CELEBRATING 20,000 Classical CD reviews on-line; 21,000 visitors each day. Return to MusicWeb International
Maxwell Davies 2nd Symphony review
Posted by Martin Walker on July 30, 2012, 11:28 am 92.78.191.70
I feel I must question the sense and intent of the following sentences: "He tells us, too, that part of the thematic material is derived from a Marian plainsong; curiously, the symphony “is a birthday gift for the Virgin.” It’s obviously prestigious to have the insert notes written by the composer, but if CD booklet notes are meant to constitute an aid to listening, which they surely should in the case of a new and difficult work, then these, at once technical and obscure in the extreme, are a dismal failure." Mr. Hedley apparently instances the obscurity and "dismal failure" by the composer's reference to a "Marian hymn" and the inexplicable curiosity of the gift to the Virgin. I cannot remember whether the hymn is in fact "Ave Maris Stella" (Hail to the Star of the Sea) or not - my copy of the Collins CD is elsewhere - but Max has written a piece with that title and the semantic connection is obvious so it seems a disingenuous act to obscure it in a review for the purpose of punishing the composer for what the reviewer obviously finds distasteful. And why he should find a discussion of wave-forms so obscure is a mystery to me. I am neither a Roman Catholic nor a scientist, but I regard such information as a useful adjunct to listening, though not an aid, since the auditory organ always has the first and last word in the aesthetic reception of music. Is anybody so naive as to expect Schoenberg's treatises to aid listening to or explain his music?
