On 26 June Russell Keable and the Kensington Symphony Orchestra perform Nicholas Maw’s exuberant Dance Scenes at London’s Cadogan Hall. The 19-minute piece is a set of four exuberant dances, whose energy and virtuosity suggest a kind of concerto for orchestra. Maw’s style reflects the influences of Britten and Walton, drawing together the modernist and neo-Romantic impulses of his writing.
The lively opening movement features energetic shifts in rhythm and metre, before a hushed segue into the second movement, which alternates a treading Andante with more agitated music. The third movement is a lighter, graceful allegretto led by woodwinds, with a more minuet-like character; the begins with a peal of tubular bells and is animated by scurrying semiquavers, before a broader more lyrical coda and vigorous final gesture.
Dance Scenes was composed for the opening concert of the Philharmonia Orchestra’s 50th anniversary season, and premiered at the Royal Festival Hall in September 1995, conducted by Daniel Harding. Harding and the Philharmonia subsequently recorded the piece, which was released alongside an earlier recording of Maw’s orchestral epic Odyssey (1987) from Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. It received its US premiere from the Minnesota Orchestra, conducted by Lawrence Renes in 1998, and has received subsequent performances from Richard Hickox and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Dance Scenes is yet to receive performances outside the United Kingdom and United States.