SCO & Sean Shibe - Maxwell Davies: An Orkney Wedding, With Sunrise - The Arts Desk

A fine tribute to a much-loved British composer

Refreshing to learn that Peter Maxwell Davies's An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise was actually commissioned by John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra. Williams was already a fan, having attended the premiere of Maxwell Davies' Symphony No. 1 whilst in London recording the score for Superman. Don't dismiss it as musical fluff - it packs an emotional, uplifting punch, and this performance is a belter, Robert Jordan's bagpipes overwhelming in the final minutes. This is a lovely disc: recorded in 2015, it serves both as an eloquent tribute and an engaging introduction to a much-loved composer. Farewell to Stromness is the other well-known work here, heard in an idiomatic transcription for guitar. Guitarist Sean Shibe also plays Hill Runes, an enigmatic, dark five-movement work inspired by a George Mackay Brown poem.

Two late orchestral pieces complete the CD. Last Door of Light is a powerful meditation on climate change and its effects, a study in "individual and communal vulnerability" where the folksy opening melody is ultimately meaningless and the promised peroration never quite arrives. The overture Ebb of Winter was one of the composer's final works, "a reaction to the Orkney climate and influenced by Orkney folk music". Predictably it's a somewhat chilly work, the lucid brilliance of the orchestral writing never quite compensating for the prevailing coolness. It was composed for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, whose flawless, fearless playing under Ben Gernon is a consistent pleasure. Maxwell Davies novices could do worse than starting here.