page_title: Symphony No. 8 (Davies)
section_title: Character and materials
hierarchical_section_title: Symphony No. 8 (Davies) / Character and materials
context_page_description: The Symphony No. 8 is an orchestral composition by Peter Maxwell Davies, completed on 15 December 2001.
context_section_description: Davies said he was "greatly influenced by my encounter with scientists searching into ways in which the Antarctic will change our environment over the coming centuries" (Alberge 2001). The sounds of two particular events in his polar journey were incorporated directly into the symphony. The BAS had flown the composer to the Falklands, but from there onward it was a sea voyage. In his journal, Davies described hearing "the ice crack and split before the bow, then roar along, keel to stern, in a tumultuous clatter of slabs and shards", and this sound is represented at the beginning of the symphony through the percussive use of a biscuit tin filled with broken glass, a tam-tam with plastic soapdish, and three lengths of builders' scaffolding. The second sound was of an avalanche as the ship passed through a narrow channel between ice mountains. The composer described the sound that suddenly enveloped the ship as "the mightiest, gentlest, longest whisper ever. It was a sound which seemed almost quieter than the silence which surrounded it" (Finch and Davies 2001). These two sounds, of an ice-break and an avalanche, suggested using a Pentecost plainsong associated with the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, which Davies had used before: "Dum complerentur dies pentecostes erant omnes pariter dicentes: Alleluia. Et subito factus est sonus de coelo … Tamquam spiritus vehementis" (And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place saying: Alleluia. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven … as of a mighty rushing wind) (Davies & [2001a]).
caption: View from Fossil Bluff Main Hut (BAS), which Davies visited in 1997–98
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