Peter Maxwell Davies's range of borrowings includes plainchant, English carols, elements from Monteverdi's Vespers, and Taverner's In Nomine. Davies's treatment of his borrowed material can be a simple setting, as in movements I, IV, and VI of the Seven In Nomine, in which the settings by Taverner, Bull, and Blitheman are heard unadorned, or in a contrapuntal treatment, as in the second movement of this set of In Nomine when he presents Taverner's melody in retrograde. Alma Redemptoris Mater, a wind sextet, based on the Dunstable motet, uses a cantus firmus-style presentation of melodic material. Davies also uses a motet in Antechrist, but allows it to be destroyed through glissandi, jazz-like allusions, and other ironic techniques. He uses a similar technique in his Purcell realizations, interpreting Purcell's works as foxtrots. The String Quartet takes ideas from the Monteverdi Vespers and presents the cantus firmus in measured time with generated melismas occurring above the melody.

Works: Davies: Seven In Nomine (36-37, 40), Alma Redemptoris Mater (39), Five Motets (39), String Quartet (39), Leopardi Fragments (39-40), Sinfonia (39), Veni Sancte Spiritus (39-40), Shakespeare Music (40), Antechrist (40), Fantasia on a Ground and Two Pavans (82).

Sources: Plainsong (36); English carols (36); Monteverdi: 1610 Vespers (36, 39); Taverner: In Nomine (36-37); Bull: In Nomine (36); Blitheman: In Nomine; Dunstable: Alma Redemptoris Mater (39); Stravinsky: Agon (40).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Christopher Holmes