Maw: Spring Music; Voices of Memory

BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Boughton, William

SRCD 385

This impassioned advocacy of melody as an instinctive impulse was voiced by Nicholas Maw, who consolidated his melodic gifts with a rich harmonic language incorporating both serial and tonal elements. • In 1995 Maw was commissioned by the BBC to write a work commemorating the 300th anniversary that year of the death of Purcell. Maw soon came to the conclusion that he wanted to round off his tribute piece with an example of a chaconne, a form in which Purcell was pre-eminent. The theme which Maw chose to embellish is derived from the first of his Life Studies for 15 solo strings. Taking his lead from Tchaikovsky, Maw decided that the main title should reflect precisely the reference vocabulary of the piece and so the piece became known for a while as Romantic Variations. Later still the title was altered to its definitive form of Voices of Memory: Variations for Orchestra. • Described by Andrew Burn as ‘a major contribution to the genre’, 9 the Sonata for Solo Violin was requested by Jorja Fleezanis, to whom the work is dedicated. The Sonata for solo violin was Maw’s only piece for a solo stringed instrument and he ensures variety in the use of different registers and a judicious application of technical effects such as muted, pizzicato, tremolando, spiccato, harmonics and double-stopping.

CD x 1

Lyrita

3.02.2020

5020926038524