to earth with an acerbic transformation of the In Nomine chant as it were to an anti-In Nomine, in other words, "not in our name". In the final Fugue the Magginis - who played with compelling insight - created a dialogue between ancient and modern, as an archaic-sounding texture was traduced by jagged, dissonant music. In the last moments of the peformance, that contrast was amplified, as hollow, stabbing chords exploded over quiet, sinewy lines.
The way Davies transforms his political sentiments into musical structure gives the whole piece a coherent architecture. If anything, his technical manipulation is almost too sophisticated: in the first movement, he composes what he describes as an "empty, grotesque" march, but in the Magginis performance, the music was expressively intense, but always refined.
This is music of mysterious power that does not easily give up its secrets."
17th October 2003
Discography
Naxos Quartets Nos. 3 and 4
- LabelNaxos
- Catalogue Number8.557397
- EnsembleMaggini Quartet
