"Farewell to Stromness" by Peter Maxwell Davies (1934-2016). Stromness is the second most populous settlement in Orkney off the north coast of Scotland. The piece was first performed in Stromness in 1980.
What did you think? What did you feel?
6 August 2019
25 comments:
Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.
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So there I was standing in the kitchen of our son's terraced house. Something caught my eye outside in his little urban garden. It was a...
I closed my eyes and imagined this music playing as the mourners filed into the church.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Carol
There's no right or wrong answer but I can understand why you had that idea Carol.
DeleteI think I commented on your last post just as this one published!
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like the accompaniment for a dramatic scene in a movie. Probably when love is lost
"When love is lost".. As with Carol above I can also see why you had that feeling Kylie.
DeleteBeautiful....serenity...
ReplyDeleteI believe I am fortunate to have grown up surrounded by music..most particularly piano. My mother, as I have mentioned previously many times in my own blog, was a brilliant pianist. She had a special talent, which covered all genres. Our iron-frame German-made Irving upright piano was seldom idle.
This piece, to me, is a suitable, heartfelt tribute to your late father and late brother....
Thanks for that kind final thought Lee. Much appreciated.
DeleteNice. Just trying to imagine what a pig's ear our ceilidh band would make of it. Are you considering moving to Stromness then?
ReplyDeleteNo Sir Tasker, I am not considering moving to Stromness though after Doris leads us out of The European Union, it might not be a bad idea to hole up somewhere like that.
DeleteDoris! mmmkkkkkkkkkkk.
DeleteWhen juxtaposed with that setting, it produced a beautiful kind of sadness, if that doesn't sound a bit contradictory. All I could imagine is how I would feel if I was saying farewell to all that solitary beauty.
ReplyDeleteAs your post intrigued me, I popped over to another site (classicfm) and listened to a recording of Davies playing the piece it himself. Very poignant.
I believe it was partly written in relation to an environmental cause up in Orkney. A uranium mine had been planned and Peter Maxwell Davies was behind the protesters.
DeleteI feel an achingly sadness. Not the kind one needs to push away. Just a melancholy of yesteryear for some strange reason.
ReplyDeleteI felt that too - the first time I heard the piece Linda.
DeleteI think that in the first few bar I heard the sound of heavy feet stepping out with reluctance and then the lighter tones told me that the leaver had within them an air of happy expectancy in what they were to find in a new place. A few more bars told me that they would sadly miss the vista of Stromness and yet also know they would return to once againto linger; wether that would be in the flesh or spirit they were as much part of the land as the rain that fell on the hills or the smoke of the turf fire.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this Mr Heron. I have listened to the piece again with your interpretation as a kind of guide and it has been quite revelatory.
DeleteIn the bass part at the beginning I definitely heard the hum of bagpipes. We have a lot of those around here, y'know. In the rest I heard the ocean. We have a lot of that around here, too. Maybe all interpretation depends on our prior personal experience, does it? I would love to have that piano, in that room.
ReplyDeleteI also "heard" that familiar Scottish sound at first.
DeleteSadness and melancholia. Beautiful though.
ReplyDeleteI first heard it on Radio 4 a couple of weeks ago. It would be good music for a funeral... or indeed a wedding.
DeleteThe music has always resonated with me (I've heard it many times since he wrote it at the end of the '70s.) and I love Orkney so it reminds me of there. Having said that, I would venture the opinion that it contains one of the most beautiful and evocative tunes by a British composer
ReplyDeletePeter Maxwell Davies never expected that this piece would define him in popular culture. Very beautiful and as you say - evocative.
DeleteI've never been to Orkney but I think even if I hadn't known the background of the piece, I would have guessed that it was somehow associated with Scotland and the sea.
ReplyDeleteI have never been to Orkney either but it felt like a song of the northern isles.
DeleteIt used to be played a lot on classic fm....
ReplyDeleteI always liked it
I first heard it two weeks ago on Radio 4.
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