From the Archives: Peter Maxwell Davies

Salford, 8 September, 1934 – Orkney, 14 March 14, 2016

Military march no.2 [Op.333].  Autograph manuscript in pencil; Airon, Sanday, Orkney, Feb. 2015.

Composed for RSM’s 2015 Annual Jacqueline du Pré charity concert, the manuscript was donated by the composer in March 2015.  The first performance was given in a concert on 3 March 2015 at the Wigmore Hall, with works performed by the Sacconi String Quartet and Navarra String Quartet, including chamber music by Frank Bridge, Maurice Ravel, Franz Schubert, and with two other premières of works by Robert Saxton and Toby Young.

On the tenth anniversary of the death of Sir Peter we remember his time as the Society’s Patron from 2005-2014, and as President in his final two years. Curiously, he had yet another link to the RSM when he related the following information that he had lived in a flat at the Society’s curremt address:

“I had a flat there in the late ’60s and early ’70s on the piano mobile in 26 Fitzroy Square!  And a lot of Eight Songs for a Mad King, in collaboration with Roy Hart, the first Mad King, was worked out overlooking the Square. Roy could not be discreet, and made all the noises at the top of his voice, much to the distress of the Chinese Quarterly in particular, below. I have lovely memories of 26 Fitzroy Square, and hope that, if you stay there late at night, you don’t hear ghostly echoes of the first experiments with Eight Songs”.