Peter Maxwell Davies

Two Dances From Caroline Mathilde

Two dances for flute and harp from Peter Maxwell Davies' ballet Caroline Mathilde.
A new instrumentation restores this linked pair of dances from Davies's second full-length ballet, Caroline Mathilde based on the story of the eighteenth-century British princess sent in marriage to Denmark, to the eighteenth-century milieu of the work's setting and musical world. The period manners - a gavotte in the first dance, a gigue at the start of the second - are typically overlaid with the composer's Scottishness. In general the harp has an accompanying role, but it comes forward alone in the second movement, which ends with bravura from both instruments.
These two dances were first performed in September 1993 at the Northlands Festival by David Nicholson and Eluned Pierce.
Score and flute part. Duration c. 5mins.
Harp part edited by Elune Pierce.