British avant-garde composer
Peter Maxwell DaviesMarch 14 at 81, from leukemia
http://www.maxopus.com/ (his website)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Maxwell_Davieshttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-...http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/arts/music/..."Mr. Davies (pronounced Davis) was also a respected conductor ...
"... about as far outside the august imperial mainstream as one could be: working-class, openly gay, far left of center politically and adamantly isolationist personally.
"Since the early 1970s, he had made his home in the windswept Orkneys, living for much of that time in relative inaccessibility, without electricity or running water. ...
"Musically, Mr. Davies could be inaccessible as well ...
"His work, often dissonant, made abundant use of the musical interval known as the diminished fifth, or tritone. ...
"... familiarly known as Max, was born on Sept. 8, 1934, in Salford, near Manchester. His father was a factory manager ...
"At 4, Max was taken to a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta 'The Gondoliers.' He came home able to sing the entire score note for note and vowed then and there to be a composer. ...
"Over time Hoy proved too accessible, and Mr. Davies later moved to Sanday, an even remoter Orkney island, where he lived to the end of his life. ...
"Mr. Davies remained deliciously dyspeptic to the last. After ringing cellphones proliferated among concert-hall audiences, he publicly deemed their possessors 'artistic terrorists' ... He was in the habit of walking out of shops and restaurants whenever Muzak was played. He walked out often."
(-:
I'm afraid I never knew any of his music, and I doubt I would have liked the tritones, but now I wish I had known a little more about him as a person.
Yet again, I wish a revisiting of an accomplished person's life could come a little earlier, before they die.