0:00:12 > 0:00:15This piece, Farewell To Stromness
0:00:15 > 0:00:19has since it was written been consistently in the classical charts.
0:00:19 > 0:00:25It was written by arguably our greatest living composer
0:00:25 > 0:00:28and master of the Queen's music,
0:00:28 > 0:00:31Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.
0:00:33 > 0:00:35My name is Paul Joyce.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38I'm a director and artist, and my experience as a young film-maker
0:00:38 > 0:00:44was fundamentally changed when I saw Ken Russell's film The Devils.
0:00:44 > 0:00:50Ken's images combined with Max's abrasive, yet eloquent music made these sequences a quite
0:00:50 > 0:00:57unforgettable experience, showing me a few filmic language, literally changing my life as a director.
0:01:00 > 0:01:03And then I wanted to hear everything that Max had written.
0:01:03 > 0:01:10This now extends to ten operas, eight symphonies, literally hundreds of works in all.
0:01:10 > 0:01:16He is, without doubt, one of our greatest and most prolific, classical composers.
0:01:18 > 0:01:24As master of the Queen's music, one of the highest honours British composer can receive,
0:01:24 > 0:01:28Max follows in a tradition which included William Boyce,
0:01:28 > 0:01:32Edward Elgar, Arnold Bax and Arthur Bliss.
0:01:32 > 0:01:35But the title carries no obligation.
0:01:35 > 0:01:38Max writes what he wants when he wants to.
0:01:38 > 0:01:41For this, I believe, he received the traditional yearly payment
0:01:41 > 0:01:44of a sack but of sherry from the Royal household.
0:01:47 > 0:01:51So I have come to this remote Scottish island on a personal pilgrimage
0:01:51 > 0:01:56to meet a childhood hero who is now both an inspiration and a friend.
0:01:56 > 0:02:03He is personally one of the kindest men I have ever met, but as a composer, he takes no captives.
0:02:09 > 0:02:13His music can be as direct and raw as the world he has been observing
0:02:13 > 0:02:20for over seven decades, and thank goodness he shows no signs of letting up now.
0:03:03 > 0:03:05Do you adopt an absolute routine?
0:03:05 > 0:03:07Are you here at nine or...
0:03:07 > 0:03:11I'm here as soon as I can be in the morning, but of course, I spend time
0:03:11 > 0:03:14in the kitchen preparing the day's food, and as soon as I can...
0:03:14 > 0:03:169.30 or so... I am also sitting here.
0:03:16 > 0:03:22I also take the dog for her walk every day no matter what the weather at about seven.
0:03:22 > 0:03:28- Yesterday we were talking about your beginnings and your childhood, which was I think Salford, wasn't it?- Yes.
0:03:28 > 0:03:33It was from I suppose a working-class background, and I loved and hated
0:03:33 > 0:03:41the place, but I particularly enjoyed Trafford Road, my grandfather's shop.
0:03:41 > 0:03:48I didn't know at the time, but it was a venue for prostitutes, and there were brothels along there because
0:03:48 > 0:03:54the docks were next door, and I used to evidently say to my grandparents
0:03:54 > 0:03:59that I liked those beautiful ladies, and I remember particularly...
0:03:59 > 0:04:02It must have been '38 or '39...
0:04:02 > 0:04:05I was taken there to see The Gondoliers, a local
0:04:05 > 0:04:11amateur production, and I thought this reality was rather better than the one that was everyday.
0:04:11 > 0:04:15There was an orchestra there too, and I'd never heard a live orchestra before,
0:04:15 > 0:04:19and that was the first big musical experience of my life, and it was...
0:04:19 > 0:04:24I do remember I wanted to be involved with something like that.
0:04:24 > 0:04:31I was sent to a lady called Ms Sally Jones for piano lessons when I was eight.
0:04:31 > 0:04:34I took to this, just loved it, and I started to write music.
0:04:34 > 0:04:38I didn't know you could buy music paper which had the five lines written out for you.
0:04:38 > 0:04:43I drew them myself. Do you remember the first piano piece that you did?
0:04:43 > 0:04:47I remember it started like this...
0:05:11 > 0:05:12That's how it started.
0:05:12 > 0:05:15I was eight years old, and I have never forgotten it.
0:05:23 > 0:05:27So we're entering basically the war about that time, aren't we?
0:05:27 > 0:05:29How did that affect you there?
0:05:29 > 0:05:34I think the war affected everybody in Salford and Manchester very strongly.
0:05:34 > 0:05:41When the bombing really got started and all of those nights just sat in the pantry
0:05:41 > 0:05:45under the stairs with a little portable wind-up gramophone playing
0:05:45 > 0:05:50my parent's collection of foxtrot records, which I really liked...
0:05:50 > 0:05:53you heard the explosions and the bombs going off,
0:05:53 > 0:05:57and one night, of course, the...
0:05:57 > 0:06:00two houses next door were blown up.
0:06:35 > 0:06:39A long time after the war, I wrote this piece,
0:06:39 > 0:06:44St Thomas Wake based on a pavane of that name by John Bull,
0:06:44 > 0:06:49the 17th century English composer, and in my mind,
0:06:49 > 0:06:53I kept hearing this foxtrot band at the side of the orchestra, and I realised
0:06:53 > 0:06:58the whole memory was coming back of playing foxtrots as the bombs fell.
0:07:17 > 0:07:20UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS
0:07:24 > 0:07:29Music it's totally silly music, but it was part of childhood.
0:07:31 > 0:07:34I couldn't do music for the exams. There was no teaching,
0:07:34 > 0:07:40and the headmaster when I asked could I please do music for my
0:07:40 > 0:07:46school certificate or O-level, he said, "This is not a girl's school".
0:07:46 > 0:07:53When it came to school leaving age, I didn't tell him, and I just sent off to County Hall in Preston, got
0:07:53 > 0:07:57the syllabus and entered for the exam myself,
0:07:57 > 0:08:01and on the back of that I got a Lancashire County music scholarship,
0:08:01 > 0:08:09and I went to Manchester University Music Department, and the first time I really met people
0:08:09 > 0:08:15who were interested in music was when I went to the college in Manchester.
0:08:15 > 0:08:21And that was a revelation. There were people who were really, really passionate
0:08:26 > 0:08:30about the whole thing.
0:08:30 > 0:08:34But, again, there was
0:08:34 > 0:08:38no encouragement at the university itself to be interested in music.
0:08:38 > 0:08:40This was, I found...
0:08:40 > 0:08:43even then I found this quite astonishing.
0:08:43 > 0:08:46At the time that you're beginning to compose and had that
0:08:46 > 0:08:53excitement of a creative life, you must have been developing sexually as well, and at what point
0:08:53 > 0:08:57did you become aware that you were different in that respect too?
0:08:57 > 0:09:00I think I became aware of that when I was about 14.
0:09:00 > 0:09:07I think I was very much helped to come to terms with this by being able to read.
0:09:07 > 0:09:09I did find...
0:09:09 > 0:09:15all in French, of course, the books of Andre Gide which deal with the subject
0:09:15 > 0:09:21of being gay in a very, very positive way, and so I think they saved my sanity
0:09:21 > 0:09:27when I was about 14, 15, and incidentally gave me a good knowledge of French too because they...
0:09:27 > 0:09:34Oh, and what was extraordinary was that I borrowed these things from the Manchester Central Library,
0:09:34 > 0:09:39and they didn't question my taking these French books out, but I asked,
0:09:39 > 0:09:42"Could I borrow Ulysses by James Joyce?"
0:09:42 > 0:09:44And they said, "No, no. Certainly not.
0:09:44 > 0:09:46"That's not for children."
0:09:46 > 0:09:52I think I was looked after by friends, particularly Alexander Goehr
0:09:52 > 0:09:55was a real threat because he knew
0:09:55 > 0:10:00more about music than they did at that Manchester University Music Department, somebody
0:10:00 > 0:10:05who was completely conversant, completely at ease with that whole musical world, and they knew it.
0:10:05 > 0:10:09He was wicked, and he told me this story that they went into this
0:10:09 > 0:10:13lecture, which was a lecture on music history, and nobody turned up to give it,
0:10:13 > 0:10:18so Sandy Goehr stood up and gave them a lecture on music history,
0:10:18 > 0:10:22and everybody thought he was the teacher.
0:10:22 > 0:10:29He said to his publisher in London, you know, "You should be publishing Max's music"
0:10:29 > 0:10:35as well as mine. I thought that was marvellous of him, very generous, and indeed.
0:10:35 > 0:10:41They did take me on, and I think in 1956 or so they actually did produce
0:10:41 > 0:10:45my very early five piano pieces, and there they are. It's still in print.
0:11:11 > 0:11:15They did start to do some of my very early pieces around.
0:11:15 > 0:11:22I wrote a piece for a summer school, which I was invited to by William Glock, who ran it.
0:11:22 > 0:11:27I went to the summer school in Germany
0:11:27 > 0:11:35I made my connections with Italy and eventually went on
0:11:35 > 0:11:42to study with in Rome, and it slowly started to happen then.
0:11:42 > 0:11:48But looking back, I thought at the time, well, this must be what happens to every composer.
0:11:48 > 0:11:49Of course, it isn't.
0:11:57 > 0:12:01'I had to earn money when I came back from studying with Petrassi in Italy,'
0:12:01 > 0:12:04and I decided, well, I'll give school teaching
0:12:04 > 0:12:08a go, so I got a job at Cirencester Grammar School, and I taught music.
0:12:08 > 0:12:13And I realised that music teaching is very often concerned with the safety
0:12:13 > 0:12:15of the people who are teaching it.
0:12:15 > 0:12:18They don't want their ideas to be disturbed, their pre-set ideas,
0:12:18 > 0:12:22and so music teaching is about singing and playing music
0:12:22 > 0:12:23which already exists.
0:12:23 > 0:12:31Music teaching should be about creating music, and young people are perfectly capable of doing that.
0:12:31 > 0:12:33I just expected it, and they did it.
0:12:33 > 0:12:39If you expect something, they do it, and it was the lack of inhibition which I found so refreshing, and I
0:12:39 > 0:12:45think without those children writing together what they called operas, which are little music theatre works
0:12:45 > 0:12:50for performance in class, and they rehearsed them and performed them for their colleagues in class,
0:12:50 > 0:12:58I wouldn't have had the lack of inhibition necessary to write things like Miss Donnithorne's Maggot,
0:12:58 > 0:13:01Eight Songs For A Mad King and so on.
0:13:01 > 0:13:07I can directly lay down the responsibility for those pieces with my watching
0:13:07 > 0:13:10how young people collectively in a small group
0:13:10 > 0:13:14and individually wrote and improvised their music at Cirencester.
0:13:24 > 0:13:31'George III in his madness with...
0:13:31 > 0:13:36I originally had the instrumentalists in cages to be the birds that he was
0:13:37 > 0:13:38trying to teach to sing.
0:13:38 > 0:13:45I have the little automatic organ. You turn a handle,
0:13:45 > 0:13:47and this lovely little organ, late 18th century thing,
0:13:47 > 0:13:51it plays eight tunes, and these are the Eight Songs For A Mad King,
0:13:51 > 0:13:53although I didn't use them literally.
0:13:53 > 0:13:57I used something based on the tunes which this thing plays you,
0:13:57 > 0:14:01and there we are with the birds in the cages,
0:14:01 > 0:14:08who are the instrumentalists, and he has a dialogue with these various instrumentalists.
0:14:47 > 0:14:50'I wrote the Eight Songs For A Mad King very, very quickly.'
0:14:50 > 0:14:53It was just two or three weeks, and I'd never done anything like it
0:14:53 > 0:15:00'but I just wanted to explore that madness, if you like,
0:15:00 > 0:15:05'and it was not, as some of the critics at the time accused me of,'
0:15:05 > 0:15:09making fun of a mad person in the figure of George.
0:15:09 > 0:15:12It was perhaps more a question
0:15:12 > 0:15:17'of trying to make us aware of our own madnesses
0:15:17 > 0:15:19'by sympathising with his.'
0:15:42 > 0:15:45'When I first heard it in the early 80s,'
0:15:45 > 0:15:49and I was invited to perform it in Wales,
0:15:49 > 0:15:51and I first heard it on a recording,
0:15:51 > 0:15:54and my immediate reaction was, "There's no way I can ever sing this piece.
0:15:54 > 0:16:01"It's so dark." It was seen to be reaching parts of me or the singer
0:16:01 > 0:16:03that I wasn't sure I wanted to go to.
0:16:36 > 0:16:41I found that the way for me is to come from a dramatic impetus,
0:16:41 > 0:16:44'and so the sounds come from that drama.'
0:16:44 > 0:16:48Initially, I had to find a way of singing it...
0:16:48 > 0:16:52how to do it, but then I had to find ways of, why am I doing it?
0:17:11 > 0:17:15I quote Handel. I quote ridiculous foxtrot music, which, of course,
0:17:15 > 0:17:17George III would not have had access to
0:17:17 > 0:17:24but he does contribute to the crazy happenings going on in his head of which he's trying to make sense.
0:18:07 > 0:18:12I sang it in Australia, and Max was there, and after I performed it,
0:18:12 > 0:18:15two doctors came up to me independently,
0:18:15 > 0:18:20and they said, "What we've seen on stage is exactly how a
0:18:20 > 0:18:22"person in that state of mind is."
0:19:33 > 0:19:37The ending where his doctor comes on stage,
0:19:37 > 0:19:42and he's a percussion player, and beats him offstage
0:19:42 > 0:19:45with a cat o' nine tails on large bass drum,
0:19:45 > 0:19:49and he's reduced to really animal noises...
0:19:49 > 0:19:51I still think it's a very touching moment.
0:19:56 > 0:19:58They could not save him.
0:19:58 > 0:20:00His mouth was never still.
0:20:00 > 0:20:03Sometimes he howled like a dog.
0:20:06 > 0:20:10And he veiled the mirrors not to see himself pass by,
0:20:10 > 0:20:18for his eyes had turned to black currant jelly.
0:20:22 > 0:20:26Poor fellow. I weep for him.
0:20:26 > 0:20:27He will die.
0:20:27 > 0:20:30Howl...
0:20:35 > 0:20:41Howling...howling...
0:20:43 > 0:20:46..howling...
0:20:50 > 0:20:52I came to Orkney first in 1970 just as a tourist.
0:20:52 > 0:20:54I wanted to see the cathedral.
0:20:54 > 0:20:57I knew there that they were singing in thirds
0:20:57 > 0:21:00in the 12th century as opposed to everywhere else that was singing
0:21:00 > 0:21:06in fourths and fifths, and I wanted to see where this had started and also to see the stone-age monuments.
0:21:06 > 0:21:11The next day I had planned to go to Hoy, and lo and behold,
0:21:11 > 0:21:14there was a fellow on the boat who said, "I think I know you.
0:21:14 > 0:21:18"You are the composer," this, that and the other.
0:21:18 > 0:21:20He was a dealer in manuscripts.
0:21:20 > 0:21:28And he said, "I'm going out to Hoy because one of my authors is on Hoy having a holiday."
0:21:28 > 0:21:29That's George MacKay Brown.
0:21:29 > 0:21:32"We're all going to have lunch together. Why don't you come along?"
0:21:32 > 0:21:37And so I went along for lunch and met George, and we had a lot of whiskey, beer and wine.
0:21:37 > 0:21:39It was all wonderful, and George says,
0:21:39 > 0:21:44"Well, there's that house up the hill there which has been empty since 1918.
0:21:44 > 0:21:49"What a marvellous site." And I thought, yes, it's a wonderful site for writing music.
0:21:49 > 0:21:52It had the best view out of the nonexistent windows
0:21:52 > 0:21:55and looking out through the nonexistent roof,
0:21:55 > 0:21:58but that became a house where I lived for 28 years, in Rackwick,
0:21:58 > 0:22:03and where I wrote all my music in those years, without exception, I think.
0:22:03 > 0:22:09When I first came, I think the most important thing was silence.
0:22:09 > 0:22:16It was a revelation that you could clear your ears, and it was the
0:22:16 > 0:22:20first time in my life I'd experienced that kind of quietness.
0:22:20 > 0:22:23Such a beautiful place, and to be alone in it
0:22:23 > 0:22:27just with your thoughts, with the music in your head
0:22:27 > 0:22:29and with that landscape - I loved it.
0:22:39 > 0:22:40I think those ritual places,
0:22:40 > 0:22:42these stone circles in Orkney...
0:22:42 > 0:22:47Even where you see places where people lived,
0:22:47 > 0:22:51like Maeshowe with the stone furniture from the stone age,
0:22:51 > 0:22:57I find that very moving, and particularly a temple,
0:22:57 > 0:22:59which, obviously, the circles were,
0:22:59 > 0:23:03they're a very, very special, ritual holy place
0:23:03 > 0:23:08and I feel there's a magic there.
0:23:12 > 0:23:15I wouldn't speculate about what the rituals were,
0:23:15 > 0:23:20but with something like the Stones Of Brodgar where the stones are slightly hollow
0:23:20 > 0:23:25and they act as sound reflectors, you can have a good idea.
0:23:25 > 0:23:30I'm sure music has a part in ritual through history and pre-history.
0:23:30 > 0:23:37Cries, bangings on drums, summons to attention, shouts, chanting.
0:23:37 > 0:23:39That must have happened.
0:23:39 > 0:23:43I've a theory people communicated by singing first before speech.
0:24:31 > 0:24:37So my association here was a very strong response
0:24:37 > 0:24:41to that landscape and the seascape.
0:24:41 > 0:24:44I think the sea has played an enormous part in my work.
0:24:44 > 0:24:46The sound of it, then the history of it,
0:24:46 > 0:24:52which George Mackay Brown, his work is full of that relationship of the local people and the sea.
0:24:52 > 0:24:57It gets through, you don't have to think about it, it just gets into the music.
0:25:17 > 0:25:21In the late 60s, a group called the Pierrot players
0:25:21 > 0:25:25was to perform works by Harry Birtwistle and me.
0:25:25 > 0:25:31And Harry said, the performances we're getting of our works
0:25:31 > 0:25:34by these conductors, and there weren't many of them,
0:25:34 > 0:25:38are so awful we couldn't do worse than conduct ourselves.
0:25:38 > 0:25:39So we actually conducted,
0:25:39 > 0:25:42although we had no experience as conductors whatever.
0:25:42 > 0:25:46And with that group I found myself,
0:25:46 > 0:25:50when it was called the Fires Of London, going all over the world,
0:25:50 > 0:25:57'and Ken Russell must have heard the group or have liked a piece of mine
0:25:57 > 0:26:03'and he wanted me to write music for his film, The Devils.
0:26:09 > 0:26:15'Particularly with the last part of that film where Grandier is burnt alive at the stake,'
0:26:15 > 0:26:19I think the musicians themselves
0:26:19 > 0:26:23were much more affected by the music
0:26:23 > 0:26:27'and its relation to the images on screen.
0:26:27 > 0:26:32'When we saw it in black and white, not in colour
0:26:32 > 0:26:35'with just the music,
0:26:35 > 0:26:38'and these rather grainy images,'
0:26:38 > 0:26:42it was much more affecting
0:26:42 > 0:26:48than when words were added in rather polite English accents.
0:26:48 > 0:26:56Because one had this extraordinary almost dumb show where language,
0:26:56 > 0:26:59the spoken word didn't appear at all.
0:26:59 > 0:27:02And I learnt a lot from that, about opera.
0:27:14 > 0:27:19I find this landscape of course totally different and the reason
0:27:19 > 0:27:26I left Hoy was, I thought you getting old now and there I had to walk about
0:27:26 > 0:27:30a mile uphill to the house from the nearest point you could get a car.
0:27:30 > 0:27:35Here you can get a car right to the house. What a luxury!
0:27:35 > 0:27:37You can go to a shop here quite easily,
0:27:37 > 0:27:41it's about a six or seven minute drive away.
0:27:41 > 0:27:43On Hoy, that wasn't possible.
0:27:43 > 0:27:48Anyway you've been here for 28 years, how about a change?
0:27:48 > 0:27:55And I decided this was a totally magic place which I still believe it is.
0:27:55 > 0:27:57It has a very special atmosphere here.
0:27:57 > 0:28:01And I fell in love with the place and here I am,
0:28:01 > 0:28:04and I've been writing music here now it must be nearly ten years.
0:28:25 > 0:28:30I think music does unlock something which no other art-form does.
0:28:30 > 0:28:34It makes time recognisable.
0:28:35 > 0:28:41And I think a time that exists inside a work of music
0:28:41 > 0:28:45is a much more real time because it has whole depths.
0:28:45 > 0:28:50It has perspectives, vanishing points like architectural perspective.
0:28:53 > 0:28:58There is an unfolding flow, of the eloquent discourse,
0:28:58 > 0:29:03which could only take place in time that's entirely abstract.
0:29:08 > 0:29:11You challenge people yet you hope they have a good time.
0:29:11 > 0:29:14You have to challenge them, take their intellect further,
0:29:14 > 0:29:18their emotional responses further, their musicality further.
0:29:18 > 0:29:24And music in the last three centuries I think has reflected
0:29:24 > 0:29:28many, many more aspects of life than could possibly have done
0:29:28 > 0:29:32with the vocabulary which was available to composers before that.
0:30:24 > 0:30:30And when you've done a big piece sometimes it's wonderful to relax
0:30:30 > 0:30:32and have a good time.
0:30:50 > 0:30:56I did an arrangement of Fantasia And Two Pavans by Purcell.
0:30:56 > 0:31:01And I turned one of these pavans into a foxtrot.
0:31:07 > 0:31:12It changes as if the speed starts to drop so you have to rush
0:31:12 > 0:31:15to the gramophone and wind it up again in the middle.
0:31:41 > 0:31:44And it finishes with the percussionist imitating
0:31:44 > 0:31:48exactly that scraping sound on a side drum with wire brushes.
0:31:57 > 0:31:58It reminds me of Mavis.
0:31:58 > 0:32:00Yes.
0:32:00 > 0:32:03And there's a little story attached to that, isn't there?
0:32:03 > 0:32:07Yes, that was at this piece I wrote for the BBC Phil,
0:32:07 > 0:32:10a little present after we'd done a tour of the United States.
0:32:10 > 0:32:12And we played in Las Vegas.
0:32:15 > 0:32:19And we stayed in this pink Flamingo Hilton I think it was called.
0:32:19 > 0:32:23And I had this arrangement that a phone call was coming through
0:32:23 > 0:32:25from the Independent in London.
0:32:25 > 0:32:29The journalist had telephoned the hotel and asked for me
0:32:29 > 0:32:31and the receptionist said,
0:32:31 > 0:32:35"No, there's nobody of that name staying here, you must have it wrong."
0:32:35 > 0:32:41So the fellow said "He's a very important conductor
0:32:41 > 0:32:45"and composer and I've got him down as staying at that hotel."
0:32:45 > 0:32:50The receptionist said, "If he's that important, he wouldn't be staying at this hotel, would he?"
0:32:50 > 0:32:55And it turned out they got me down because the computer couldn't
0:32:55 > 0:32:59cope with my long name, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.
0:32:59 > 0:33:01It had got me down as Mavis.
0:33:24 > 0:33:28All these pieces from Farewell To Stromness right through
0:33:28 > 0:33:32to the symphonies and quartets are part of the same imagination.
0:33:32 > 0:33:34I can hear all of the connections
0:33:34 > 0:33:36'and I have no trouble going from one to the other.
0:33:36 > 0:33:40'Farewell To Stromness, which a lot of people play these days,
0:33:40 > 0:33:44'that was written as part of a part of a political protest,
0:33:44 > 0:33:48'against a proposed mining of uranium in Orkney.'
0:33:49 > 0:33:53They were going to sink the core of the mine just two miles outside Stromness.
0:33:53 > 0:33:56That would have been the end of this beautiful little town.
0:33:56 > 0:33:59It would have been the end of agriculture and fishing,
0:33:59 > 0:34:05who wants to eat anything which comes from somewhere which is radioactive in that sense
0:34:05 > 0:34:09with the yellow cake being blown all over in the gales,
0:34:09 > 0:34:12which of course happens here, you have huge gales.
0:34:12 > 0:34:14So, it was a big protest,
0:34:14 > 0:34:16it would have been the end of the islands as we know them.
0:34:16 > 0:34:21And that was just a little piano interlude, Farewell To Stromness.
0:34:21 > 0:34:25It would have been farewell and I wrote it off the top of my head.
0:38:01 > 0:38:05After all, I wrote Eight Songs For A Mad King, didn't I?
0:38:05 > 0:38:09And I'm not known to be particularly a supporter of royalty.
0:38:09 > 0:38:12I do remember very well the first time I met her,
0:38:12 > 0:38:15upon being appointed Master of the Queen's Music.
0:38:15 > 0:38:17I went into Buckingham Palace
0:38:17 > 0:38:23and a door opened and she welcomed me and, at that moment, I gather, I was Master of the Queen's Music.
0:38:23 > 0:38:28That was the official point. And we sat down and discussed the possibilities.
0:38:28 > 0:38:32And she asked me what I wanted to make of it.
0:38:32 > 0:38:35And I asked her what she would like of it.
0:38:35 > 0:38:40She said, well, Prince Philip and she would like to be guided on this
0:38:40 > 0:38:43and they were very willing to listen.
0:38:43 > 0:38:45And I thought that was very good.
0:38:45 > 0:38:48The thing that impressed me most was I had taken in,
0:38:48 > 0:38:51and I hadn't forewarned anybody about this,
0:38:51 > 0:38:56a recording for Westminster Cathedral, the Catholic cathedral.
0:38:56 > 0:39:01I handed this over and said, "I hope you might have time to listen to a track."
0:39:01 > 0:39:05She said, "Oh, Westminster Cathedral, could you tell me
0:39:05 > 0:39:11"why they sound so different than the other choirs at St Paul's and Westminster Abbey?"
0:39:11 > 0:39:14So I told her about the continental way of voice production
0:39:14 > 0:39:15and using the whole body
0:39:15 > 0:39:19and it gives, in the boys, this totally different, what we call the continental sound.
0:39:19 > 0:39:24And she said, "Thank you for telling me that, I had no idea."
0:39:24 > 0:39:28And she had noticed that entirely herself
0:39:28 > 0:39:32and I thought, "I am dealing with a very serious person here and you had better watch it,
0:39:32 > 0:39:36"because she is not a lady who is going to miss a trick."
0:39:47 > 0:39:49I don't know whether art is useful or not,
0:39:49 > 0:39:53but I do know that it's necessary, that without it, we are not civilised.
0:39:53 > 0:39:56Perhaps, often, with it, we remain relatively uncivilised.
0:40:08 > 0:40:12But, it does open up possibilities of civilising the human mind.
0:40:32 > 0:40:36'I have often said that writing a string quartet is like dancing naked in public.
0:40:36 > 0:40:40'You can't have any flaws at all. It's totally exposed.
0:40:40 > 0:40:43'Your thought has to be absolutely clear and pristine.'
0:40:43 > 0:40:48And that is why I wanted the challenge of writing quartets.
0:40:48 > 0:40:54And then, at last, came the opportunity to write not one quartet but ten, for Naxos Records.
0:41:07 > 0:41:11The weight of each one was very important,
0:41:11 > 0:41:14for instance, the Third Quartet,
0:41:14 > 0:41:17where I absolutely exploded with rage.
0:41:17 > 0:41:22It shattered any preconceived images musically I had for that piece
0:41:22 > 0:41:24because of the invasion of Iraq,
0:41:24 > 0:41:28which I just saw as a betrayal, totally scandalous and illegal.
0:41:50 > 0:41:53That's faster than I wrote it.
0:41:53 > 0:41:55- But isn't it the tempo?- Yes.
0:41:57 > 0:41:59- Is that OK?- That's lovely.- Good.
0:41:59 > 0:42:02Cos that's what we're worried about, that if we take it this speed,
0:42:02 > 0:42:06it feels the whole time it's very tight from moment to moment.
0:42:06 > 0:42:07Yes.
0:42:07 > 0:42:10- You know these, as it were, pillars between the motions?- Yeah.
0:42:10 > 0:42:11These things.
0:42:11 > 0:42:17I wonder if you can actually show us that this is a pillar in your physical attitude.
0:42:17 > 0:42:19As opposed to it being an arrival?
0:42:19 > 0:42:21Yes, it's a static point.
0:42:21 > 0:42:24In which case, would you mind if we didn't rush on them too much?
0:42:24 > 0:42:26Exactly.
0:42:26 > 0:42:28- Presumably bar one's a pillar, too. - Yes.
0:42:28 > 0:42:31The flying skirts are coming out at the end.
0:42:31 > 0:42:34You know that's one of the silliest bits of violin writing ever written.
0:42:34 > 0:42:35Absolutely. Yes.
0:42:35 > 0:42:38It is crackers, I'm afraid.
0:42:38 > 0:42:40Yes, who wrote this?!
0:42:40 > 0:42:42I don't know. Ought to be certified.
0:42:45 > 0:42:50The Maggini Quartet were interested in at least premiering the first one, maybe two.
0:42:50 > 0:42:53Well, they did the lot and did a wonderful job
0:42:53 > 0:42:55and they made the recordings.
0:47:23 > 0:47:27In a way, initially, retreating from the hurly burly of the South of England,
0:47:27 > 0:47:29particularly of London,
0:47:29 > 0:47:33was a very positive step but it was no ivory-tower existence
0:47:33 > 0:47:36because there was I touring all over the world with the group,
0:47:36 > 0:47:38the Fires of London,
0:47:38 > 0:47:42going to performances increasingly all over the world with my work,
0:47:42 > 0:47:46so there were all those outside commitments which prevented me
0:47:46 > 0:47:49from becoming in any way a recluse.
0:47:52 > 0:47:55Well, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen!
0:47:55 > 0:48:00And I think that we so far rehearsed very well
0:48:00 > 0:48:03so let's just very quickly go through things.
0:48:03 > 0:48:05Save it for tonight, do save it.
0:48:05 > 0:48:09Don't blast away everything in the rehearsal.
0:48:09 > 0:48:10CROWD CHATTER
0:48:10 > 0:48:12Concerto? Fine.
0:48:15 > 0:48:19So somebody should inform the soloist.
0:48:56 > 0:49:00'It's fascinating, not just to play contemporary music
0:49:00 > 0:49:04'but to work on contemporary music with living composers.
0:49:04 > 0:49:11'It's always fascinated me because I like to know what's going on in their head
0:49:11 > 0:49:15'and what the exchange is, how much flexibility does one have
0:49:15 > 0:49:18'and that varies greatly from composer to composer.'
0:49:18 > 0:49:21No, that triplet at 86...
0:49:21 > 0:49:23The triplet at 86,
0:49:23 > 0:49:25# Da da da pa pam #
0:49:25 > 0:49:27I was finding I had to wait.
0:49:27 > 0:49:30"Oh, my goodness. That'll be difficult!"
0:49:30 > 0:49:34That's the first reaction that you look at when you just see the notes on the page
0:49:34 > 0:49:38and in fact it was a written manuscript
0:49:38 > 0:49:40so, you know, it was daunting
0:49:40 > 0:49:44and then you sit down and you take time and you take a deep breath
0:49:44 > 0:49:46and you start to really read what's there
0:49:46 > 0:49:49and I thought, "Ah! Interesting. Yes".
0:49:49 > 0:49:51So then you get the fiddle out or I did in any case
0:49:51 > 0:49:55and started going through and seeing what would be the difficulties,
0:49:55 > 0:50:01you know, where were the moments in the piece that would be the most challenging for me.
0:50:01 > 0:50:04Yes, I did give him quite a lot of technical challenges
0:50:04 > 0:50:07and I gave them to myself, let's be fair, writing this piece.
0:50:07 > 0:50:09I did things here that I'd not worked out before
0:50:09 > 0:50:14and they're quite fresh and new, especially for and in this piece.
0:51:13 > 0:51:17The moment I look forward immensely to,
0:51:17 > 0:51:19you've had these climaxes and this very dramatic melody.
0:51:19 > 0:51:23Then the double basses hold this long note
0:51:23 > 0:51:29and then I have, sort of, this, this chance to really put all the feeling
0:51:29 > 0:51:32that has been, kind of, gathering up in the piece
0:51:32 > 0:51:34into these next three or four minutes,
0:51:34 > 0:51:37which are simple but extremely touching.
0:52:16 > 0:52:22To what detail did Max go in relation to having time with a fiddler
0:52:22 > 0:52:24on the shore near where he lives?
0:52:24 > 0:52:25Oh, I just took a walk.
0:52:25 > 0:52:28With that walk, I had the idea of the piece.
0:52:28 > 0:52:31It was just instantly there.
0:52:31 > 0:52:33I had to work it all out but I knew I had a good idea
0:52:33 > 0:52:36and that was going to be the basis of the piece.
0:53:32 > 0:53:36I've never really had much personal ambition.
0:53:36 > 0:53:39Right from the start, I took it for granted
0:53:39 > 0:53:42that this is what a composer did -
0:53:42 > 0:53:45that you have struggles, you have performances,
0:53:45 > 0:53:48you find publishers, your performances increase,
0:53:48 > 0:53:50you probably have to play the piano in your pieces,
0:53:50 > 0:53:53you probably have to conduct your pieces,
0:53:53 > 0:53:56the things that all the composers in the past have had to do.
0:53:56 > 0:53:59And that is indeed what has happened
0:53:59 > 0:54:02but you think back and you think,
0:54:02 > 0:54:06"Well, it could not have been necessarily like that at all!"
0:54:06 > 0:54:09People might not have wanted to play your work.
0:54:09 > 0:54:15Nobody would possibly, if it had been just a bit different, wanted to publish it
0:54:15 > 0:54:20and you would've got nowhere and you would've had to do another job.
0:54:20 > 0:54:23I know that when I was very young,
0:54:23 > 0:54:28my Uncle Arthur offered me very seriously
0:54:28 > 0:54:31a job as a bricklayer.
0:54:31 > 0:54:37And he was very annoyed with my parents for letting me take up my scholarship to go to study music.
0:54:37 > 0:54:41He said, "I'm paying taxes for your boy to go and study this rubbish".
0:54:41 > 0:54:44"He can come and do an honest job with me and be a bricklayer".
0:54:45 > 0:54:48APPLAUSE
0:54:58 > 0:55:01Personal ambition - I don't think I ever thought about that.
0:55:01 > 0:55:05I didn't want to conduct orchestras. I didn't want to be famous - not interested.
0:55:05 > 0:55:09I wanted to enjoy to the full a musical life
0:55:09 > 0:55:13and I must admit, I have done that so far
0:55:13 > 0:55:15and I intend to go on doing it.
0:55:50 > 0:55:53What are the things that you still want to achieve?
0:55:53 > 0:55:55What do I want to achieve?
0:55:55 > 0:55:59I think the first thing is once to write a piece of music that I
0:55:59 > 0:56:01feel really satisfied with.
0:56:01 > 0:56:03Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:56:03 > 0:56:05E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk