ABSTRACT
There is no doubt that the music theatre of Peter Maxwell Davies is some of the most riveting of the later twentieth century. Starting in the 1960s, Davies produced a series of works notable for their originality, power, and dramatic coherence. The roots of Davies's achievement in the realization of ideals of drama that would become music theatre lay in the 'Manchester Group', or to use the title of their one London concert, 'New Music Group Manchester'. The five central pieces in Davies's output are Revelation and Fall, Missa Super L'Homme Arme, Eight Songs for a Mad King, Vesalii Icones and perhaps Miss Donnithome's Maggot; followed by Blind Man's Buff and Le Jongleur de Notre Dame. One of the key aspects of Davies's music theatre is the 'frame': the dramatic structure which surrounds the piece. One of the central metaphors of Davies's ritual is that of the journey.
