An Orkney Wedding with Sunrise
“Davies is a master story-teller in this vividly detailed tone-painting of a rustic, often raucous, all-night wedding celebration. The bagpipes’ entrance near the end is a soul-stirring touch of genius.”
Gramophone Magazine, June 2008
Naxos Quartets
"One of the major achievements in the chamber music of our time... Throughout the five years it has taken him to compose all 10, Davies has been aware of the overarching architecture of the series, likening his task to a novelist who issues a book chapter by chapter in a periodical. What he has produced has been wonderfully varied, from compressed single-movement structures to huge multi-movement spans of music lasting more than 50 minutes, with equally diverse starting points that range from children's games to the lighthouses of Orkney and Shetland."
The Guardian , October 2007
"One can hardly fail to be struck by the fastidious craftsmanship, lucidity of texture and keen sense of proportion and adventure."
Gramophone , July 2007
"Compelling, grippingly concentrated."
BBC Music Magazine , June 2007
Antarctic Symphony
"It is a tribute to the integrity of his vision that the composer achieve such a rapturous reception for so intimate and complex a work.'"
The Independent , May 2001
"… we have here a superior sound architect realizing not only his symphonic concept, but also a culmination of a long life of composition."
Weser Kurier , May 2001
Piano Concerto
"The work itself was like a Piano-Concerto about-piano-concertos, with echoes of pianistic styles ranging from Bach and Mozart (in the austere beauty of much of the central Adagio) to the spiky dynamism of Bartók and Prokofiev in the outer movements, culminating in a hair-raising coda which out-Rachmaninoffs the ending of the Rachmaninoff Second in its combination of vehement percussion explosions against cascading octave runs from the soloist. Despite the hints of other composers' styles in this substantial 35-minute work, the new Piano Concerto speaks with Max's unmistakable voice; the Scotch-snap rhythms which seem to permeate all his recent output, the piercing brass trills, comic trombone glissandi and ear-catching percussion writing all bear the hallmarks of their composer as his most characteristic."
Tempo Magazine , November 1997
Mavis in Las Vegas
"Maxwell Davies writes with great musical and orchestrational ingenuity; he doesn't compromise his standards when writing light music. The piece is easy to follow, and often deliciously witty, as when Liberace takes flight. It is also a complex but genuine tribute to tackiness, a quality it neither overvalues nor underrates."
The Boston Globe, March 1997
Strathclyde concerti
"An extraordinary composition."
Glasgow Herald , November 1996
"A work which tests the technique of its soloists to the full, and which is a compelling, beautifully coloured struggle for supremacy and reconciliation."
The Times, January 1990
A Spell for Green Corn: The MacDonald Dances
"One of the loveliest, most satisfying violin concertos of the twentieth century at the very least."
Wiener Zeitung , September 1994
An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise
"This piece of unashamed programme music parodies Scottish strathspeys and reels in a hilarious picture of a boozy, rustic knees-up, the band finally collapsing into alcoholic oblivion. The sun rises in th shape of the Highland bagpipes, the player advancing ceremoniously through the hallcrowning the work with a gesture of heartfelt rhetoric. It brought the house down."
The Independent , May 1985
The Martyrdom of St Magnus
"My experience of this superb piece has been intensified by gratitude that, even in our materialist age, artists can still find the means to create works which disturb our complacency, console our hearts and lay bare with compassionate clarity the deeper spiritual patterns which the conflicts and passions of daily life obscure. For admirers of the music of Peter Maxwell Davies, and for those interested in serious new opera and music-theatre works, this disc is a necessity. For others, I will only say that I have found listening to this work both a disturbing and a healing experience. The painful harshness of its subject (and of some of its music) seems to me no more than an accurate reflection of the world we see around us each day, and like all great art, The Martyrdom of St. Magnus ultimately seeks to reconcile us to our state of human imperfection, even as it challenges us to work to bring the actions of our daily lives into closer harmony with the inner blueprint of the Divine Image that each of us carries.'
Fanfare , 1977
Eight Songs for a Mad King
"One of this composer's finest and most moving achievements."
Daily Telegraph , April 1969
Worldes Blis
"Maxwell Davies's score, played with heroic musicality by the RPO, has an organic concentration that is unsurpassed in his output. It is superbly integrated and profoundly affecting."
The Gramophone , 1969
Piano Trio
"… the mastery of Maxwell Davies's trio Voyage to Fair Isle was vividly evident. It gave us that instant assurance of being in safe hands, freeing up the mind to enjoy the other qualities of the pieces, which were many."
The Daily Telegraph , January 2003