Peter Maxwell Davies: A Source Book

Peter Maxwell Davies is one of the most prolific composers of recent times, producing a body of works that cover the spectrum from symphonies and operas to works for children and community-based projects. Stewart Craggs's source book gives an accessible sense of order to this diverse output, but given the remarkably dynamic nature of Davies's work ethic it is already well out of date. However, it does clearly provide a foundation upon which information about new works catalogued on the impressive Maxopus website (http://www.Maxopus.com) can be built, and it also improves upon previous efforts (see Colin Bayliss, The Music of Peter Maxwell Davies: An Annotated Catalogue (Beverley, 1991) and Carolyn J. Smith, Peter Maxwell Davies: A Bio-bibliography (Westport, Conn., 1995)).

Its structure and content consist essentially of a catalogue of works and a general bibliography. The chronological listing of all works (up to March 2002) is its most important and useful feature. This gives information on all aspects of individual works, including date of composition, commission, dedication, and first known performance. These details, presented in a chronological arrangement by year, helps give an indication of the progression and development of Davies's career. It also clarifies some specific problems with the dating of individual works. The entry for each work includes bibliographical details and information on recordings. However, only CD recordings are listed, and it is unfortunate that reference is not made to earlier, vinyl recordings, many of which, although long unavailable, form an important part of a history of the performance practices of contemporary music. It is clearly useful to have the literature on a specific work listed along with the other information about it, but I think it is unfortunate that this bibliographical material is not repeated in the general bibliography, since it would have been useful to have a truly inclusive bibliography available in one place.

Many readers will be most interested in the listings of pre-Op. 1 works, with juvenile attempts from as early as 1942 included. This gives some indication of the depth of Davies's involvement with music before his recognized emergence as a composer. But where a manuscript still exists, as in the case of Early Morning Echoes (1942) and Moderato in E flat (c.1942), it would have been useful to have a wider description of the music, together, perhaps, with a summary of its nature and character, in order to offer a greater sense of Davies's early compositional identity. It would also have been interesting to see some commentary about the progression through the more substantial early efforts, such as the Octet for woodwind (1954), towards the Op. 1 Sonata for trumpet and piano of 1955. It can easily be argued that what might be somewhat speculative commentary is beyond the scope of an essentially factual source book; but this is clearly an area for future research, and it is to be hoped that the cataloguing of such material here will help stimulate such work.

With its generally clear and concise presentation of information, Stewart Craggs's book will remain a useful reference tool for anyone interested in the music of this remarkably prolific composer.