Track Listing

1. An Orkney Wedding, With Sunrise
2. Kinloche, His Fantassie
3. Seven Songs Home: Home-Time At Last
4. Seven Songs Home: At The Shore
5. Seven Songs Home: The Heather Track
6. Seven Songs Home: At The Lochan
7. Seven Songs Home: Cold Tractor
8. Seven Songs Home: Tractor Ride
9. Seven Songs Home: Home
10. Yesnaby Ground
11. Dances From 'The Two Fiddlers'
12. Jimmack The Postie
13. Farewell To Stromness
14. Lullaby For Lucy
15. Renaissance Scottish Dances: Intrada
16. Renaissance Scottish Dances: Currant
17. Renaissance Scottish Dances: Sweit Smyling Katie Loves Me (With Ladie Louthian's Lilte)
18. Renaissance Scottish Dances: Last Time I Came Over The Mure
19. Renaissance Scottish Dances: Ane Exempill Of Tripla
20. Renaissance Scottish Dances: Remember Me My Deir
21. Renaissance Scottish Dances: Almayne

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #51735 in Music
• Released on: 1999-10-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 66 minutes

Customer Reviews

What's in a name?
"A Celebration of Scotland" does nothing to convey the 22 carat nature ofthis work. The same title could have been given to a Billy Connolly gigand give a better idea of what to expect.
Make no mistake, this is not a vast oil painting of a piece but tocontinue the analogy represents a series of watercolour sketches in afamous artists notebook.
The writer was moved to buy this cd having heard the vastly moving"Farewell to Stromness" on Classic FM recently. The lilting quality of thepiano is most beautiful.
The "Seven Songs of Home" are a description of an hour in the life of achild as school finishes. Good art has been drawn from the everyday sum oflittle things.
All in all amost playable piece but the writers guess is that the"Fareweel to Stromness" will be the track visited most of all.

A delightful collection
While I agree that everyone is likely to have their own opinion, admirers of Peter Maxwell Davies should not be put off by the above review. While many may prefer Max's more radical works, this collection has much to recommend it. Undoubtedly these works are simpler (and dare I say it, more accessible) than much of his other work, but they are varied, often moving (I defy anyone not to be moved by 'Lullaby for Lucy') and rewarding. I doubt that someone who enjoys listening to the Eight Songs for a Mad King - an important piece, but surely one of the most inaccessible British works of the last forty years, and one that few listeners would turn to for pure enjoyment - would necessarily 'get' what Max is doing in these smaller pieces, but others may enjoy the theatrically of the Orkney Wedding, or the simple charm of the songs. The two piano pieces are acknowledged masterpieces of simplicity and need not apology. Give it a try!

Measly ill-nourishing mush
Alas this is Maxwell Davies at his bad bad worst.

I'm full of admiration for Maxwell Davies for writing music for such a great range of contexts and performers, including amateur choirs, schoolchildren, rock bands, bagpipers, etc., and for understanding the role of his art much more widely than merely the new music community. And he can certainly write reasonably tuneful things that will be inoffensive to most and are sometimes sort of charming.

But being sometimes an admirer of his more earnest work, I anticipated hearing a great master flourishing and blossoming with the ease and fun of writing light music. Instead it is mostly limp and unsatisfying, dull in texture, wet in harmony, merely passable in melody and rhythmn, and altogether disappointing.

Which brings me to the conclusion that Maxwell Davies' inspiration comes from icy tension and dark foreboding, both of nature and the soul. His best work is his most radical, most nasty, most edgy, and most of it dates from 1965-1980. I don't have any special preference for darkness in music, but in his case it is the time his work is exciting. Additionally he is far more interesting the further he gets from convential musical forces. He has been capable of using orchestra and choir in deeply dull ways obfuscating his musical thought throughout his career, but was fabulous with the chamber combinations of the Fires of London.

Suggested alternatives: Eight Songs for a Mad King, Image - Reflection - Shadow, Missa Super l'homme arme, Renaissance & Baroque realisations.