Peter Maxwell Davies's instrumental piece Second Fantasia on John Taverner's In Nomine demonstrates the ways in which Davies and Mahler think alike. In works of both composers, the borrowed material, which is the surface of the work, contradicts the full meaning of the work. Only in context with the rest of the piece can the significance of the borrowing be understood, and this technique creates an irony associated with the borrowing. Davies often passes the borrowed idea through filters, rendering it changed, even grotesque. In the Fantasia, Davies borrows Taverner's cantus firmus and distorts it in various ways. In the first movement, for example, he states it in the oboe with reasonable clarity, but in the scherzo it is distorted through excessive vibrato by a solo violin. This is comparable to processes in Mahler's Ninth Symphony. After an extended examination of the harmonic and tonal processes to which the borrowed material is subjected, one can see Davies's ironic dual-level process at work.

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Jessica Sternfeld