|
Back
Max in the cities London
Barbican
05/02/2000 -
Peter Maxwell Davies, Mavis in Las Vegas, Concerto for
Horn and Orchestra (world première), Roma, Amor,
Labyrinthos (world première)
Richard Watkins (French Horn)
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Peter Maxwell Davies (conductor)
It is depressing to try to calculate the fraction of the Barbican Hall that
was occupied for this concert of music, including two world
premières, by probably the most endearing and "accessible"
established composer today. Yet of the three pieces performed, one was
hugely entertaining and funny, the second was a substantial, but compact,
mainstream horn concerto and the third was a picture-postcard programmatic
tour of Rome, though without obvious pines or fountains.
Mavis in Las Vagas is an amusing bit of sleaze, a sort of
post-modern orchestral Maria de Buenos Aires. The imaginary Mavis,
originally a typo for the composer's own name in his Las Vagas hotel
registration, parades through scenes of confected luxury and classiness,
represented musically by not-quite-right pastiches of show music and
"classical" music. It is almost impossible not to giggle at the nonsense of
it all.
The Concerto for French Horn and Orchestra pushes the instrument to
its limits, setting up a tension between conventional legato passages and
stunningly difficult would-be coloratura explosions. Richard Watkins played
the solo part with apparent ease. This was amazing in its way but perhaps
deprived the work of a sense of external drama.
Amor, Roma, Labyrinthus is a three-movement evocation of Max's time
in Rome as a student in 1957 and 1958. The programme notes outline layers
of history and memory -- ancient Rome, the authoritian history of the
Papacy, Fascism, the composer's own memory --, which are evoked in familiar
musical terms. The first movement looks at the oppressive momumental
"rhetoric" of, perhaps, the idea of Rome itself, using a musical language
borrowed from Carl Orff and alluding to D'Annunzio's poetry. The second
movement evokes a Roman Nighttown similar to that of the Dublin of
Ulysses, with tinkling music in bars, marching bands, fragments of
church music and a final, simple and restful folk song. The third movement
is about the dynamism and noise of the modern city, a sort succinct of
European Amèriques. It is all surprisingly and interestingly
evocative of the real place, with the focus of a return visit to vividly
remembered places.
H.E. Elsom
|
